She frowns. “I’m not following.”
“We’re each working through these lists, and you know, he said something the other day and it made me realize I’m not ... being very independent about this whole thing.” My shoulders curve inwards, and not along the trajectory of a beautiful smile this time. Along the old one—the one that belonged to the Ren Jacobs I so desperately want to leave behind. The shell of a former girl who couldn’t, wouldn’t, be alone. “I’m relying on someone else again.”
“But you’re the one who came up with the list, and you took the leap to decide to work through it.”
I widen my eyes, voice turning almost shrill. “Yes, but he suggested it.”
It’s her turn to blink, surprised, before realization dawns, and slowly, she asks, “You think ... you think that asking for help equates to a lack of independence?”
“Doesn’t it? By its very definition?” I flatten my palms on the sticky surface of the table, almost desperate.
She adjusts the frame of her glasses on the bridge of her nose and shrugs. “Well, if you want to get technical—
“I don’t.” My voice turns pleading, and I feel my shoulders droop. “I just ... want to know what you think.”
“I think the only person who can decide that is you,” Imani says softly before cocking her head. “What did he say? It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“We went thrift shopping—the second thing on my list.”
“Of course Scott hated thrift shopping,” she mutters with an exaggerated eye roll.
“Right?” I sniff a laugh. “I put it on the list because I used to love it. It felt fun and silly and frivolous, but he always made me feel ... stupid. For liking it. For wanting to be all those things.He didn’t really like the playful side of me so ... I just ... stopped being like that after a while.”
“I like that side of you.” Imani offers me a gentle smile and soft words. “I bet Miller liked that side of you.”
Chewing on the inside of my lip, I nod, tears starting to nip at the back of my eyes. “Afterwards ... we went for ice cream down by the lake, and he was telling me that it’s looking good, like he’s going to get his trade at the end of the season. He asked at the start, but his GM seems like he’s coming around.”
“That isveryunorthodox,” Imani interrupts, pursing her lips. “To trade away a star like him?”
“So I’ve heard.” I snort. “But then ... when he was talking about what’s important to him, he said that I was. Helping me was important to him.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ren, you’ve lost me again.”
“Trying to helpme.” I tap my chest, like everything I really am sits just beneath the plate of bone, in all that muscle tissue of an organ that has a very specific biological function. “Shouldn’t I ... be helping myself?”
Her lips form a small O, before they pull into a taut line, and the analytical scientist version of Imani takes over with an assessing tip of her head. “I see,” she murmurs, her thumb tapping against the back of her hand before she leans across the table, closer to me. Her usually warm eyes shift to shrewd. “You’ve created a hierarchy. Your own little taxonomic structure.”
“No, I haven’t,” I sputter. “I don’t see how taxonomy applies to my feelings.”
“You have, and it does.” She nods and readily starts ticking things off on her fingers. “Domain? Eukarya—you’re still an organism with complex cells, after all. Kingdom—”
“Now I’m not following.” I narrow my eyes at her. “You can’t just apply a random biological classification about evolutionary relationships to personal growth.”
Her brows rise, triumphant. “Evolutionary relationships. You’ve classified how you feel about your own evolution and what you think is a valuable, and valid, way to grow.”
“And that does not a taxonomic structure make.” I tip my chin up, thinking I’ve won the invisible game of tug-of-war stretching across the table between us.
“Maybe it’s not a perfect analogy.” She waves a hand, like we’re debating known facts about migration paths of sauropods. “But think about the hierarchical ranking. You’ve assigned value in your head tohowyou grow, and therefore, yourself. It’s only valuable to you if you do it independently, which you’ve also redefined to be a solo endeavour, and one without help. Why can’t Miller help you? Why can’t it be important to him?”
I start to shake my head.
“Herd behaviour, then.” Imani slumps back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s an analogy you can easily wrap your head around.”
“The last time I was in a herd of two, I stopped being an individual at all,” I say flatly.
She rolls her eyes with a snort. “Oh, so you’d like to be a tyrannosaur? Live out a solitary life just to prove to yourself you can?” A slim shoulder lifts, and her voice turns sad. “Sounds lonely.”
“How am I supposed to tell the difference between growth and me reverting to old patterns?” My voice cracks, and one of those tears finally manages to break through and trails down my cheek. “I’ve never ... I wanted to be loved and chosen so badly I didn’t care by who. I gave the wrong person ... everything. And now ... I’m only trying to find these things again because a man gave me the idea.”
