“That’s important,” Dr. Franklin said. “Both healthy disagreements and productive makeups. What about on the flip side? What weakness did you learn from?”
He was thoughtful, like he had to rack his brain for that answer. Like they didn’t have any weaknesses at all. “Maybethat they never seemed to learn from their arguments. They had the same ones over and over again. Neither of them changed.”
“And in your relationship now,” Dr. Franklin asked, looking at me, “has he broken that cycle? Does he learn from past arguments, attempt to change?”
I didn’t mean to, but I let out a single laugh. “We seem to fight about the same thing.” These therapy sessions. The only thing we disagreed on because it was the only thing in our relationship.
“Seriously?” he said.
I tried to hold in my smile and gave him an innocent look. “Seriously.”
“You don’t agree?” Dr. Franklin asked him.
We were still looking at each other and his eyes narrowed a bit. “I guess I do,” he admitted.
“Recognition is the first step,” she said. “What about you, Sutton? Were your parents good at arguments? At making up? At changing?”
“No, my parents separated when I was thirteen.”
“They’re divorced then?” she asked.
“Mostly.”
She gave me lowered brows, but I barreled forward so I didn’t have to explain that. “But they were good at supporting each other’s dreams.” I wanted to laugh at how well my mom had supported my dad leaving to play in a symphony across the world. She supported him so well that she never made him come back.
“And the two of you?” She gestured between us. “Are you two good at supporting each other’s dreams?”
“She doesn’t care for my career,” Elijah said. “She thinks it’s just about people punching each other.”
I let out a huff of air. “I support your career.”
“This is the first I’m hearing this.” His teasing eyes told me this was in retaliation for my creative truth earlier.
“Why do you think she doesn’t support your career?” Dr. Franklin asked.
“Because she’s never even come to see the place. Never wanted to try boxing. Even for thirty minutes.”
He was such a punk.
“Is that true?” Dr. Franklin asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But I can support from afar.”
“What about you? Do you feel supported?” she asked me.
Maybe it was the conversation I’d had with Nate the day before or how hard it had been to help my mother out of the shower, but the word “No” came out of my mouth without much thought. I quickly tried to backtrack. “I mean, he’s trying.” Because that was true too. He was trying to learn things about me. But not in order to support me. To win this stupid bet.
“Where do you feel undersupported?”
“Mainly with my mom,” I said, because I had a feeling Tara had told Elijah about her. About why I was here, although I was now remembering that he had spouted off something about coming home with my tail between my legs to find myself. “I’m taking care of her right now. She got in an accident.” My voice caught on those words, and I tried to play it off with a cough.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dr. Franklin said.
And it was more than obvious that this was the first time Elijah was hearing it because he gave me wide eyes but then softened them for our audience and took my hand in his. Yanking it away might’ve given Dr. Franklin the clue she needed,but the gesture surprised me so much that I went still. I let his thumb move slowly over my knuckles in a soothing pattern. I even held on.
“How did last week’s homework go? Did you do it?”
“On the days we saw each other,” I said, because that’s what we had already decided we were going to say.
