Page 49
“And afterward, after all that came out, how did you feel?”
“Grateful, I guess—that he still wanted to be there with me, and then stupid for shutting him out after seeing my parents. Also guilty because I dumped a lot on him.”
“Opening up to him made you feel stupid?” she clarifies.
I open my mouth to answer quickly the way I usually do and find I don’t have anything ready. “No. I don’t know. I guess it felt like too much to hand someone who didn’t sign up for all my shit.”
“Do you think he only wants certain parts of you? Do you think caring about someone comes with a limit?”
“I don’t know, does it?”
“I’m asking you.”
I look away from the camera and out my apartment window instead, at the gray nothingness of a Chicago evening in early December. “I guess I think that if someone gets enough of the real me, eventually it’s going to be too much. It always has been. My mom couldn’t handle my depression; she just brought me to your doorstep so you could fix me. You know my dad’s spent twenty-five years opting out of my life rather than dealing with me being anything other than fine. So, yeah. I think there’s a limit to how much people around me care. I just don’t know where that limit is for others, so I try not to test it since they don’t have an obligation to love me.”
“Marcus, I want to ask you something, and I want you to take a moment before you answer.”
“Okay.”
“We’ve circled this a lot over the years, so I’m going to ask it plainly. Do you still believe you’re unlovable?”
The question hits harder than I expect it to, straight through whatever armor I usually keep up. It’s something I’ve thought internally over and over, but never something that I’ve been asked to say out loud. “I don’t know if ‘unlovable’ is the word.”
“What word would you use?”
“Difficult. Too much. A lot to deal with for not enough payoff.” I laugh, but it doesn’t have any humor in it. “Broken, probably. Something that needs managing instead of something worth having around.”
“Those are very specific words. We both know whose voice that is.”
“Yeah.” I let out another humorless laugh. “My fucking mother.” I exhale, dragging a hand down my face. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You're allowed to be angry about it. I know I’m asking a lot of tough questions today.” She leans forward closer to the screen. “But here’s what I want you to consider: you grew up with two people who made you feel like you’re a burden, so of course you learned to believe it, but that doesn’t make it true.”
I don’t say anything and she continues.
“Think about Josh. He’s been there for you your whole lives, and he still chooses to be there. Has he ever treated you like you were something to manage?”
“No,” I admit.
“And Evan?”
I swallow before muttering. “No.” Because even when I disappeared on him for a few days, he didn’t get annoyed or give up. He called me multiple times and told me he wanted to be there for me.
“Just think about that, okay?” she prompts and waits until I nod. “And now that you’re both back in your own cities, how are you feeling about things with Evan?”
“I miss him, and I worry that I put too much on him. He wants to be there, but I don’t know how to let him.”
“What does ‘letting him’ look like to you? Be specific.”
I drop my face into my hands. These questions really are hard today, and I don’t know how to best answer them. I know there’s no right or wrong way to respond—it’s something we’ve been over before—but still. My hands grip the strands of my hair, and I sit up, looking at the computer screen again. “I guess… answering when he calls, even the days I don’t feel like talking. Telling him when something’s wrong instead of waiting for him to drag it out of me. Not treating every good thing he offers like it’s a test I’m going to fail eventually.”
“That’s a good list. Have you done any of those things since Thanksgiving?”
“Some. I answered his call. Eventually.”
“Eventually being the operative word.”
“I told you, old habits—”
