24. Camping Out Downstairs
CAMPING OUT DOWNSTAIRS
ANDERS
“You look really hot today,” I tell Helen, tilting my laptop screen back a little. “Did you get new glasses?”
She rolls her eyes. “My daughter says I’m dressed as an office siren.”
“You so are,” I grin. “Man, if you weren’t my therapist…”
“Did you see that one lady?” Helen cuts me off. “Krazy Kendra?”
“Message received. Back to professionalism.”
She pushes her glasses onto the top of her head and wipes at her forehead. “The AC is broken in this building. I picked the worst day imaginable to wear a blazer.”
“That explains the glow,” I laugh.
“How’s the writing?” she asks. Luckily, I came prepared. I hold up my battered composition notebook like it’s a trophy and flip through pages filled nearly edge to edge with handwriting. Helen immediately starts clapping. “Wow,” she says. “Look at you!”
I bow dramatically.
“There he is. Future bestselling author.”
“The only books I’ll ever write are those seventy-dollar textbooks professors force students to buy.”
“At least it’s not the faerie smut my daughter writes.”
“God, I love faerie smut.”
“I know,” Helen sighs in agreement.
I grin.
“So writing’s been good?”
“Oh yeah,” I deadpan. “My life is fucking zen, Helen. It’s glamorous, even.”
Helen immediately narrows her eyes. “The quicker you get to the point, the longer we have to talk about it.”
“You’re gonna be mad.”
“Anders.”
“I’ve been a bad boy, doc.”
“Anders.”
I sigh. “I’m genuinely trapped in an entanglement.” Helen groans before I’ve even continued. “My brother told Parker to ignore me. He ignored me. Now he isn’t.” I throw my hands up in defeat. “He wants me, but he refuses to admit it.”
“What makes you think that?” She asks calmly.
I laugh once. “Where do I even start? He got jealous when I said I was gonna sleep with some guy. Then he called me ‘baby’ over the phone and begged me to come home.”
Helen’s expression immediately drops. “And then?”
I rub my face. “And then about an hour ago he dropped to his knees and begged me not to leave him.”
For maybe the first time ever, I manage to render Helen completely speechless. Her mouth actually falls open, which should feel insanely unprofessional. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
“Anders.”
“Yup.”
She straightens. “That is not healthy, honey.”
“Ugh.” I sink lower into my chair. “I know.”
“How many times have we talked about this?”
“A lot.”
“You deserve someone who treats you consistently. Not someone who pulls you close one minute and pushes you away the next.”
I stare down at my desk because she’s right. The worst part is she’s always right.
“Anders,” she says more gently. “How did it feel when he called you baby?”
I immediately groan. “Oh, come on.”
“Anders.”
“It felt stupid.”
Helen raises an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. It felt nice.”
“Nice?”
I sink lower into my chair. “I’ve spent weeks telling myself I need to get over him, and then he calls me baby one time and suddenly my brain forgets every single lesson you’ve ever taught me.” Helen doesn’t even try to hide her amusement. “That’s not funny,” I mutter.
“It is a little,” she chuckles.
“I’m literally paying you to be on my side.”
“Your insurance is paying me.”
“Not the point, Helly.”
“Fine.” She sighs. “So it felt good.”
“Yeah.”
“Really good?”
I groan. “Yeah, unfortunately.”
“And when he begged you to come home?”
I stare at the ceiling, my eyes following the turning blades on my ceiling fan.
“Anders.”
“I’m thinking.”
“This is called avoidance.”
“Same thing.”
“No. Try again.”
I sigh. “It felt good,” I finally admit quietly.
“Good?”
“It felt really good.”
The words taste awful coming out of my mouth.
Sure, he begged and got jealous. He even dropped to his fucking knees.
But the fact that some stupid, selfish little part of me had been waiting for it is what makes me feel like a piece of shit.
Waiting for him to finally break. Waiting for him to finally hurt as much as I’d been hurting.
The realization makes me feel more than vaguely sick.
Helen studies me for a second. “And how did it feel when he ignored you?”
“Like shit.”
“When he pushed you away?”
“Like more shit.”
“When he acted like none of this existed?”
I blink. “Try and guess.”
She nods slowly. “And when he chose you?”
