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I arched my eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m just figuring out some things, that’s all.”
“Did Weston come down on you hard?”
She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “No. Quite the opposite, actually.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He told me to stay.”
That made my damaged heart skip a beat or two. I placed my forehead against hers.
I was so damn happy she’d stayed.
At least, that was how I’d felt at first. As the days went by, Starlet stayed by my side even though I told her it was okay to get back to her life and her world. I was keeping up with my homework. I couldn’t say the same about Starlet.
She seemed so worried about me being okay that she was willing to jeopardize her own education. Whenever I brought up the teaching situation, she’d tell me it was fine and she was figuring it out. She told me not to worry about her, but it was almost impossible not to. On Sundays, when she’d generally visit her father, she’d end up staying at my place. Her whole life was being turned upside down due to me, and I couldn’t stop feeling the heaviest level of guilt surrounding that. I knew that my stuff was heavy, but it was never meant for Starlet to carry that load.
Usually, when I went to group therapy, I was more of a listener. I wasn’t one to speak up about my issues. Maybe that was why my problems took so long to get better. But that afternoon I felt as if speaking up wouldn’t only help me, it would help the person I cared most about.
I sat in the metal chair with a knot in my stomach when it came time for me to share.
“I think my girlfriend is giving too much of herself to me,” I confessed.
“Go deeper with that thought, Milo,” Tracy said. “Dig some more at what you mean.”
I brushed the back of my neck with the palm of my hand. “My dad is currently in a rehab center. He’ll be there for a while, so my girlfriend moved in with me temporarily to make sure I wasn’t alone. Don’t get me wrong, I love her. I love having her around but…she gives so much. She worries about my eyesight more than I do. She’s been bringing in these new tech systems, too, to help me read and I’m not even at that point in my journey. And while she’s doing all of this, she’s losing herself. She’s so focused on me that she’s not taking good care of her.”
“I’ve been there before,” another person said. His name was Greg. He was much quieter than the others, but added in to the conversations whenever he saw fit. From what I was learning, he wasn’t the most positive guy around. “She’s going to give and give until it’s too much and she’ll resent you.”
“No,” I disagreed. “She’s not like that at all.”
“That’s what you think now. Just wait and see,” he bitterly replied.
And there I was thinking Henry was the grump of the group.
“Greg, let’s make sure we don’t project our situations on others. Milo’s situation isn’t the same as yours,” Tracy urged.
Greg grumbled. “Okay, but don’t blame me when I end up right.”
“Oh, shut it, will you, Bitter Betty,” Henry scolded. At least my favorite grump was on my side. Henry cleared his throat. “What Milo is getting at, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that he feels like his life is a burden on hers.”
I nodded. “Yes. Exactly. I know this is a long, slow journey for me. It could be years before I’m legally blind and even longer before I lose my vision completely. If she’s already this hyper-focused on me, then what would the rest of her life look like? What would happen to her world when I physically need her more? Or if my mental health worsens? There will be days that I can’t pretend to be happy. I already feel awful having bad days because it makes her feel sad and I hate making her feel sad.”
“This is part of the journey,” Tracy explained. “It’s a hard part, and it’s tricky. Because we deserve love in all its forms, just as everyone else does. Then there’s a slippery slope of knowing how much is too much to request from another person. How much are you willing to place on another’s plate?”
“I don’t want to waste her time,” I whispered.
“Then be a real man and let her go,” Greg said.
“Greg, I swear I’ll throat punch you,” Bobby called out.
“Bobby, no throat punching,” Tracy scolded the kid.
“But some people deserve throat punches,” Bobby argued.
“He’s not wrong,” Henry muttered.
I smirked a little but still felt the knot in my stomach.
“Stop trying to sugarcoat it for the kid. You know I’m right,” Greg grumbled. “They’ll look back in twenty years and will both be miserable.”
