I don’t even know if I nod. The truth is, I’m grateful Tegan hasn’t brought this up in front of Dr. Hobbs. What Mom said to me—what she said to Salem—it’s as bad as bed-wetting for me. Not just the content of it, but what it caused me to do.
Tell me you don’t remember, he said to me.
His heart in his eyes. Begging me to listen to him, instead of to her.
Maybe I haven’t managed to tell Dr. Hobbs about it yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see how I took Mom’s words too hard. How Mom’s hold on me about this is still so, so deep—way deeper than the distance I’ve kept between myself and potential friends, between myself and my father.
I know I wrecked something so important because of that hold.
“I know we’re very united on the whole ‘Mom sucks’ front right now,” Tegan says.
I can tell she’s working to keep this light, which is maybe why I should better anticipate that she’s about to say something incredibly heavy.
“But also. I kind of think she was right?”
It doesn’t matter that she’s said that last part fast—rushing it out as though she knows she might lose her nerve. It doesn’t matter that I can tell she was so nervous to say it.
It still hurts. Like, I-should-go-shower-and-plausibly-deny-crying hurts.
“Uh, I mean—notliterallyright!” she clarifies, and I realize that’s because I haven’t managed to hide it, after all. Tears have immediately sprung to my eyes.
I don’t know how you could be metaphorically right about this.
“Let me—okay, let me explain what I mean.”
She sounds a little panicked now, and I swallow back the tears.
“Mom said that when you fell for someone, you’d do anything for them.”
I know, Tegan, I want to snap, but I don’t.It is seared into my brain, what she said. I broke a man’s heart, because of what she said.
If I say any of that, I’ll fall apart, and I don’t think I’m readyyet.
“But I think that’s because Mom really only thinks love is what she had with Lynton. Or my dad or yours, I guess, for the time that she was with them.”
“Right, I know that.”
Wehavetalked about this with Dr. Hobbs. Mom’s personality, her fixation on men. The limits to how she loved us. But I’m having trouble following what Tegan is trying to—
“I think what Mom doesn’t get is that the person you’ve loved the most—the person you’ve been willing to do anything for . . . that’s me, Jess. I’m the one you gave your heart to.”
I pick up the towel again.
There’s no time to run to the shower.
I press it right against my face. Right against the tears I can’t stop from coming.
“Oh,no,” Tegan says, rushing over to me and putting her arms around me. “God, don’t cry!”
And then, “No, wait! Definitely cry! Dr. Hobbs would say it’s great to cry!”
I snort-sob into the towel.
“I’m sorry!” she exclaims. Obviously, despite therapy, she is not fully convinced that it’s great formeto cry, and I get it. Dr. Hobbs would also say that new things are challenging.
I let the towel fall from my face, but only so I can clutch Tegan harder. I’m crying a lot now, but in the moment I can’t tell if it’s the same as falling apart.
“Don’t be sorry,” I manage eventually. “I’m crying because—” I lean back from her, untangling us so I can wipe my wet cheeks. “I’m crying because that was so nice, what you said. Thank you for saying it.”
