Reggie gave me a pained look. “No, I mean, not saying they passed, or that you lost them three years ago, or any of that. Have you actually ever said it? Just...said it? Put it out there?”
I thought about it for a moment, feeling my shoulders slump in defeat as I could see what he was saying, and then shook my head. I hadn’t said it, had I? Not even last night, when I was breaking down and losing my mind, I hadn’t said it aloud. I used every other phrasing and euphemism, but I’d never outright said it, had I? I couldn’t even think of a time when I had said it to myself.
“Say it,” Reggie said softly, his hand squeezing mine.
“I don’t...I don’t want to.”
“No, of course you don’t. No one ever wants to say that sort of thing out loud. It makes it real; it makes ittooreal.”
“Too real?” I scoffed, looking around the room. “I had a whole ass freak out because Isaac saw that picture, which I’ve only ever shown to Cade, and the whole fucking story came out. It came out while I was wrecking the place and?—”
Reggie cocked his head. “And?”
“And he, uh, was there for me,” I said, feeling my face warm, to my complete horror.
Reggie’s brow shot up. “You slept with him?”
“It wasn’t like that!” I protested angrily. “He didn’t throw himself at me, and it’s not like I begged him to sleep with me and he gave in, okay? It happened because I was...and he... It happened because we wanted it to happen.”
Reggie smirked and then rolled his eyes when I growled in annoyance. “God, you can just say you slept with the guy because you like him, it’s fine.”
“I like a lot of people.”
“Yes, and from what I’ve seen, you never sleep with those people.”
I leaned back. “What?”
“Did you think I wasn’t paying attention?” he scoffed. “I pay attention to everyone here, especially the long-termers like you and Cade. I don’t knoweveryoneyou’ve slept with, but I’ve figured out enough to know it was never anyone you were friends with. So, if you’ve slept with Isaac, it means you like him.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “It’s...really weird to notice my sex habits.”
“Your sex habits were the only real indicators of your personality for a while there,” he said with a snort.
Ouch, completely fair, but ouch.
“Now say it,” he said softly again. “Just one time.”
“They...” I said, sucking in a breath, and my voice dropped. “They died.”
“No,” he said gently, giving my fingers a little tug. “Say it. Don’t whisper it, don’t avoid it. Say it. Say it like it means something.”
“It means something!” I snapped.
“Then say it like it does.”
“Fuck you, Reggie! Of fucking course it means something, she was the love of my life! That was my son!” I snarled inoutrage. “They’re dead, alright? They died, and there’s not a fucking thing I can...oh, God...oh, God...they’re dead.”
Reggie closed his eyes and nodded, squeezing my hand as I bowed my head and the waves of familiar sorrow and grief washed over me, black and furious as they threatened to pull me into the abyss.
They were dead.
“Fuck you,” I whispered as I felt the tears leak out of my tightly clenched eyes and drip onto our joined hands and my lap. “Fuck you so much.”
“I know,” he said with a compassion and understanding that made my heart hurt in a way that wasn’t totally wrong. It was a strangely clean hurt that was still lost in the fury of the storm burning inside me.
I opened my eyes to realize the picture was still in my lap, and a new wave of hurt descended as I stared into the frozen past, peering up at me. I had known I would never see them again, that wherever they were, if they were anywhere at all, was beyond where I was right now. I was still mourning them after all these years, and yet here I was, clutching their picture, desperate that someone else was here because they couldn’t be.
“Isaac,” I choked out.
