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He’s at the fireplace stroking that ridiculous stick when I say the thing I’ve been circling for three days.

“You’re disappearing.”

He turns around. “I’m right here.”

“You’re not. The version of you that’s been here for the last two weeks isn’t the one I traveled with or used to loathe.” I set down my coffee. “Every meal you defer to what your mother wants. Every conversation you let your father steer. Yesterday you told Birdie we’d look at venues for fuck’s sake. Stop pushing the lie deeper.”

“She needed something to look forward to.”

“I get it. And you’re a good son, you really are.”

He crosses his arms and his thumbs land on his chest. “What do you want from me? My father had a heart attack.”

“I want you to be the asshole I grew quite fond of. I want you to tell your mother to put a pin in planning. It’s like you’ve gone full John the 4th because that will prevent the man from having another heart attack.”

“Really, sweater set? You think I’m performing so my dad doesn’t die?”

“Yes. And by the way, you doing something you love in this world isn’t going to be the thing that gets him, it’s the red meat and Scotch.”

“People change when their parents are sick.”

I toss it right back at him. “Not like this. This is atonement. You feel guilty about the money and the lie and now you’re paying for it by becoming who they always wanted.”

He says nothing. Which means I’m right.

“Every time Birdie hugs me I feel like a dick,” I say. “Don’t you?”

“Every second.”

“Let’s stop. I’ll wear jeans to our next dinner and you can toss off sarcastic quips. You can love your father and still be yourself.” I jump up and down excited by this idea.

“It’s not that simple. Pot, kettle, black.” And he cuts me down.

“It never is.” I walk to him and sit on the arm of the leather chair. “I miss you and I think about you all the time and you’re right fucking here.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “How can I possibly be with you when I’m not sure I even like myself right now?”

The room goes still. That’s my line. He just said my line back to me and he doesn’t know it.

“We can’t break up now,” I say quietly. “It’s way too complicated.”

“Was that on the table?” His eyes pop wide and it makes me smile. He makes me smile, and that’s a thing you’re supposed to hang on to. I’m trying.

I pull him down into the leather chair and end up on his lap. “This version of us has to die. The fake one. The one that exists for them. Because it’s eating the real one and I can’t watch that happen.”

“And what’s the real one?”

“The thing where you look at me like you know something I don’t.”

He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear and I almost relent entirely. “Our beginning has to come at the end of this,” he says. “You know that.”

“I know.”

“So stay. A few more days.”

“Okay. I’m way too addicted to you to jump on out of here. And I have to figure out the mystery of that stick.”

“That stick.” He points to the random piece of wood on his mantel. “Guess.”