“Yeah, I’m sorry I lied to you. It was easier to lie than face it, and it was really selfish, and I’m sorry,” I add, looking everywhere except him.
I really suck at apologizing and at knowing how much eye contact is appropriate in moments like these. It’s all just very uncomfortable.
“Qiang?” Qi calls, grabbing my attention. “All I really care about is you. I don’t like seeing you self-destruct when I know how much better you are than that. And I really don’t like being lied to, but I can move past it if you just try to work through some of this,” he says sincerely, reaching for my hand.
I slip my fingers between his and look up at him. “Will you go with me?”
Qi’s brow furrows. “To the therapist’s?”
I nod and look a bit past his shoulder. “Obviously not in the room, and it’ll be kind of boring to just sit in the waiting room, but I think it’ll help knowing that you’re there; that you’re close by, you know.”
Qi squeezes my hand, and I catch the spread of a smile across his face. “Of course I can do that. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, you know that.”
Those stupid tears try to come back again. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve–” I start to say, but I’m interrupted by a flick on the forehead.
“I really hate it when you say that,” Qi huffs out.
I chuckle at that, rubbing my forehead lightly. “I agreed to therapy; can we just say yay to small victories?”
Qi rolls his eyes. “It’s not a small victory, Qiang. This is a big step, and I’m so proud of you. Don’t downplay it. And for the record, you’re just as awesome as I am, and good things are allowed to exist without always having to earn them.”
I grin up at him, wanting to get the lightness from earlier back. “Good things like Thai food and goth rock operas,” I suggest, wiggling my eyebrows at him.
He laughs at my ridiculousness. “Sounds good.”
“Right?!? They aren’t even gonna know what hit them.”
“Not even a little bit; we’re about to warp their fragile little minds.”
“It’s gonna be so much fun!” I exclaim, linking my arm around Qi’s and heading out of the room to join Tristan and Marcus.
PART II
Leaning Into You
Six Weeks Later
THERAPY SESSIONS
Qiang’s POV
It takes eighteen measly steps to get from my door to Marcus’s door. I say measly when it’s really not. It was only like six steps between my door and Qi’s in the house we grew up in. This house isn’t a beast like Tristan’s, or even Marcus’s, which is not quite as beastly but still big enough to be intimidating. However, it’s still at least double, if not triple, the size of what I’m used to.
I don’t want to think about how many steps it would take to get from one end of the hall to the other in either of those houses. The eighteen steps inthishouse are already more than enough. And no, I’m notthatridiculously obsessed.
As amazingly gorgeous, witty, and sweet as Marcus is, I’ve spent more time being mean to him than being nice. The fact that he’s not only still my friend but also one of my biggest supporters is a miracle in itself. I cannot even begin to get into the whole labyrinth of feelings, thoughts, and excuses I’m still working through when it comes to thinking of him in any way that would give me the right to obsess over him.
Knowing the number of steps between our doors is simply becauseof that morning when I felt like I needed to apologize to him after that horrendous,embarrassingfight.
I’m not great at apologizing for anything. It’s not like I’m the type of person who needs a lot of experience with something like that. So I may have paced this hallway for a good forty-five minutes, counting steps, from the time I brought the plate full of crepes upstairs to the time I actually knocked on his door.
That’s why I know it’s eighteen steps from my door to his, twelve steps from my bathroom to his bedroom, and six steps from my studio to his door. While it seems like nothing, it’s a chasm to me; a great divide because I know I need to go over there and knock on his door, and I’m struggling against my pride to do it.
Normally, it’s no issue. It’s usually a ‘hey, do you want to join us for dinner?’ or a ‘hey, want to watch a movie?’ Nothing major, except that one time I had to apologize, and now.
My pride says I can go on my own without a support person. Needing support people is a relatively new thing for me, but so is allowing myself to feel anything at all beyond the apathetic haze I’ve kept myself blanketed in for years.
And Marcus has definitely become one of my emotional support people, along with Qi, Tristan, and Natasha. The thing is, once I started therapy and Marcus stepped back a little bit, we started gravitating around each other more easily.
