Alex pulls a Twizzler from the bag between us and bites into it. “I get that. I avoided it for years for the same reason.” He shoves his hand into the bag again, pulls out another Twizzler, and offers it to me.
I lift my head enough to bite into it and flop back down. “What eventually made you decide to go?”
“Mia,” he says. “She wasn’t born yet, but she was due soon, and one night, right in the middle of dinner service, I just lost it. Full-on panic attack. Things weren’t good with Jen. I’d been running myself into the ground, working obsessively at the restaurant. I was constantly anxious about becoming a dad, because I wanted to be a good one, and I had no confidence I could do that. Everything I’d relied on in life to avoid all the shit I never dealt with stopped working. So I figured, if I had no choice but to deal with the shit, I might as well talk to someone who could help me actuallydealwith it.
“Full transparency,” he adds. “I did not happily skip off to therapy after the kitchen panic attack. It took me a couple weeks, and a couple more episodes, to finally schedule an appointment. I knew I needed help, but I was scared to admit it. Because my whole life, I’ve told myself ‘I can’—that’s how I got through things. So when it finally hits you, when you realize ‘Ican’t,’ it’s hard to wrap your head around it, let alone your heart. When ‘I can’ is how you’ve always told yourself you’re ‘fine,’ or you will be, it’s terrifying to face ‘Ican’t,’ because then how do you know you’re going to be fine? When it’s never been okay to not be okay, admitting you’re not okay and you can’t make yourself okay like you always have is an existential fucking crisis.” He bites into another Twizzler. “At least, it was for me.”
I sit up slowly and face him. “I think… the past few days have been… that for me.”
“I’m sorry, Ted. That you’re in that place.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “And I’m sorry I talkedsomuch.”
“You talkeddeeply. You’re a philosophical drunk, and I like it.”
He boops my nose with a Twizzler. “Don’t be nice right now.”
I grab a Twizzler and boop him, too. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
He seems self-conscious, eyes down, his hand fiddling with the Twizzlers bag. “I really am sorry, if everything I said, if that wasn’t the vibe you needed. ’Cause if it wasn’t, I just brought a lot of that vibe. I talk too much when I’m drunk.”
I set my hand on his. “You didn’t talk too much. And that was exactly the vibe I needed. I’m an amplified drunk—whatever I’m feeling just feels bigger—and the past few days, I’ve been feeling really bleak. What you said,” I tell him, “it helped me. A lot. Thank you.”
Alex peers up at me, and there’s something so exposed, so vulnerable in his expression. “You sure?” he asks. “Because if it actually was too much, if I went too far, you can tell me that. Iwantyou to tell me, Ted.”
I remember what he said the night we met, out on his stoop, what he called his fatal flaw.I do that a lot, dial myself up to an eleven.
And I remember telling him my fatal flaw, too.Mine is dialing myself down to a one.
“I’m sure,” I tell him. I take his hand in mine and hold his eyes. “Do you know why I asked you to come over tonight?”
A swallow works down his throat. “Because the other person here that you’d talk to is the person you’re really upset won’t be here in three weeks?”
“No. Even if this wasn’t about Lauren leaving, and I was this upset, I wouldn’t have texted her.” I peer down at his hand,turning it so I can see his palm, his fingers, the lines and scars carved into them. “Because I didn’t know how to deal with it. And Iwantto. Which meant I needed to talk to someone who’d go there with me. Lo and I, we love each other, and we are good friends to each other in many ways, but not in this. We don’t talk about tough things,” I admit.
Alex says, “Sounds like she could use a therapist, too.”
A laugh jumps out of me.
“The wine,” he groans. “It obliterates my filter. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. That’s what I’m getting at. Even though I suck at it, I like that you talk about hard things, Alex. That’s why I texted you tonight, I wanted your ‘dialed up to an eleven’ to put a fire under me. Maybe the same way you’ve reached out to me because you wanted my ‘dialed down to a one’ to bring you some comfort.”
I peer up at Alex and tell him, “I guess, what I’m trying to say is… I think we’re really good for each other. Flaws and all.”
Alex is quiet for a moment, his gaze fixed on mine. “You’re right. I have reached out to you, in part, because of that. But Ted, Ineverwant you to dial yourself down to a one for me.”
My heart aches in my chest. “I haven’t.”
“Promise?” he says. “And promise you never will.”
“Promise. And I promise I never will—no lower than a three.”
“Six,” he counters.
“I’m not even dialed up to a six formyself, my dude. Don’t push it.”
He sighs. “I never want to dial up to an eleven on you, either.”
“You haven’t,” I tell him.
