Page 63 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

“They called it manic depression back then.”

I swallow hard, as I bring the steaming kettle back to the table. “Now we call it Bipolar Disorder. They didn’t know as much about it at the time. There are much better ways to manage it now.”

I wince as soon as I say it, because I’m a coward.

Tell her.

Let her be pushed away like everyone is once it’s disclosed. Fuck, it’s not like she didn’t see it in action tonight.

I set the kettle on the table without pouring any into the cups. I don’t want her to feel like she has to stay for the actual cocoa after I tell her this.

I sit back down and just blurt it out:

“My father committed suicide when I was fifteen. I found his body, and it fucked me up for a while. I started drinking and I gotin a couple fights at school. Which made Mom decide I was just like Dad. My drawings scared her.”

I shrug. “She saidIscared her. She’d always thought Dad just needed Jesus, not medication. She didn’t believe in mental illness. She thought it was demonic activity. Jake took her side and they convinced methatwaswhat was happening to me. That if I’d believed harder or trusted Jesus more I could have fought back against the demons inside me.”

“August! Oh my God!” Lennon’s hand flies to cover her mouth. “You werefifteen? That’s just a kid!”

“I’d just turned sixteen when Mom sent me away to a religious wilderness camp. But that place was pretty much torture. Like, they were big on discipline. They’d do sleep deprivation and military drills where they’d just send you on these multi-day marches and other weird shit like that.”

I shoot a glance over to Lennon’s still-horrified face. “Oh my gosh, I’ve seen documentaries about places like that. They’re terrifying!”

“Yeah. It made it all much, much worse. If I ever had a chance of not developing Bipolar myself, that place did me in.”

I cling hard to my mug.

Chill, smooth ceramic under my fingers. Cushioned seat under my bottom. Hard floor under my boots.

I’m here, still grounded in my body.

Even as I reiterate the hardest thing: “So yeah. I do have Bipolar Disorder. Mom wasn’t wrong about me being like Dad. Not demons, but… It’s why Owen’s mom and I aren’t together anymore. I’m pretty shit at stable relationships.”

I force myself to look up at Lennon, my forehead feeling so, so heavy from everything tonight and the constant weight of this… fucking exhausting existence. “So it really is better for you to run while you can. You just escaped my brother.”

The more time I spend with her… I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to push her away. I need her to be strong for the both of us.

“Please, Lennon.” My voice breaks around her name. “Get as far away as you can from this fucking family.”

“No.”

My eyes close. I expected the answer but hoped for a different one anyway.

She grabs one hand across the table.

“You are not your brother. Or your mother or your father. And you are not every ugly thing they taught you to believe about yourself.”

“Lennon—”

“Don’t you dare ask me to run from the only person who has ever made me feel safe,” she whispers.

“But didn’t you hear me?” I shake my head. “About what I have? I should’ve told you straight up when we first met. Before things got… entangled.”

Her lips pucker a little as she thinks it through.

Then she picks up the kettle and pours the steaming water into her cup with the cocoa in it, stirring it with the little spoon I brought with the mugs.

Which makes my chest leap with happiness, even though it shouldn’t. Does that mean she’s staying a little longer? Long enough to drink cocoa at least?