I laugh once, not because anything is funny, but because suddenly the pattern seems so obvious that I want to crawl under my desk. “That felt good too,” I confess. “So fucking good.”
“Interesting.”
I sigh and shake my head. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“The stupid therapist thing where you say one word and somehow make me feel attacked.”
Helen smiles. “You keep focusing on whether Parker wants you.”
My stomach tightens. Right again. It’s like every conversation somehow ends up there.
“What happens if Parker walks downstairs tomorrow and gives you everything you’ve been asking for?”
My chest immediately goes tight. I’ve spent so much time imagining the wanting that I’ve never really allowed myself to imagine the having.
What happens if he finally stops turning me away?
The images arrive so fast they trip over each other.
Him holding my hand, or introducing me as something more than Luca’s little brother.
Parker actually choosing me in broad daylight instead of the privacy of his own head.
For years, those thoughts felt like fantasies.
Now they feel terrifyingly possible, but impossible at the same exact time.
Helen watches all of it happen across my face. “Do you trust him with that?” she asks. The room goes quiet.
I trust Parker with almost every version of me. He’s seen all of them, and somehow he stayed. He didn’t call me insane. But loving someone isn’t the same thing as trusting them to love you back.
My throat feels tight. I look away from the camera. Helen waits, sighing eventually when I start hiding behind the silence. “You don’t have to answer that today.”
“Good.” Sighing, I pick at a loose thread on my sweatpants.
The truth is sitting somewhere inside my chest, half-formed and raw.
If I’m being fully honest with myself, I can’t tell if Parker is the safest thing in my life or the most dangerous.
“I don’t think I’d like whatever comes out of my mouth,” I admit.
Helen frowns. “Okay, well, I’d like to change gears for our remaining time, then,” she says a little apologetically. “Graduation’s coming up.”
“Yeah. In a few months.”
“A whole year early, too.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “It went by really fast.” It really did. Most days I still feel like the kid who showed up to Georgetown worried about not making any friends. Now graduation is sitting right around the corner, and I’ve built a life here I love. My own life.
“Have you thought about grad school?”
I nod. “I’m applying to Georgetown and GW.”
“And schools that aren’t in D.C.?”
I shrug. “NYU. All the big East Coast ones, but I don’t really wanna leave D.C.”
“Why not?”
I already know what she’s asking. The annoying thing is that I don’t have a simple answer. Part of it is Parker. Obviously.
I’ve never left D.C. and I don’t think I’d handle a move so well on my own.
I’ve spent enough time around hockey to know exactly how unstable that life can be.
One trade and suddenly you’re packing boxes.
Luca loves it. I don’t think I ever could.
That’s why a part of me is so glad he’s kept me in one place for the entirety of his career.
I know he was luckier than most for getting to stay on the Sentinels for so long.
“I like it here,” I finally say. “And academia makes sense.”
Helen waits, which is therapist code for keep going.
“I like the structure of it.”
“The structure?”
“Yeah.” The words come easier once I start. “You go to school. Then grad school. Then hopefully a PhD. Then you teach and do research and write papers and complain about university budgets and eventually become the professor assigning seventy-dollar textbooks.”
Helen laughs. “That’s the dream?”
“It’s a very stable dream.” And that’s the part I don’t say out loud at first.
Stable. The word sits heavily in my chest. Stability has always felt a little mythical to me, like something other people had. Not something you could count on.
And then there’s Parker.
God. Nothing about the last few weeks has felt stable. Maybe that should matter a little more than it does, but my mind hates me.
“Academia isn’t exactly the safest career path these days,” Helen points out.
“Yeah, but it’s safer than professional sports.”
She nods. “That’s very true.”
“And if I’m being honest…” I laugh softly. “I like knowing what comes next.” The admission feels embarrassingly revealing. Maybe that’s what this is really about. Maybe I’m just tired of worrying about what happens next.
Helen studies me quietly. “You’ve always been somebody who builds safety through planning.”
“Is that a therapist’s way of saying I’m a control freak?”
She exhales softly. “Just make sure you’re choosing something because it excites you,” she says gently, “and not only because it feels safe.”
The words land harder than I want them to.
In an ideal world, I think I’d be a writer. I’d live somewhere I love and I’d be surrounded by the people who love me. I love writing just as much as I love learning, but safety is part of it too. Maybe more than I’d like to admit.
