Page 99 of This Could be Love

“When you take the right stuff, it’s not an issue,” he said bitterly. “I couldn’t really sleep all that much anyway. I had nightmares, anxiety, panic attacks. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat, and vomit repeatedly.”

“Didn’t your parents notice anything?”

“I’m sure they would have. If they’d been a part of my life.”

“You weren’t in contact?”

“Very little at that point, no. When you’re completely focused on work, on performance and success, there isn’t any room for interpersonal relationships. It’s just a waste of time. Because there’s always something more important than texting your mom, calling your dad. Than visiting on Thanksgiving and Christmas.” His voice cracked. “By the time they had their boating accident, I hadn’t seen them in two years. Hadn’t spoken with them in months.”

“And Laurie?”

“My job hadn’t just become the center of my world, Lou. Itwasmy world.”

“Did you ever think of getting help? Going into therapy?”

“To do that I would have had to realize something wasn’t right.”

“But you were suffering from insomnia! Anxiety!” My voice grew louder. “Panic attacks!”

“Yeah. Like everyone else around me,” he said, undisguisedly disillusioned. “Going over your physical and mental boundaries was just part of the lifestyle. And you can’t forget how young I was.” Then added in a whisper, “And alone.”

A part of me wanted to walk over and hug him, while another part of me was busy reproving him for having done it to himself.

“When my mom and dad died, I was forced to take a little time off. I had to fly home, deal with the funeral, all the paperwork, the house. Laurie. She was doing pretty bad.”

I bit my cheeks at the thought of losing both my parents at once. That would simply be unbearable.

“I tried to be there for her, but it was tough. At the beginning, at least. There was like…some kind of gulf between us. We’d grown apart. And I realized that that was onme. I alone was to blame for the fact that I was like a stranger to my sister. That I couldn’t help her mourn. That did something to me.” His voice grew brittle. “When I got back to Palo Alto, I looked for a therapist. After the first couple of sessions, I realized that my job wasn’t simply eating into my time and my energy, but my identity. That I wasn’t living the life I wanted to be living. That I wasn’t around the people I wanted to be around.” He paused. “I sold VinTech and stuck all of my money in an endowment. The Tim and Luciana Greenfield Foundation. It supports projects within the field of improving mental health.”

A deafening silence set in.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked.

“It’s not exactly something you go into over a plate of shrimp.”

“Things between us have changed a bit between thatplate of shrimpand today, no?”

“Yeah. And that made it even harder for me.”

“Why?”

I could hear him sigh. “Because you don’t really want to come off so weak in front of someone you’re trying to impress. Especially not someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“You radiate pure strength, Lou.”

I looked down at myself. “This is just a body. The result of training hard.”

“It’s not. You’re strong insideandout. I mean, you’ve got a really shitty year behind you. You didn’t know whether you’d ever play at your old level again. And yet, you never gave up. You never stopped believing in yourself.”

I began to say something, but he stopped me.

“That’s fucking impressive, Lou. But pretty fucking intimidating too.”

I had to fight not to sound too annoyed. “You’reintimidatedby me?”

“The mirror you hold out to me.”