43. Twisted Needs
TWISTED NEEDS
ANDERS
Anders has been moving around the kitchen for the last fifteen minutes pretending he isn’t nervous while I sit on the couch with his manuscript resting untouched in my lap.
He keeps finding invisible things to clean.
The counter already shines under the pendant lights, but he wipes it down again anyway, movements quick and distracted.
Then he reorganizes the stack of mail near the fridge.
Then the dishwasher opens and closes, as if dirty dishes will magically appear.
Every few seconds I hear another fucking cabinet open and close.
“You know,” Anders says finally, not looking at me, “you actually don’t have to read it tonight.”
“I want to,” I tell him gently. He’s been weird about this for the past week now, so I honestly think ripping off the bandaid is the best decision.
His shoulders lift slightly with a breath before falling again. “Okay.” But he still doesn’t sit down.
I settle back against the couch and finally turn to the first page.
Twisted Needs.
By Anderson de Sousa.
The title means nothing to me at first. Neither does the opening paragraph.
The story begins quietly. Just a younger narrator describing the first time he meets an older man through a university mentorship program—who turns out to be his new neighbor.
The man teaches political theory at a small liberal arts college somewhere in New England.
Divorced. Mid-thirties. Smart in an understated way.
But he’s written to be…painfully ordinary.
There isn’t anything special about him. He’s familiar… a normal guy.
I recognize him immediately.
The older man listens more than he talks. He cooks for the narrator without making a big deal out of it. Lets him stay too late after meetings and offers him a ride home. The details are wrong, but the emotional shape of him isn’t.
I shift slightly deeper into the couch and keep reading. Behind me, another cabinet opens then closes. Then immediately opens again. “You’re making me nervous,” I mutter absently. “Come sit with me.”
“I’m fine.”
Somewhere around page twelve, something inside me starts feeling off.
Not because the story becomes inappropriate like I was afraid it would.
It becomes lonely. The narrator never describes the older man as cruel, even though there’s no clear manipulation in the story.
If anything, the older man spends most of the narrative trying very carefully not to cross lines he clearly feels himself approaching anyway.
But the narrator…he’s drowning. And apparently I didn’t understand until now how visible that drowning actually was.
I stop briefly on a paragraph describing what it feels like to build your entire emotional stability around tiny scraps of affection another person doesn’t even realize they’re giving you.
A hand against the back of his neck after a panic attack…
I think of pulling Anders to my chest when he’s upset.
A late-night phone call…I call Anders after my games.
Things so small they probably felt meaningless at the time.
But Anders writes them with this devastating level of emotional precision that suddenly makes me aware of how differently we were living through the exact same moments.
To me, those years felt restrained and entirely dangerous in ways I kept trying to control.
To him, apparently, they felt life-altering.
My eyes drift lower down the page. The narrator talks about insomnia casually, like he’s just mentioning the weather.
Talks about panic attacks in detached, clinical language that somehow makes them worse to read.
There’s an entire section where he describes sitting through dinner while the older man discusses trying to reconnect with his ex-wife, and halfway through the scene the narration slips into this spiraling internal monologue about feeling himself disappear in real time.
Like he’s been erased as if he were the tiniest, most insignificant pencil smudge…
My chest tightens abruptly. I lower the papers slightly into my lap and stare out toward the kitchen. Anders immediately stops moving. “You okay?” His voice sounds careful now.
I look at him standing there near the counter, shoulders tense beneath my shirt, and suddenly all I can think about is the fact that he wrote this when he was nineteen.
“You wrote this after the blizzard that year?” I ask quietly, guessing.
“Yeah,” he says after a second. “Around then.”
I nod once then look back down at the manuscript. Something ugly starts revealing itself slowly inside my chest the longer I sit there with it. That night was one of the first times I realized I was in trouble with Anders. I remember how easy it felt being around him there.
I keep reading, and the story keeps getting worse in clarity.
