I nod even though it annoys me. “Yes, sometimes.”
“We haven’t talked much about your childhood yet. I know that in your own words, your parents dropped you off at your grandma’s as a child and then left. They never came back?”
“No,” I say firmly because I hate my parents. “Not even when Grandma died.”
“But you know they’re alive?”
I shrug. “I assume so. I’ve never checked. Both of them were addicts, and I think my mom took pills while pregnant… it was a fucking mess. Grandma loved me; she tried her best, but she was already retired and on a fixed income, and she had another mouth to feed. Then she died when I was a teen.”
“What sort of memories do you have of your parents?”
I try to rack my brain of memories, but truly, there aren’t many. Even as a kid, I could tell my mother never really wanted me, she wanted the drugs more. She kept me clothed and fed, but that was about it. I remember being home alone when I was six years old because I was scared shitless when it rained that night. I told Grandma about it a few days later, and she argued with my mother; then, a week later, I’d been dropped off like a sack of potatoes because I was too annoying to care for. Remembering my father is a little more difficult. I remember dark curls like mine and his hand shaking when he was asleep on the trailer's ratty couch.
“Not many. She wasn’t around much, even when I lived with her.”
“Was she nice?”
I shrug again. “I don’t remember.”
“And the homes you were in from sixteen to eighteen, what were they like?”
“Group homes,” I answer.
“And were they healthy?”
“Well,” I drawl as I cross my legs and lean back on the sofa. “The older boys didn’t take too well to a gay kid that preferredto play guitar suddenly being added to the home. They liked to jump me when I was asleep.”
“That sounds awful. Were you hurt?”
I shrug because it doesn’t matter anymore. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Maggie smiles sweetly, I scrunch my nose up as I stare at her. “Being here now doesn’t negate old pain.”
This is all old news. “You could just google all of this, you know. It’s out there for everyone to know.”
Maggie blinks slowly at me again. “Why would I google my client? You’re here in front of me, in that seat; I want to learn about you from you.”
“No one ever wants to learn about me from me.”
“Is that true for Benji? Harper? Trevor?”
Ugh. She’s so annoying. “No, Maggie. Obviously, it’s not true for them,” I snipe at her.
“Do you think you’ve got a solid group of friends now that care about you and your well-being? And Chris, obviously, he cares for you.”
“I acknowledge that they care for me. Does that make you happy?”
“Does it make you happy?”
My eye twitches at her question. Letting Benji in, letting him reallyseeme has been one of the hardest things I’ll ever do. Now that he’s told me he loves me, and I serenaded him like a total fucking goof, I don’t think there’s any going back. Why does he want me? I’ll never know and I’ll never understand, but for some weird reason, he does. He makes me feel happy and safe, and makes me feel alive. After so many years of feeling dead, it’s a huge change for me.
“It makes me happy that they think I’m worth all this, that Benji’s pure, joyful self sees something in me worth loving.”
“What do you think he sees that’s worth loving?”
I close my eyes tight as my heart almost pounds out of my chest. “I think he just sees me.”
The sun isbright as hell when I step out of the therapist’s office. As always, Benji’s leaning against the borrowed truck, waiting for me to return to him. His smile goes loopy and warm when he spots me, and he opens his arms to let me walk right into them.
