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Would they have been okay?
“Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Maybe it is a cop-out. That’s how I felt, though.”
“You felt alone.”
“Yes.”
“But you were the one who left,” I say, agitated.
He was the one who chose to walk away.
He was the one who didn’t give me a goodbye.
It was all him, and yet, he has the audacity to say he felt alone, scared, worried. He says he felt horrified and afraid, but he was the one who chose that path. Now I’m just supposed to forgive him and move on? I’m just supposed to get on with my life?
It doesn’t seem particularly fair, if you ask me.
Not at all.
“I know.”
We look at each other for a long time. Orlando seems completely unbothered by our intense discussion, and he heads into his room to look for a train he wants. He’s got about a million of them, so chances are that he’ll be in his bedroom for awhile. That’s good. It means that right now, I can just look at Cage. Right now, I can totally focus completely on him, and us, and this moment because all of a sudden, it kind of seems like everything is going horribly wrong.
And this hurts.
Everything about talking to him hurts. Is it supposed to hurt? Is having this sort of discussion supposed to make me ache on the inside? I don’t think it’s supposed to ache, but oh, it does.
It does.
“I started writing to cope with my feelings,” he says.
“You did.”
“I did.”
“And how did that work out for you?”
“Well, I made six figures last year,” he says carefully. “I have a lot of money now.”
I’m not sure whether he’s trying to brag or not. I don’t think he is, but I barely made enough to be considered above the poverty line, so that feels like a lot of money to me.
It seems like an unimaginable amount of money.
“Good for you,” I say carefully. “It sounds like you’re very successful.”
So that’s where he’s been.
He writes stories for people. He writes dreams. He imagines far away places and beautiful worlds, and he writes it all down and sells it for money.
What a life.
“I am,” he says, and now I’m certain he’s not bragging. There’s something beneath the surface of his words: something he isn’t quite telling me.
“So, what’s the problem?”
He bristles, just a little, but shakes his head.
“No problem.”