There’s one scene where the narrator admits he’s started measuring his self-worth based entirely on how much attention the older man gives him on any particular day.
Another where he describes feeling physically humiliated by how badly he wants someone who keeps loving him carefully enough to avoid any accountability.
I physically stop breathing for a second, because I know exactly what version of me Anders is writing about.
The man who held him through panic attacks, kissed his forehead and called him sweetheart in private while still pretending there were emotional boundaries between us sturdy enough to protect either of us.
I drag a hand slowly over my mouth. The house has gone completely silent now. Anders isn’t moving around anymore. I can feel him watching me from across the room even without looking up.
Then I hit the line that finally destroys me.
Sometimes I think the cruelest thing a person can do is teach you what safety feels like right before becoming the reason you lose it.
Everything in my body goes still. My vision blurs so suddenly it takes me a second to realize why.
Oh, God.
I did that to him.
The words sit there on the page while something inside me caves inward all at once.
I understand everything now…I’ve never understood anything more clearly than I do this.
I thought he was emotionally dependent on me…
.that I was helping him by trying to keep some amount of distance between us.
But he was heartbroken. That’s what this was.
For years. And I kept accidentally reopening the wound over and over again because I was too scared to admit what I felt for him.
A horrible tightness climbs into my throat.
The monster I’m reading about is me.
I lower the pages shakily into my lap.
“Parker?” He sounds like he’s already preparing himself for me to regret reading it.
“You thought I hated you?” I ask quietly.
Anders’ entire face crumples immediately. “No,” he says quickly. “No, Parker, I didn’t—”
“No.” I shake my head. “You wrote that I looked at you like I regretted you.” The words come out rougher than I intend. “Oh my God,” I whisper. I press the heel of my hands hard against my eyes while my chest starts shaking.
“Parker,” Anders says softly. “Hey. Lovie, you’re okay.”
A broken sound leaves my throat before I can stop it. Then suddenly Anders is moving toward me carefully, like he’s approaching something fragile enough to spook if he moves too fast. The couch dips beneath his weight beside me before his hand settles gently against the back of my neck.
I do that, too. When I comfort him…that’s what I do.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs.
“No, it isn’t.” I shake my head hard. “You were having panic attacks,” I say hoarsely. “You were writing about not wanting to wake up some mornings and I was just standing there pretending everything was fine.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve.” The answer comes immediately. I should have. I should’ve looked closer instead of hiding behind technicalities and self-control and all the other bullshit excuses I used to justify keeping Anders at arm’s length emotionally while still taking everything he gave me.
My breathing turns embarrassingly uneven.
Anders’ fingers slide slowly into my hair.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly.
Even now he’s trying to protect me from this.
He’s helping me in the same way I thought I was helping him, and now I’ve had to use Anders as a vessel to finally understand just how badly I’ve treated him.
I finally look over at him fully, and the expression on his face nearly undoes me completely. There’s no accusation there or any bitterness. Just this awful tenderness that makes my chest ache so badly I almost can’t stand it.
“I have always loved you,” he says softly, like it explains everything. “What else was I supposed to do with it?”
No. My eyes burn immediately. I reach for him before I can think too hard about it, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt and pulling him against me hard enough that he nearly falls into my chest. Then I bury my face against his shoulder.
And for the first time in years, I let somebody else be the one holding me together as tears fall down my face.
“I’m probably the stupidest person alive,” I murmur into his hair.
Anders lets out a quiet laugh against my chest. We’re tangled together beneath the blankets, his head tucked beneath my chin and my arm wrapped around his waist. Every now and then my fingers drift through his hair because I can’t seem to stop touching him.
Maybe it’s because I spent so many years trying not to.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he agrees softly.
“I don’t deserve this.”
“Maybe not.” I feel his smile against my skin. “It’s a good thing you’re stuck with me.”
A laugh slips out of me then. My throat still feels raw from crying, and I hate that he had to see me like that, but I don’t have the energy to be embarrassed anymore.