Helen glances toward the clock on the wall behind her. “You know, I wish we had time to dive into that, but unfortunately we’ll have to put a pin in it.”
“Fine.” I groan. “See you next week, Helen.”
“See you next week, Anders.”
I think he’s fucking camping out downstairs. Each time I come down to grab something or run my laundry, he’s sitting on the couch with his laptop in his lap or pacing around the downstairs talking to one of his teammates about stupid fucking hockey shit.
This time, he actually has the audacity to try speaking to me again. “Hey,” he starts, careful like he’s approaching a wild animal.
Looking at him hurts too much, so I avoid making eye contact as hard as possible. But then he makes that impossible. He walks up to me and tilts my chin up, squeezing my jaw a little. Almost like he’s trying to force words out of me.
I turn my head away, but his hand stays there. I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to look at him, but then his thumb brushes over my bottom lip and something inside me finally cracks.
“Stop it, Parker,” I snap, shoving him away. “That won’t work.”
“Will you talk to me?”
I look him up and down with a disdainful look. “No.”
“Are you serious about moving out?”
I turn away and don’t answer him because I’m not entirely sure. Luca would pay for an apartment the moment I asked, but I don’t want his money and I don’t particularly care for the drama it would cause.
Parker is the bane of my existence and I’m still trying to protect him. Fuck.
“Anders.” He comes up from behind and holds onto my shoulder. I squeeze my eyes shut again and shake my head.
Something suffocating crawls up my throat, reminding me of what Parker told me last night over the phone.
He told me I was his air.
I don’t fucking care. I shouldn’t.
And yet…my bottom lip quivers when his arm wraps around my chest. My body settles against his, craving the contact. I even hold onto his arm and pull him closer against my better judgement.
Parker lets out a deep exhale, almost like he’s relieved I’m not pushing him away. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
Ten seconds. I’ll let him hold me for ten seconds until I feel better, and then I’ll push him away.
“This is all I’ve wanted,” he whispers again. “To hold you. To feel you. To smell you—”
I feel him tugging. Slowly reeling me in. “Stop,” I blurt. “Just stop.”
“Baby—”
I choke. “Stop. Stop. You can’t call me that.”
“It kills me to feel you pull away from me,” he murmurs.
I huff through my nose, turning around to give him a hardened look. “Hurts, doesn’t it? The push and the pull? Makes you feel like shit.”
He nods, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah. It does.”
“Do you feel it too?” I ask, furrowing my brows. “That sick feeling in your stomach? The ache in the back of your throat?”
“I’m sorry—”
“Do you realize how long I’ve been feeling exactly like this?” I ask, clenching my jaw. “Too long, Pet’ka. I’ve been feeling it for years. You do this to me. You hurt me.”
“What do you want me to say?” He lets out a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Anders. You’re so precious to me a—”
“Precious,” I echo thinly. My mouth curls into a cold smile. “Three months ago you dropped to your knees and sucked me off three feet from where we're standing.” I laugh once. “I think I'd rather you call me a dirty boy again. I’m not fucking precious.”
Age only seems to be a problem when he needs that barrier. Otherwise, I don’t think he could give two shits about it.
“I don’t feel bad for you.” I fold my arms across my chest.
He just stands there quietly and takes it like a good fucking boy…
Jesus. “I don’t care if your intentions were…
noble, or whatever. The problem—” I scoff.
“Your problem is the fact that you’re a coward.
You kiss me when you're jealous. You touch me when you want attention. But the second the real world catches up to you, that's when you pull away. This trying to be friends thing never would’ve worked,” I murmur as the thought crosses my mind.
“And I deserve to be with someone who doesn’t wait until it’s dark inside or when we’re behind closed doors to give me a shred of attention. ”
“You’re right,” he nods. His face softens apologetically. “About all of it.”
“Cool,” I nod. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
At first he doesn’t say anything. I step aside and walk in the direction of the steps, but he stops me. “I was terrified that if I let myself have you, I'd ruin your life."
He means it. I know he does. I can hear the pain in his voice as he speaks. But, like I said, it’s too late. I’m done waiting for him. I’ve given him three years. He’s given me nothing.
I exhale sharply. “I think you already did."