“Really?” he asks. “Even with your dad and sisters still there?”There’s no judgment, just curiosity.
I shrug. “I don’t know why. I was always so much closer with my dad—I think because I’m more like him.” I pause, and my throat feels like it’s made of sandpaper. “She always said that, you know.That I was just like him—like I didn’t take things seriously enough, and I’m too silly and loud and—”
It’s stupid, because she left years ago, but I’m suddenly feeling all choked up and embarrassed.Then I feel the warmth of his fingers linking with mine, and my breath catches.
“You don’t hear from her much,” he says. It’s not a question, because he knows the answer. He’d have heard all about it if I’d talked to my mom in the last four months.
“Not really. She calls a couple times a year, but even then she really only talks to Mei-Ling. She was closest to her. Lan and I might as well not exist.”
I’m about to make a joke, because I know I’m supposed to be bright and cheery, that that’s how I’m helpful to my family and to him and to everyone. But he’s squeezing my hand and comforting me even though he just went through a panic attack—and I find the words tumbling out.
“I think I’m the reason she left us,” I say.
Brendan’s eyes widen. “What? What do you mean?”
I blink, trying to hold back the tears burning at the corners of my eyes.This is why I don’t talk about this, why I don’t even let myself think about it. “I mean, I know it’s not my fault. I was only, like, thirteen. But—” I take a steadying breath. “At some point she must have loved my dad, but all I remember is that she couldn’t stand him, for all those ways in which she says I’m like him. And it’s like she could handle it when it was just him, and Mei-Ling was always more serious and calm like her. And even Lan was a pretty calm baby. But I was this super energetic kid, and it just got worse and worse. I think one day she realized she just couldn’t do it anymore.That I’m too much.”
I realize I’m echoing what I said to him before.That with all those people, it was just too much.
Am I that way for him, too? Maybe not always—obviously not always—but sometimes?
Brendan just gapes, horrified. “Has she said that to you?”
“No, not in those words. But I—I think it’s true. She’s never known what to do with me. I think she just couldn’t take trying anymore, with both me and my dad.”
Brendan turns so he’s fully facing me, and now both my hands are folded in his. “Su-Lin,” he says softly, and I look up to meet his eyes, which are so clear and blue. “If that’s true, it’s her loss. You know that, right?”
I swallow past all that sandpaper. “Yeah, maybe.”
“No,” he says firmly. “Not maybe. You are the most incredible, beautiful person I could ever—” He stops, blinks. “You are Su-Lin, and you are amazing. Anyone who is lucky enough to have you in their life and doesn’t appreciate you is an idiot.”
“Really?” I whisper.
“Really.”
The warmth of his gaze, of those words, is so heady I can barely stand it. I want to kiss him so desperately I’m burning with it.
There’s this breathless moment where I think maybe I will, or he will, that we’ll say screw the rules about only kissing on date night and not in public, and maybe he’ll tell me that he just wants to be with me, and he thinks he can do that, that we can have a serious relationship and—
He clears his throat and looks away. “I, uh,” he starts, “I get what you mean about feeling responsible, even though it’s not your fault.” He pulls one of his hands away from mine—only one, thankfully, because I feel like my heart might actually crack if he dropped both—and runs it through his hair, tugging on the curls. “My parents’ marriage ended because of me. If I hadn’t been born, then maybe . . .” He trails off.
My stomach drops. I know now about what his father did to him, and it kills me, the thought of Brendan taking any responsibility for the actions of that sick sack of shit wearing human skin.
He doesn’t know that I know, and I feel like if he wanted me to, he’d have told me.
I squeeze his hand. I may not be able to go into details, but even what I knew before is enough. “It’s not a bad thing your parents’ marriage ended. Your father was a monster. As awful as it was for your mom to find that out”—oh god, his momfound that out, how horrible that must have been for her— “don’t you think she’s better off knowing and not staying married to him all these years?”
Multiple victims, the article had said. Brendan and others. Neighborhood kids? Maybe other family?
I taste bile just thinking about it.
“Yeah, but—” He looks about as convinced as I probably did when he first said my mom leaving me was her loss. “She spent my whole life after that dealing with my issues, spending all that money and time on therapists and specialists and . . . and maybe if she didn’t have to take care of me, she could have moved on. Dated, maybe gotten remarried. Had more kids. She always wanted more kids.”
His voice breaks toward the end, and my heart breaks with it.
I scoot closer, even though we’re smooshed nicely together on this little loveseat as is. “You know how much your mom loves you,” I say, and he nods.
“I know she does, but—”