The manuscript is still sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. I keep thinking about it. Not the writing itself, although it’s incredible. Not the publishing opportunity, either.
I spent so much time trying to manage it that I never stopped to ask what it actually felt like from his side.
Now I know. The worst part isn’t realizing how much he loved me.
I think some part of me always knew that.
The worst part is realizing how lonely he was while he loved me.
I spent years telling myself that distance was the responsible choice, but reading that manuscript felt like discovering that every step backwards I took left him standing there alone.
I don’t think I’ll ever completely forgive myself for that.
“I think you should publish it.”
Anders immediately lifts his head. “What?”
“I think you should publish it.”
He laughs once. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because absolutely not.”
I smile despite myself. “It’s good, baby.
” His expression softens a little then. I reach up and brush my thumb across his cheek.
The emotional exhaustion is still there.
I can see it in his eyes. “And you wrote something honest,” I whisper.
He looks away. “I mean it, Anders. You wrote something honest, and people connect with honesty.”
He’s quiet for a moment before sighing. “Academia is the safer option.”
“Of course it is.”
“I like safe.”
“You’ve spent your entire life trying to build stability for yourself,” I tell him. “And I understand why. But stability isn’t supposed to become a cage.” His eyes flick back up to mine. “You don’t have to spend the rest of your life surviving.”
The room falls quiet after that. I can practically see him thinking. He’s running through every possible outcome before any of them have happened like he always does. It’s one of the things I love most about him. It’s also one of the things that exhausts him.
“You need me to need you,” he says finally.
The words don’t hurt as much as they would’ve a few months ago. They’re absolutely fair. I think about them for a second before answering. “Maybe I used to.”
He watches me carefully. “I think for a long time I liked being necessary because it made me feel secure.” I smooth my hand slowly up and down his back.
“But those aren’t the same thing.” His expression softens.
“I don’t need you to stay because you feel responsible for me.
” The words are harder to say than they should be.
“I need you to stay because you want to.” All I want is for him to build the biggest life possible and let me be part of it.
“I’ll think about it,” he says quietly.
I kiss his forehead. “That’s all I’m asking.”
Then I pull him closer and hold him there. The knot in my chest finally loosens a little.
“I love you,” I murmur. “More than anything.” I grab his hand and put it over my heart, letting out a deep sigh of relief. “I know what love is.”
His expression becomes tender as he swipes his hand over my skin. Then he settles back against my body, folding the distance. “You love me?” He asks softly.
“Anders,” I whisper. “You’re the love of my life.”
“Good.” He looks up at me through his lashes, narrowing his eyes. “What about Aunt Jen?”
“Baby, please don’t call my ex-wife your aunt,” I sigh, holding him closer to me. His mouth curls crookedly. “I mean…I loved her…” I answer him. “I still do. She’s one of my closest friends.”
“I know.”
“But it wasn’t the all-consuming kind…” I swallow hard. “I love you because you’re a part of me, Anders. I love you in so many different ways.” I blink. “I guess I just feel like…you’re mine,” I confess. “And maybe some twisted part of me feels like you always have been…”
He inhales deeply, but I don’t see anything concerning cross his face. He’s just hearing me out…waiting to hear whatever insane thing I’m trying to dance around.
“Do you feel like that?” I ask him instead, dragging my fingers up and down his back.
Anders nods silently. “I know what you mean.” He closes his eyes and settles against me. “It’s what I need.”
“I know you do.” It isn’t some revelation. Of course I know it’s what he needs. We both know exactly what this is.
Just because we’re fated doesn’t mean it had to start out as something romantic.
I loved him because he was precious. And then I loved him because taking care of him felt like the only thing I’ve been put on this Earth to do.
And now I love him because I’ve spent the last eighteen years loving him.
I didn’t know it would come to this. How could I?
I love him the way I do because it was the only kind of love that was missing.
And I don’t think love could ever be wrong. Not if it’s real.