“They can’t hear us.”
“Yeah, well. All I was going to say was that they can cram their ‘safe’ up their asses and let it rot. I’ve said worse to them,” he grumbled.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “You’re such a drama queen, you know?”
“Enough that I freaked out so bad I tried to kill myself because I put off mourning my dead wife and son?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I think it’s too early for me to hear jokes like that.”
“They tell me humor is a coping mechanism,” he said with a sigh. “Except they say I tend to overdo it.”
“I’d be hard pressed to disagree,” I admitted as he pressed back into my hand. “You’re like a cat, you know that?”
“We’re not allowed to touch people here, not that I want to,” he said with a grimace. As if the thought of touching anyone here, even by accident, was like sifting through sewage. “I didn’t know how much I’d miss having someone touch me until I got here. Before you, Cade hung all over me, and he wasn’t a bad cuddler. How’s he doing?”
“Missing you and worrying about you,” I told him honestly as I sat in a chair, dragging him into the one next to me. I wouldn’t need the button. “But he’s Cade.”
“Is he going back next season?” he asked, looking like he didn’t know where to put his hands.
“Yes,” I said, taking one of his hands and squeezing it. “Should I ask how you’re doing, or is that pointless?”
“I’m…” he said with a heavy sigh. “I don’t fucking know what I am. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind. Other times, I feel I’m going to be normal again. I can’t sleep, but that’s all I want to do. They’ve got me on meds, but I swear I can’t tell if they’re helping or not. And the therapy? Shit, I know it’s supposed to help, but it feels like someone’s rooting around in my skull with a hand mixer.”
“So, much like what you figured you’d feel like then,” I said, running the tip of my finger over a small scar just below his knuckle. “What do the doctors say?”
“They say it’s an expected part of the process. I suppressed my grief and guilt and everything else wrong with me, so it’s all boiling to the surface. That what I’m going through is like going into a room full of the poison and garbage I sealed off years ago. Painful, grueling, and disgusting at times, but the only way to give my mental home a clean is to go in and…clean it. That’sgoing to be tough, but with time, meds, therapy, and a support system, I’ll be able to do it.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
His shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I am. Mostly, I’m just sticking with it even though it sucks ass. Because there’s nothing else I can do. I unsealed that room at Arete, and it won’t be resealed. So my only choice is to keep trying. Maybe I’ll fuck it up or, quote-unquote, die in that room. Maybe I’ll get through. I’ll try until I can’t try anymore.”
My chest tightened, but I kept smiling. “I can’t claim to know much about this sort of thing, but…I think it’s a safe bet to trust the professionals.”
“That’s what Mom said,” he said with a snort. “I felt bad when she came to see me. She was trying so hard not to cry, but Iris was here too, and she kept telling me to keep trying.”
“Iris?”
“My mother-in-law…ex mother-in-law.”
It was still painful to touch even that close to his wife and son. “She came too?”
“Yeah. She’s been pushing for me to get better. That’s why she was willing to pay for Arete.” He sighed heavily, and his face screwed up. “She never blamed me, not once. Not ever. Even when she knew I’d…fucked up. She’s been there for my mom, who struggled with me and how I was dealing with things. But you know what?”
“What?” I asked softly.
“When I told her and Iris about you, it was the first time she gave me a real smile.”
“What?”
“Not right away. She was confused because I hadn’t told her about the whole bisexual thing, so I had to address that. Then explain to Iris that I always loved her daughter and I wasn’t gay, because I did…I do…” He stopped, frowning and shaking hishead. “Anyway, she dealt with it okay. Iris kind of laughed at me and told me to stop being an idiot. That she knew I loved her daughter and that she was happy I’d found someone else…and that my timing couldn’t have been worse.”
I couldn’t help but snort at that. “She sounds like a feisty woman.”
“Oh yeah,” he said dryly. “In some ways, I’m the only thing she has left that’s like having a child.”
It was a weight and a role he hadn’t asked for, but I couldn’t blame this woman I’d never met. She hadn’t asked to lose her daughter or watch her son-in-law fall to pieces over something I genuinely believed he couldn’t control. It wouldn’t have been fair if she put that weight on him intentionally, but it sounded like a grieving mother still trying to hold onto something.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Probably shouldn’t have told them about you.”
