Page 93

"I didn't know," I say. It comes out in a rush, like something breaking. "When we got married. I swear to God, Laurel, I didn't know. I never let myself—I never once let myself think about it. I thought if I did everything right, if I married you and I played hockey and I never looked, it would just—not be true."

"I know."

"I didn't lie to you. I lied to myself. I was so good at it. I was so good at it that I didn't even know I was doing it."

"I know, Owen." She sounds like she might be crying, a little. She also sounds like she's smiling. "I'm not angry. I thought I would be. I'm not."

"Why not?"

"Because it wasn't me," she says. "Twelve years I thought it was me. That I wasn't pretty enough, or interesting enough, or—enough. It wasn't. It was never me." She laughs, a little, wet. "I think I'm relieved. Is that terrible?"

"No," I say. "It's not terrible."

"Are you gay? Or⁠—"

"I don't know. I think—" I stop. I try the word, the one that stuck in my throat in Toronto. It comes out easier than I thought it would. "I think I'm bi. I think I've always been. I just never let it be real."

"Okay," she says again. Then: "Do you love him?"

I look at the fern on the windowsill in its stupid cat pot. At the Christmas lights. At the blue rug with the orange triangles that don't match anything.

"Yes," I say.

She's quiet. When she talks again, her voice is different. Firmer. The voice she used to use on contractors.

"Then don't make him wait the way you made me wait," she says. "Twelve years, Owen. I waited twelve years for you to show up. Don't do that to him. He's twenty. He deserves better than a man who stands next to him and says he didn't hear anything."

"I know."

"I'm serious."

"I know, Laurel."

"Okay." She breathes out. "Okay. I'm going to go. I'm going to drink a very large glass of wine and call my sister."

"Laurel?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me," she says. "Go fix it."

She hangs up.

He's got a couch now.

I can see it through the gap in the door when he opens it. It's big and orange and it doesn't match anything, and it's covered in pillows shaped like hockey pucks, and it's so completely him that something in my chest pulls tight just looking at it.

He's standing in the doorway in sweatpants and a hoodie. His eyes are puffy. He doesn't open the door any wider.

"It's midnight," he says.

"I know."

"You used the stairs? Two floors up and then the elevator?"

"No."