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“No, this is about you not coming home, and he doesn’t expect you to come home, but you’re not calling him as much, and you only seem to contact him a couple of times a month, or on his birthday, and he won’t say anything, but I see his expression, and I know he wants to see you.” I swallowed before the hard part. “I feel as if you’re forgetting everything he did for you, and he deserves you to be there in his life, not for Christmas, I get that is difficult, and it’s just one day, but call him more, okay? Message him.” Wow. That had spilled out of me like water from a broken dam.
“What? No.” Trace was shocked, Sutton was quiet, and he turned away from the camera as if he couldn’t meet my gaze. Trace carried on, defensive. “It’s not easy to stay away—we love Arlo. Tell him, Sutt.”
Sutton cleared his throat. “Shit, Jax, you don’t know anything about it.”
“I do,” I said. “I see him sad when he doesn’t hear from you.”
Trace shook his head. “No. You don’t see it all. You don’t see us.” Trace sounded anguished, and again Sutton wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“I could try if you explained,” I suggested.
“Arlo gave up so much, when our parents died, to raise us.” Trace sounded as if the words were being ripped from him. “He deserves a life of his own. He had to deal with our pain. He sacrificed his dreams and his own personal life to ensure we had the love and support we needed. He came back from college and stayed, just so we wouldn’t crumble after Mom and Dad died. He took all the responsibility, handled all the grief, and we know it had a toll. He deserves a chance to have his own life, to pursue his own dreams and passions. We don’t want to be the reason he never gets to live the life he deserves.”
Trace deflated, and his eyes flicked upward to where I guessed Sutton was on his screen. I saw Sutton do the same, and somehow, everything Trace said took the wind out of me.
I sat on a bench, Charlie now dead to the world in my arms, and I took a deep breath as the weight of their words sank in.
“So, what you’re saying is that you’ve stayed away from messaging him, or seeing him, to give him space? To do what exactly?”
Trace huffed as if it was obvious.
“To fall in love with you,” Sutton offered after a pause.
“To get his own life,” Trace added. “Forcing him out there to have friends, and love, and not to think he has to be there for us all the time, to fix our problems.”
“We don’t want him to regret what he did for us because he loses love,” Sutton said, and Trace sighed, as if Sutton had just summarized everything.
“I get it,” I began, choosing my words with care. “Arlo's the most selfless person I know. The sacrifices he's made for you both are amazing. But the way I see it, he doesn't regret any of it. You two are his world.”
Trace sniffed as if he was about to cry. “We know, but we're grown up now, and we can look after ourselves, and we want him to see that. We can't keep holding him back.”
“What Trace said,” Sutton added, and I wanted to reach through the screen and hug them. Then, Sutton looked at the floor, guilt evident in his expression. “We never wanted him to give up everything for us. We never asked him to, but he was there every day, through all the tears, and the grief, and…”
My heart hurt with this. I smoothed circles on Charlie’s back as he dozed in my arms.
“But that's the thing about love,” I replied. “You don'tneedto ask. Arlo did what he felt was right, and he'd do it all over again.”
The chat fell silent for a moment, the weight of our conversation heavy in the air.
It was Trace who broke the silence. “We just want him to be happy, and he’s found that happiness with you. We were right to push him to date, or at least get him to threaten you that he was going to date, otherwise you’d still be pretending to only be friends.”
“That’s why you did it?” I smiled at their ingenuity.
Sutton huffed. “Well,youweren’t going to do anything about it.”
“And neither was Arlo,” Trace pointed out.
“He misses you,” I said, not sure what else I could add.
More silence, and then, Sutton disappeared, his phone bobbing, and then, he was back. “I’ll be home on the twenty-third,” he said.
Trace sighed. “I’ll try my hardest, but this internship…” Then, he sat upright, “isn’t even that important. Not as important as Arlo is. I can make the twenty-third work.”
“No, I meant you should phone him more, and I thought maybe he could come and visit you at Christmas somehow. If we coordinate?—”
“No, I want to come home,” Sutton said.
“Me too,” Trace agreed.
