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Just a kid, really.
But one of the wisest people I had ever met.
So I flushed the pills.
And I set my alarm for the mornings.
I got up. I showered. I forced food into my body that I realized was looking more skeletal than anything. I washed the dishes in the sink, so my mother didn't have to keep fucking babying me anymore.
After a week of seeming to handle that, almost finding comfort in having a list of things to do, a check-off system of functionality, even if all it was was an imitation of life, not life itself, I went back to work.
Shower, rinse, repeat.
I functioned.
Then fell back into a hole around the one-year anniversary.
Then functioned again.
I don't think I got better.
Not those first years. I think I just pushed it all back. I think I just focused on the moment.
Wasp moved in sometime in there, throwing around her attitude and unsolicited advice with the best of intentions.
Then Mom had a stroke.
Another set of funeral arrangements, another wake, another pageantry of a funeral.
I wasn't exactly sure when I managed to become somewhat human again. Maybe it was when we finally joined up with The Henchmen, when my life got a different purpose, when my life became about more than me.
I never healed, not really.
It was always there.
Buried deep.
It came out here and there, sending me into dark moods, making me pull away from my brothers.
It affected how I was able to connect with people.
Especially the women and kids.
Meaning, hardly at all.
I didn't, like many of the others, take to the girls club. I didn't sit around and bullshit with them. I didn't go to the kids' soccer games or teach them to pitch.
Once, just once, I did. It was when Fallon was freaking out because his dad was gone for too long, because he was cooped up in a compound with no freedom, when he was staring at walls.
I guess it triggered something.
That blank stare.
I guess it made me think of Mikey.
I guess it made me want to try to connect, like I had with Mikey all the years before.
So I went and got it out from where it was buried in my closet, the cover foreign and familiar in my hands, and I brought it over to him, I cracked it open, and I started reading, each word like battery acid on my tongue.
But I did it.
Maybe that was the day the ache eased slightly.
Maybe that was the day I healed, just a little.
I never had that day with a woman.
I was sure I never could.
Because being with a woman meant you gave her that one fundamental thing - safety. I had failed too hard in that. I wouldn't be able to handle that again. And being with a woman for more than a night meant they might get ideas. About commitment. About a family.
And I didn't think I had it in me.
In fact, I was sure of it.
So I didn't try.
I kept women at a distance.
I fucked around because it was what was expected.
But I never, ever got attached.
I never let anyone get attached to me.
"Until me," Rey concluded in a small voice. Coming out of my memories, I could hear how thick it was.
Turning my head, I looked down, finding her cheek resting against my sleeve, realizing for the first time that it was soaked through.
"Until you," I agreed, because it was true.
"I'm so sorry I forced my way in."
Christ.
"Babe, I'm not," I countered, knowing it was true, knowing that - while I was still fighting my demons, would likely never stop - I wasn't sorry that I started things with her. It was the first time in almost a decade that I felt something. Truly. Deeper than surface. It was the first time I remembered genuinely laughing, opening up, sharing parts of myself. For that, if nothing else, I was never going to be sorry that she 'forced' her way in.
"Reeve," she said a moment later, voice tentative.
"Yeah?"
"I'm not Erica." The words landed with impact, making my body stiffen, something she seemed to feel because she finally angled her head up. "And these people that did this to you, they aren't Phil. I get that you're worried. I get that you think you have somehow failed me because something happened that you couldn't - and, let's be clear here, you could not - control. But don't start comparing this to that. This isn't that. This is different. You're different. I'm different."
"I know you are," I agreed, watching her anguish, mixed with understanding, and maybe even a hint of anger.
"Tell me they got them," she demanded, making me realize I had never given her the end of that story.
The part where the law failed, and Phil and his goons never got locked up.
Then the part where, once I had my connections, I made sure those wrongs were righted.
