The Reunion (Love Stories From a Small Town #5)

45. All that Mattered

For the third time since we sat down to eat, he got up to adjust the thermostat. “Why is it so hot in here? The AC unit is brand new.”

Shrugging back at him, I brought my glass to my lips. “I don’t think it is.” After I swallowed, I huddled against myself. “To be honest, you’re freezing me out over here.”

The stool beside me skidded backward when he plopped down on the seat and flapped his t-shirt away from his chest. “For real?” When I nodded at him, he glanced back at the tiny white box. “It says sixty-six, but it’s got to be like a hundred.”

Setting down my fork, I brought the back of my hand to his forehead. “Are you alright?”

As if my touch was a bee stinging him, he cringed as he rushed to pull it away and shook his head. “I’m fine.”

Rubbing his back, I leaned over and kissed his shoulder. “You seem kind of agitated. What’s going on?”

For a moment, his eyes shifted toward me as he hesitated to say, “No. It’s...”

His tongue shot out and covered his top lip as his knee bounced underneath him, and I ducked down to see his face. “Baby, it’s alright. Just spit it out.”

Stretching his neck and jaw first, he nodded. “Okay, um.” Like I was hiding under that mound of food on his plate, he pushed it around with his fork. “I know Mom’s going to be coming after you at some point, so” — he cleared his throat — “I should tell you before she does that I have Cyclothymia.”

That jerk of my eyebrows at him that told him I had no idea what the hell he was saying made his uncomfortable expression break with a smile for a second. “Um. It’s a type of mood disorder like Bipolar.” He brought his hands in front of him, one high and one low. “So, with Bipolar, you’re on this big cliff up here or in this deep pit down here sometimes, with short periods of okay right in the middle. Those ups and downs can last for days and weeks and months, and sometimes need hospitalization to get through them.”

He made gentle waves across him with one of his hands. “Cyclothymia is more like tiny little hills of not too extreme symptoms and more periods of okay.” Releasing a deep breath now that he’d told me the truth of it, he flipped his hand over. “Except when I’m under a lot of stress, I can dip into those more extreme symptoms for a while, as you probably heard at the hospital the other day.”

I took another bite of food and nodded. “Okay. Thanks for telling me.”

His face jutted closer to me as his wide-open eyes questioned whether I heard him. “Isn’t my being mentally ill the least bit of a concern to you?”

I used my foot to turn toward him more. “I don’t mean to make light of what you go through with this, but I’ve been on meds for panic disorder since college. This kind of stuff isn’t such a big deal nowadays.” Like he was itching to rip his skin off, he shifted from side to side when I rubbed his thigh to comfort him. “In fact, just about everyone I know takes something for stress or anxiety or mood swings. So, if that confession is supposed to scare me off, it doesn’t.”

“I don’t want this” — all his fingers flung out — “big thing hanging over my head anymore.” His thumb curled back at him. “I was never ashamed to say it, but Mom acted like everyone would turn their backs on me if it were out in the open. And now...”

He blinked, and his eyes filled with tears when he took them to the ceiling. “I didn’t even understand how she’s controlled me all this time.” Shaking his head, he started to crumble as his voice cracked. “I feel like my entire life has been a damn lie, and it’s tearing me up now that I have time to think about it.”

Pushing the plate away from him, I slid between him and the counter, putting my arms around his neck. “I remember a few wonderful years that weren’t a lie, and this last week hasn’t been a lie, either. Has it?” His head fell into my chest, rocking back and forth as I twisted his hair in my fingers. “Being who you are is okay, even the unpleasant bits. Just tell me what you need from me to make things easier for you.”

He grabbed my cheeks up and nodded. “You’re doing it. You’re being here is the best drug on the market for what I got.”

I didn’t want to pry into his business too much when he seemed so frazzled, but I was living with this now and wanted the complete picture. “Speaking of. I assume this is something you’re taking medication for?”

His eyes dropped between us. “I was, but” — he shrugged back at me — “I want to see if I can manage without it. I’ve been on it since I was nineteen, and things are different now. I’m different.”

Memories of my two-in-the-morning cleaning binges to avoid sleeping when I got too scared of being alone replayed in my head. I couldn’t imagine going back to that kind of existence. “Have you run that idea by your doctor, Doctor?” As he did when annoyed, he bit at the corner of his mouth like a rabbit and rolled his eyes away until I pulled his chin back to me. “We always want to imagine the best outcomes for our decisions. But I want to know what we’re dealing with from a different perspective, Dom. I’m not trying to insult you.”

He inhaled hard through his nose, sounding a little pissy when he shook his head. “No. I haven’t run it by him.”

Twisting his shirt in my fingers, I tugged him closer. “I only want what’s best for you. So, please call and talk it over.” I shrugged back at him when he sank away like I’d ripped up that medical degree in front of him. “If you don’t need it anymore, awesome. And if you do, you can keep it beside mine in the medicine cabinet. It’ll be like they’re living together, too.”

He smiled at me, and I pecked at his lips. “If I didn’t want to take my meds anymore, wouldn’t you want a say in that?”

His eyes narrowed at me. “I’d force feed your pills to you is what I’d do.”

Sliding out from between his knees, I pushed him back with my finger in his chest. “I know you would. Now finish eating so we can get freaky for a few minutes before I crash.”

Swaying into me to check the time on the microwave, he picked up his fork. “We’ll have to revisit that whole work-life balance situation soon. I don’t want you gone all the time when I’m off. Not when you don’t have to be.”

Smitten with the idea of not having to work full time again after killing myself all these years, I hummed to myself. “Oh. That sounds amazing. Maybe once my caseload stabilizes, I can negotiate an as-needed deal or something.”

He finally took a bite of his food, his head bouncing toward me when he shrugged. “Maybe start working on those babies we wanted before it’s too late.”

When his eyes returned to me, we both laughed until I reached for my drink. “Well, I’m not sure about all that at this point in my life, but I’m not opposed to the working on it part until we figure it out.”

Seeing me squirm always put a smile on his face, and he seemed more relaxed as his hand slid to my knee. “Me too. Just putting it out there in case you wanted my opinion on it.”

I understood his longing to go back in time to the plans he made — to cut out that whole ugly piece and splice together the good memories and things to come instead. We both grieved for that different life we missed out on. But we also knew no matter what the future held for us, we were together, and that’s all that mattered.