“You can’t do that to yourself.”
“I know. But I’ve listened to it so many times.” He stops. “It’s just him asking me to call back. His voice sounds fine.”
“Depression’s good at hiding.” I think about Mom putting on brave faces. “People sound fine when they’re falling apart.”
“Yeah.” His arm tightens. “Dr. Kim probably knows what he was dealing with.”
“Did you ever think of talking to her about it?”
“Sometimes. She called a lot in the first year and I never returned them. Now she emails every few months asking me to make an appointment.”
“What if you did?”
“I’m scared,” he admits. “Of calling her. Of what she might tell me.”
“Or she might tell you there was nothing you could have done. You’ll never know until you actually talk to her.”
His hand finds my hair. “If I call her will you go with me? Just in the waiting room,” he says. “Not in the session.”
“I’ll be wherever you want me.” I tell him.
The afternoon fades.We eat leftover pancakes for dinner. We watch episodes of some show and couldn’t name a single one.
When it gets dark, we go to the bedroom. Roman looks at the blood-stained pillow.
“I’ll change the sheets.”
“Tomorrow.”
He flips the pillow anyway. Then climbs into bed and waits.
I turn off the light and crawl in beside him. We lie in the dark. Then I curl against his side and his arm comes around me.
“I’m going to cry,” I warn him. “About my mom.”
“Okay.”
And I do. Quietly at first, then harder. His hand moves in circles on my back and I feel him shaking too.
“I miss her,” I sob. “I miss her so much and it feels like it will never, ever get better.”
“I know.” His voice is tight with unshed tears. “I know exactly how that feels.”
We cry together—for his brother, for my mother, for the people who left holes we can’t fill. Not fixing it. Just two broken people holding on, trying to survive one breath at a time.
“Just breathing,” I murmur.
“Just breathing,” he repeats.
And somehow, in the wreckage of everything we’ve lost, that’s enough.
For now. For tonight. Together.
34
ROMAN
Three dayslater I’m sitting in Dr. Kim’s office which looks exactly the same as it did the one time I came with Matty—comfortable chairs, soft lighting, walls lined with books.
