But that isn’t how stories like mine go.
For days, I try to handle it on my own.
My therapist says everyone repeats the cycle until they learn the lesson. I thought I’d already learned mine when Gram first got me into therapy in elementary school and I finally started talking a few sessions in. But then high school split me open again. Then again at Art U. Every time I think there’s nothing left in me to break, something else gives way.
Maybe that’s the lesson, because the longer I lie to Ash about ending it with Alistair, the worse it gets. At first I tell myself I’ll go back to Alistair’s the next day and handle it, except I still don’tknow what to do about him knowing Ash works for Query. Then I decide I have to tell Ash everything, but when I finally work up the nerve, we end up talking about my mom, and Jesus, I can only unload so much baggage on that man. I got myself into this. I should be able to get myself back out. I tell myself that for days, and all it does is make me feel more alone.
Eventually some dusty little tool from my mental health toolbox rattles loose. I have to tell someone. Not Jamal. Jamal will want to storm Alistair’s place and throw a punch, and I don’t have the energy to explain guards, cameras, security, or the simple fact that you don’t just kick a billionaire’s ass and walk away. I need someone who can think clearly, someone who understands Ash well enough to know what actually protects him.
Jenny. Of course.
I grab my phone to text her and catch myself turning the screen away from Ash, who’s half-dozing on the couch, like even Jenny has become something I need to hide from him.
Flaming pile of shit first. Then I’ll deal with the guilt of hiding a text.
Kael:Hey! Need to talk. Can we grab coffee? My treat.
Jenny.Yes please! Out of town though :( Virtual coffee? How’s tomorrow at one?
Tomorrow is Thursday. One day from my conflicting plans with both Alistair and Ash. Talking to Jenny will give us a little over twenty-four hours to hack together some sort of plan.
With shaky fingers and one deep breath, I text back,it’s a date.
She sends a ghost emoji, which is not scary enough to explain my growing dread.
The night is restless, and all the old thoughts come back. My father left long before Mom did, drifting in and out of our lives just enough to make things worse. He’d show up late. She’dtell me to stay in my room. They’d argue or cry or fuck, and sometimes he left money, which she always said wasn’t enough.
The last time I saw him is the only memory of him that’s stayed sharp. The night before Mom left, I sat at the top of the stairs listening while they argued below. She told him she didn’t want him near me. She said she never wanted to see him again, and he more or less said the same. Then he walked out, got into the back seat of his car, and let the driver carry him off like ending us was just another errand.
That was it. Everything after has felt like some version of trying to put myself back together.
Therapy taught me to challenge my thoughts, so I asked for help. It gave me ways not to disappear inside myself, so I threw that energy into art. It told me hating my father didn’t make me evil, and forgiving my mom didn’t have to mean understanding everything she did. If I got to that forgiveness by blaming myself first, I guess that still counted for something.
Maybe my cycle’s the same as Mom’s was: her leaving my father, me leaving Alistair.
The next morning, I head to the studio, and time bleeds onto the canvas until my phone buzzes with the reminder for my call.
“Hey, Jenny!” I say, too cheery. I know I’m pinning way too much hope on Ash’s best friend.
When her video connects, all I see is an empty hotel room with beige walls and one bland, inoffensive painting.
“Ooooh. Ooooh!” Jenny’s ghost moan echoes from off-screen.
“Ha ha,” I say. “Very funny.”
She rises into view from the floor, grinning. “Hey, Kael.”
She’s in a sleek lavender blazer with her courtroom makeup on that would have intimidated me if she weren’t still guffawing at her own stupid joke.
“You look way too good to be kneeling out of view on that carpet,” I say. “Thanks for hopping on.”
“You’re distracting me during recess. So I owe you. What’s up?”
Despite rehearsing this, it still feels like I’d need a whole lifetime to explain everything. My mom, my father, Alistair, Ash, Gram, me—it all piles up behind her simple question.
“I’m kind of fucking up,” I say, and that wipes the smile off her face. “You’re Ash’s best friend, and I need your help to help Ash.”
“What happened?”
