“No,” I say, too fast. “I mean, I guess it’s predictable? Like, at least when the other skate drops, you’re not surprised.”
She writes something in her notebook. I crane my neck to read it, but she’s got her game tight, hand blocking the margin.
I keep going, because silence is the enemy.
“I think the weirdest part is, everyone on the team is suddenly my best friend. Even O’Doul, who once tried to pants me in the parking lot, now wants to know my pronouns, like that’s going to keep the world from imploding.”
She waits for me to finish. It takes me another minute of spiraling—Maya, the press, Tommy’s weird attempt at a pep talk—before I run out of fuel.
Then she goes in for the kill.
“Have you told him?” she asks.
It’s so off-topic, it takes me a second to figure out who she means.
She leans forward, elbows on the desk, pen still. “Not hinted. Not joked. Have you actually said the words?”
I stare at my hands. The left one is picking at the callus on my thumb, the right one is squeezing the life out of the couch cushion.
“No,” I say, voice so small I want to punch myself. “I haven’t.”
She lets the silence stretch, then: “Why not?”
I chew my lip. “Because I’m the sub, Doc. Always have been. The extra. The replacement. You don’t get to ask for what you want, you just get what’s left.”
She sits with that, then says, “What if you didn’t have to be?”
That stops me.
I look up. Her eyes are so steady it’s like looking at a level.
“I don’t know how,” I say.
She leans back, hands open. “Try. Say it now, the thing you want to tell him.”
I feel my face go red. “You want me to…like, roleplay it?”
She shrugs, like, why the hell not.
My voice comes out weird, rough, but I say it: “I love you, and I fucked up, and I should have told you before everything got so bad.”
She nods, like it’s the most normal thing anyone’s ever said.
“Good,” she says.
I laugh, but it’s not funny. “Now what?”
“Now you say it to him,” she says. “And if he doesn’t say it back, you still said it.”
I want to argue, but the weird part is, I feel lighter.
Session ends and I stand, hands already in my pockets, ready to run.
She stops me at the door. “Ash?”
I turn, expecting more homework.
“You don’t have to wait to be picked.”
