Page 102 of What We Got Wrong

“She seemed like a good kid,” he replied.

“We’re thirty-one, Dad,” Liv reminded him, rolling her eyes at him.

“You’re all kids to me,” he responded, waving her off. “I just meant, she seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders. I liked them both.”

“Me too,” Liv said simply. “It’s complicated, though.”

“How do you mean?” her mom asked.

Liv took another few seconds to try to figure out how to answer this question. Her parents had supported her, in their own way, but they still struggled to talk about feelings. Certainly not romantic feelings, at least, other than her lack of them in the context of her marriage…

She wanted to be honest with them. She just wasn’t sure that she knew how to do it. Finally, Liv offered, “There’s always been things standing in our way.”

“How do you mean?” her dad repeated.

“There’s a lot, Dad. We have a complicated history. We live in different states.”

“Ah, yes, we don’t have any offices in Michigan that you could work out of,” her dad said facetiously.

Liv stared at her dad in shock, but it was her mom who spoke first. “She’s not going to move to another state.”

“Michigan is an hour-long flight,” her dad said, his tone towards her mother almost scolding. “We’d basically still be neighbors.”

“My job is here,” Liv reminded her dad, which was weird, she could admit, given she worked for him.

“As Operations Director for the Midwest region,” he said, and now it was like he was trying to remind her, before tapping his chin in a faux ‘thinking’ face. “Remind me, where is Michigan again?”

“Like Mom said, I can’t move to another state,” Liv replied, exasperated. Because, really. What would that look like?

“Why not? Weren’t you happy there?” Her dad was genuinely confused by her resistance.

“I was,” Liv allowed, and she didn’t need to add that she was happy largely because of Quinn, because of the life she had there, not just because of the location. “But it truly is complicated. She said she didn’t want to talk. She set a clear boundary.”

It was her dad’s turn to take a minute to think, while her mom just sort of looked back and forth between them, like she wasn’t sure how to join in. “I’m not ever going to advocate for you overstepping someone’s boundary.”

Liv was fascinated with his verbiage. “Wow, that’s like…next level therapizing. I’m impressed.”

“Thank you, thank you,” he replied with a mock bow. “But, sweetheart…if you’re waiting for it to be easy, it’s never going to happen."

“That’s the thing, though,” Liv replied. “Being around her, it wasn’t hard. I’m the one who made it hard.”

“You’re still punishing yourself for things you did when you were…not one hundred percent okay,” her mom said, and Liv was stunned by her contribution, even if minimal. Because even though they’d been through countless hours of therapy as a family, her mom sometimes had a hard time acknowledging that Liv was struggling pretty significantly back then. She’d done a decent job, until she didn’t, making everyone think she was fine, and she couldn’t blame her mom for her lack of understanding when it was by Liv’s very own design.

“I’m not,” Liv said. “At least, I don’t think I am. I know more than anyone that I’m not that person anymore.”

At that, her parents both nodded, and Liv could tell that they were proud of her, for how far she’d come. Because she’d been so lost, so afraid, and she’d completely boxed herself into a life she didn’t want, all because…why?

Because she thought they all believed that was what was best for their family, thought her own happiness didn’t matter.

“Do you think she’s the exact same person she was at twenty-one, twenty-two years old?” her mom asked. “Wouldn’t that be awful if we didn’t change?”

Her dad added, “Maybe you should introduce her to who you are now, and let her decide what she wants from there?”

And, well…that was something that Liv would have to think about.

Chapter 38

Quinn