23
Owen
On Saturday morning, I go for my weekly jog with Andy. I haven’t spoken to Lia since last weekend and still don’t know what to do about it.
This is exactly why I don’t do relationships. They bring out the worst in me. The instincts that shouldn’t exist. She called me controlling and maybe she’s right, but I can’t stand by and do nothing. I won’t stand back and watch another woman I love be hurt.
I mean—fuck. I don’t love her. This thing is casual.
That’s what we agreed to. But still, I’m allowed to care, right?
I can’t stop myself from caring. Even if we’re just…
friends… SALON… whatever… I can’t turn this part of my brain off and I don’t want to.
I want her safe, and I will do anything to make that happen.
Anything, including humbling myself for advice from my little brother.
We’re nine miles into a ten-mile run and I’m very ready for it to be over, but I also need this last mile to figure out what to say about everything to Andy—Andy who’s not even winded, the little prick.
We’re moving down the Charles River path, picnicking families and angry geese and kayaking tourists everywhere, when he takes out his earbuds and asks, “So, how are things with you and Lia anyway?”
“Hah,” I laugh, mostly a wheeze. “Not great.”
“Really?”
I swallow a few more lungfuls of air before my body is capable of saying, “We’re in a fight.”
“What’d she do?”
I dart a critical look to my left. “Why are you taking my side? She’s your best friend.”
Andy shakes his head but his pace doesn’t falter. “Even if she’s right about the point she’s making, I’m sure she made it in the rudest way possible.”
My hackles rise higher. “She didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one messing things up. I feel like—I keep—”
I can’t quite find the words for it, and what a role reversal this is—Andy asking about my life, me stumbling to express what I mean. He doesn’t pry, just keeps the pace as I take my time.
I can’t share her secrets. I can’t tell him about the ex and the things he did, the things he’s still doing. And I know the lack of context is going to make me sound even crazier—even more like dad.
And shit, Andy doesn’t even know the truth about dad.
There’s no way to begin this conversation without that context. And that much—Lia has helped me realize—is mine to share.
So I ask, “You remember that talk we had last year, when things were going badly with Sophie?”
“The one about how I’m not dad?”
“Yeah. Well, I might need one of those right now.”
“Why?”
We turn right onto an arcing stone bridge, nearing the end of our loop. It feels like if I don’t get this out before we stop moving I’ll never have the courage, so I say, “I don’t like who I become around Lia sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… I see myself being a real asshole with her and I can’t stop myself.
” My running shoes pound over the crest of the bridge, then down towards the grass on the other side.
“But she does all these dangerous things like tagging her location and walking alone at night. And I know I have no right to tell her what to do, but she’s not looking out for herself and I can’t stand by and watch something bad happen to her.
She said I’m being controlling and hey, maybe she’s right.
Maybe I should just cut out now before things get worse between us. ”
“What does this have to do with dad?”
I was wrong. I can’t have this conversation in motion.
It’s too exhausting, too dizzying, and I owe it to him to look him in the eyes as I break apart our family history.
We’re a half mile short of our goal but I slow to a stop in the grass, Andy at my side as I wrap my arms over my head, sucking in thick gusts of air.
“Owen? You good?”
“Andy, he…” I force myself to look at him. “I don’t know how to say this so I’m just gonna say it. He abused mom. He manipulated and assaulted her. He’s the one who broke her wrist. And I know it’s true because—because I saw it.”
There are two stark lines between his brows—horror and confusion. “What?”
I’m still catching my breath, but I force out, “I know. I know. That’s what led up to him leaving.
That’s why I was never sad he was gone, but you were, because you were just a kid and I just—fuck.
” I bend forward, hands on my knees. I’m so tired, down to my bones. “I let it come between us. I’m sorry.”
Andy turns inward, gaze unfocused. Eventually he squeezes his eyes shut, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “You knew this whole time.”
And what can I say to that? It wouldn’t be right to blame mom—to explain that she asked me to keep quiet, that she never wanted her younger son to find out. So I just say again, “I’m sorry.”
Andy lowers to the grass, like he can’t bear his own weight anymore. “God, mom…”
I sit next to him, six inches of warm summer air between us. The sun is shining, reflecting off the river in bright white lines and it feels fucked up—to excavate the darkest parts of our history out here in the sunlight.
“I hate how much it changed between us,” I admit. “Even if it’s my fault. You turned into this rigid, organized, quiet kid. And I mean, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, I just wish it wasn’t… out of necessity. I wish I could've protected you from the consequences.”
At that, Andy sits up straighter, looking me in the eye. “Listen to yourself. You were thirteen when dad left and you felt like it was your job to protect me from the truth. You were a kid, too.”
My laugh is a pitiful, dry thing.
“And you realize it fucked you up as much as it fucked me up, right?”
“Obviously,” I say down to the grass.
A family walks past us along the river path. Two parents, two kids. High-pitched laughter and rosy cheeks.
“The shelters,” he says. “This is why.”
I nod. The small penance I’ve found for myself.
Andy sits cross-legged, letting his head fall into his hands.
“I can’t do anything right,” I say quietly, to the river. “I’m always hurting people or watching them get hurt. My whole life. And I don’t think I can do it with Lia. She deserves better than what I can give her.”
He says, “You’re wrong.”
“What?”
He’s shaking his head, muttering to himself, “Anxious avoidant motherfucker.”
“You psychoanalyzing me right now, asshole?”
A half-smile tempts the corner of his mouth, but he’s blunt as a rock as he says. “This isn't the first time you've pulled away from a relationship.”
“That's my point,” I say. “I know I'm a jerk. That's literally what I'm saying. I'm trying to get out before I can do something that really hurts her.”
“No, that's...” Andy takes a deep breath, then two, before he looks over to me. “You know I'm not good at this stuff, so can you give me the benefit of the doubt for a minute? This is my first draft of all this.”
I nod, cautiously offering him the floor.
“You're obviously scared of becoming dad, but it's like it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Not that I—I don't think you're like dad.
At all. But you're so scared of hurting people...” He pauses again, reorienting himself.
“It's like you choose to keep people at arm's length so you never have a chance to actually disappoint them.
You're taking yourself out of the game. You see that right?
You used to do it with me—-not that I'm innocent, I know I'm not easy to get along with.
But even now. You do it with your parade of casual dates, you've barely made a single friend since moving to Boston, and now that Lia forced her way into your life by sheer willpower you're trying to do it to her, too. You’ve gotta let people into your life who want to be there.
Don't punish yourself for something you haven't done.”
His words have emotion building behind my eyes, in my throat and my jaw.
“I can't watch her get hurt,” I murmur. “It’ll kill me.”
“You want to protect her. And I get that,” he says, “there’s some scary shit happening with her right now. But she doesn’t want a protector.”
My head tilts. “How much do you know about the… what’s happening with her?”
“Not all the details, but she told Sophie a bit. The stuff with Connor, right?”
“Is that his name?” I ask.
“The guy from college, yeah.”
I shake my head, looking to the sky. “Is it unreasonable to want to keep her safe? Is it controlling or is it the bare minimum? I feel like I don’t know anymore. My moral compass is all fucked.”
“Your moral compass is fucked because morality is subjective and the situation is fucked.”
That makes me laugh, and I meet his eyes fully. Our mom’s eyes, the comfort there.
“You can just be her friend, you know,” Andy says. “Or her… partner, whatever you are to each other. You don’t have to assume some over-inflated protector role. If you treat her like a partner, you’re protecting that spark that makes her who she is.”
“Damn.” I fall back onto the grass, staring into the bright blue above us. “How’d you get all wise?”
He falls next to me as he says, “My brother taught me.”