The conversation, that was. No more dead air. It was Griffin saying,Mikey, you’re not a fucking coward, and Michael pushing back, Michael saying that he maybe had always been a coward, that he’d always put Griffin between himself and the hardest things—the pressure he got from Fitz, the grief over Sara Beth, this wedding—and Griffin saying,That’s not how I see it, but also, after listening, sort of seeing it, too. They talked about that night, first about the things they’d said to each other and then about the onething Griffin had said to Emily—You need to ask him about Sara Beth—and how Michael was mad about that at first, how he’d wished Griffin had said the whole thing so he wouldn’t have to, and Griffin said,How do you think I fucking felt, in a sort of deadpan quip, and Michael actually laughed for real.
Then, Michael told Griffin about Emily.
He stayed to the broad strokes of it.Out of respect, he said, and for the first time in Griffin’s life, or maybe since the first time he’d gone to fucking therapy on Fridays and talked about how he loved Layla Bailey in the broadest strokes possible, he fuckinggot it, got something about how Michael felt toward Sara Beth all those years ago and how he felt toward Emily now.
How precious it was.
How much he wanted to protect it.
“We’re taking it slow,” Michael said eventually. “Starting over.”
“Germany?” Griffin asked, and he could practically see his best friend shake his head.
“Not going,” he answered. “It’s caused some fucking problems, to be honest, but it’s fine. It’s worth it. She’s worth it.”
Griffin was about to default to an old pattern, to say,What kind of fucking problems?and then offer to throw money at them. But he stopped himself in time, which maybe he would brag about tomorrow. Just to take the sting out of having to ask how to do a proper apolo—
“My new therapist says we might have—had, I don’t know—a codependent relationship,” Michael blurted. “You and me, I mean. Not me and Emily.”
Now that they’d talked for a while, Griffin could hear how Michael had been working up to it. How hard it was to say. How he thought it would be a surprise to Griffin.
Or that it would hurt.
But Michael didn’t know about the last three and a half months. The work of the last three and a half months. He didn’t know that Griffin had learned that a lot of things about Michaeldidhurt, that sometimes, just remembering certain things about Michael—about Michael and Sara Beth—could be like a huge, heaping meal for the pain he had to work so hard not to feed.
So he said, “My therapist said the same.”
They both laughed, and Griffin told him a bit about it—fucking Tuesdays, and the work stuff, and even Kevin and his Scarface shit, about the decisions he still wasn’t ready to make about school, about how he was, almost every single day, leaving the house.
Getting out of his bell tower, all by himself.
Not for Michael.
Not even for Layla.
By himself,forhimself.
He remembered that first day, that hotel lobby, him and Michael and Layla and Emily. Layla calling himheroic, and how he bristled then—how that bristling turned into a blade, cutting him deep, making him lash out.
But now, he felt it. Felt the heroism in himself, for all he’d done, all he knew he was capable of doing.
Now, he thought.Now.Crystal clear. NoNot yetin sight anymore.
“You sound good,” Michael said, when it seemed to be winding down. “Different.”
“Yeah,” he managed through theNow.
Michael laughed again. “Not that different, though. Just one more thing.”
Christ, Griffin thought. He should’ve tried theWell, like he did on Tuesdays with Mom and Peter, but it probably wouldn’t work over the phone.
“Layla’s here,” Michael said. “Not, you know, in my house. But in Boston.”
Now, now, now, he thought.
He was already moving toward his computer, opening the lid.
“Not sure if she’s got a placement here,” Michael was saying, “or if it’s a longer-term thing or what. She and Em went to dinner last night.”
