“I’m sorry if I?—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He pushes away from the counter.
“Yeah… I get it.” I fiddle with the hoodie’s strings, twining it around my finger and pulling it tight.
Too far.Those words flash inside me. I took it too far. I seem to have a bad habit of that with Garrett. It’s like I’m blind to the track’s boundaries and always try to tug him off course with the things I ask or talk about. He’s been clear this isn’t his favorite topic, and I just keep asking anyway.Why do I do this with him?
“I’m sorry, Garrett… I?—”
“It’s fine.” He picks up the now-empty plate and places it in the sink. “It’s late, so I should get you home. I’m picking you and Anker up by seven for breakfast before the airport after all.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s slammed that door shut as quickly as he opened it. This is Garrett. Every moment that I think he’s opening up; he shuts me out.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this with me, but besidestelling the bag,do you talk about it with anyone?”
“Jensen,” he groans.
I hop off the stool and motion toward him. “Anker? Your family? A therapist?”
“Jensen.”
“I know it hurts, but it’s not healthy to keep these things bottled up. Clearly, you’re still very much struggling with?—”
“Damn it, Jensen,” he mutters. “Why do you have to be such a pain-in-the-ass all the time?”
I toss my hands up. “Why do you have to be such a stubborn self-righteous prick?”
“And Feisty Jensen is back,” he huffs, rounding the counter.
“Yes, she is.” Brows linked, I tip my head up. “And she’s calling you out on your bullshit.”
“My bullshit?” he spits out.
“Yeah. You dragged me here to exercise my emotions about Miles while you clearly refuse to deal with your own shit. I’m sorry your wife died, and I hate that you’re in pain, but you know better than anyone that wounds left untreated fester and infect. Telling the bag is just a bandage on…”
I search for the word. None seem appropriate. I can only imagine that losing the person you thought you’d have the rest of your life with is akin to losing a limb. It’s painful. It’s life-altering, but not ending. You adapt. You figure it out.
The grief journey I navigate with the loss of my vision teaches me this. So much of my life focused on what I lost until the work I am doing with Dr. Nor helped me to mourn that loss while not losing sight of what I have.
“I know how hard it is?—”
“You don’t know a thing about it,” he grits. “I lost the woman I love, and the life I thought I was going to have. All in the thirty minutes from the time I told her to text me when she got home to when I got a call that she was dead. This isn’t some fuckboy not returning my affections or using me.”
“I wasn’t talking about Miles…” I glare at him. “So much for pain being pain.”
He steps back. “What were you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re right. I don’t.” Emotion thickens in my throat from the freight-train force of his words slamming into me.
It’s foolish to think I understand what he’s lost. Garrett had, and lost, a great love. Fear riots within me that I’ll never know his pain, because I’ll never know the joy.
“Jensen… Fuck.” Heaving a hard breath, he closes his eyes. “I’m?—”
“It’s late. I think it’s time for me to go home.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“And I shouldn’t have pushed, but that’s what we do with each other.”
