Page 18 of As Long As You'll Have Me
I nod my head in response but don’t say anything else. He stares at me intently for a moment before it dawns on him that I’m waiting for him to continue.
“So anyway, we had a fight the other day and his words are just sticking with me I guess. I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks to the floor again.
“What was the fight about?” I ask, hoping I’m not pushing him too quickly.
“He told me I was acting like I don’t care about the company anymore. That I’m lost in my head and don’t seem like I’m interested in anything anymore.”
“Do you think that’s true?”
“Of course not,” he answers sharply. His shoulders sag in defeat as he rubs half his face with a calloused hand. “He said that our family is worried about me. I guess they said something to him at family breakfast last weekend.”
I scribble ‘Close with family. Foster brother. Weekly family breakfast?’ onto my notepad before looking at him.
“Clearly it bothers you that they’re talking about you,” I offer.
“Well, yeah, do you want your family talking about you behind your back?” he scoffs.
I can’t stop myself from laughing. “I have three parents and am an only child. My family isalwaystalking about me behind my back.”
This gets him to scrunch his face up in confusion. “How does someone have three parents?”
“Well, there’s plenty of ways to have three parents but in my case, I have a mom, a dad, and a George. The joys ofyour father realizing he’s gay later in life and finding love again when you’re an adult,” I hum with a hint of humor in my voice.
His eyebrows lift for his hairline. “Oh. And your mom and him are still tight?”
“The three of them are like the Three Musketeers. They have breakfast together every Monday and conference call me in while I walk to work.” I laugh.
“That’s pretty fucking cool,” he remarks with a soft nod.
“They areveryfucking cool,” I reply, feeling grateful for the humans I call family. “Family seems like a pretty big deal to you.”
“My family is everything to me. They’re the only thing more important to me above the men and women I work with.” His voice is soft while he speaks and his eyes are fixated on the ground like he’s lost in a memory.
“That’s probably why having someone question that importance was so painful,” I offer. He glances up at me for a moment before dropping his eyes back to the floor.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s never easy feeling like we’re letting the people we love down,” I speak again.
“I never said I was letting anyone down,” he says defensively.
“Not out loud you didn’t,” I retort.
We hold one another’s gaze for a moment. Looking at him, I can see the storms raging behind his irises and wish nothing more than to be able to help bring him to shore. I’ve seen this look before in other patients. A mix of sadness, shame, and more than anything else, guilt. And I can already tell that Miles is the type of person to think he’s strong enough to bear the weight of it all on his own when in reality, it’s eating him from the inside out.
“You have to learn to let other people in, especially people who love you and want to help,” I instruct, thinking about his family and other company members. “You have people in your life that want you to be happy and they see that you aren’t allowing yourself that.”
“How do you know what I am and am not doing?” he questions with a haughty tone.
“Call it a heightened sense of observation,” I say with a tip of my brow. “Until you’re willing to let people help—to let people in—you’ll never be able to get past whatever you’re carrying with you. Life doesn’t magically get better the more you shove down whatever shit you have inside of you, Miles, that’s not how it works.”
He seems to mull over what I’ve said to him. Giving me a once over, he looks as if he’s going to say something but instead, chooses to stand from the couch.
“Thank you for being willing to see me so early in the morning. Sorry for showing up without calling. And for letting myself in.”
I guess our impromptu session is over.“My door is always open.”
I follow him out into the lobby where he throws away the now empty coffee cup.
