Page 127 of My Unfinished Heart

I can’t do it. “I’m sorry,” I say to Tristan.

He looks up. “Archer, please. Don’t walk away.”

But I already have. I’m in the kitchen when he catches up to me. He’s about to hug me, but his pity coupled with the shine of tears in his eyes is almost a worse burden than the memory. I want it over with. I hold his arms at his sides and keep talking.

“I thought one of two things was going on. I thought either there was something very wrong with me, or she was a monster. Her first mistake was sending me to school—letting me interact with normal people. Her other mistake was buying into the autism thing, because I think she did. I think it fed her sick need for attention. Anyway, one day at school, it clicked. I figured out she was poisoning me and deliberately keeping me sick. If she’d been kinder—the way most Munchausen’s moms are kinder, I might not have put it together, but she was cruel. Always.

“That one day when I finally had a clear enough moment to put it together, I was finally able to tell a doctor exactly what she was doing to me. I begged her to get me away from her. And then it all just stopped. She backed off. I stopped eating the food she served. I made my own. I woke myself up every morning and got myself to school. I shut her out of my life, and I took care of myself. A year later, I was in New Hampshire.”

The look on Tristan’s face is some combination of appalled and devastated. “Archer, I’m sorry.”

I let go of his arms. My jaw twitches because I’m clenching it so tight. “Why? It was a long time ago. I’m over it. I got out.”

“How did you…?” he breaks off and doesn’t finish.

“How’d I wind up like someone who looks normal?”

He shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

“It’s a good question, though.” I think about Helen. Helen means my mother got lazy. At some point, when I was too young to notice, she let her guard down. Helen may be the only reason I ever learned the difference between love and hate. Realizing this now, I soften my approach with Tristan. “I think Helen probably saved my soul or something.”

“By bringing you home?” he asks. I think he means the way she found me in Seattle.

“Tonight she told me she’s known me my whole life. From the day I was born.”

“What?”

I don’t think I’ll be able to rehash my conversation with Helen without crying, and I’m done crying for the day. “I’m sorry, angel. I can’t right now. It’s been a lot today. Can we be done with this?”

“Not yet,” he says. “I need to know something. About you and your mom.”

I wait, nervous and on edge.

“You said she was never kind, but you knew there wasn’t anything wrong with you.” He says this like it’s the most shocking revelation in all of this.

“When I was eight, I had a good nap finally, and when I woke up, I knew how to make it stop. It was like I woke up with a whole plan. So, I’m fine now. It was a long time ago. That bitch doesn’t get to scar me for life.”

He lets out a shaky sigh, and tears fall down his face. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that he can cry so openly. So easily. I wonder if it makes things feel better. I rub his arms because I don’t want anything I say to hurt him anymore.

Then he says, “You were lucky.”

“Was I?” I ask, incredulous.

Wiping his tears, he meets my eyes. “Connor wasn’t lucky like that.”

My hands freeze on his forearms. “What does that mean?” My sharp voice rings off the kitchen tiles.

“Nothing.”

My frustration reaches maximum intensity. “Tell me.”

He shakes his head emphatically. “You have your secret. Connor has his. If you wanna know what it was like for him—ask him. He’ll tell you. He’s been dying to tell you. That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Then why are you here?” I do shout this time.

“Because I love you, Archer,” he shouts back. “I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t. And nothing’s ever changed that. Not your mom, not Connor, not even you with your blatant disregard of me for four years. I am fucking hopelessly in love with you. You can yell at me, you can push me away, you can shut me out, you can sleep with whoever the fuck you want, and it won’t matter. I’m still gonna be off somewhere, waiting for the day you realize I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

All right. Well. That shuts me up.