“You haven’t been with anybody... Why?” She frowned.
“Why haven’t you?”
“Well. I could go into a whole monologue about broken trust. And another one about being famous. And how it affects the way that people see you. How it affects the way that you interact with people in all of that. But the simple truth is... I didn’t want to be.”
He shook his head. “Me either.” He wasn’t good with feelings; he wasn’t good with words. And it wasn’t just that he didn’t like sharing his feelings; at this point, it was like a language that he had lost. He had feelings—he could acknowledge that. But he had done such a good job of pushing them behind a wall, of suppressing them, that the truth was, he didn’t quite know how to translate them. Within his own self, to his own self.
“There was something different about being with you. The idea of letting somebody else put their hands where you’d put them... It was like cursing in a church. Walking on top of sacred ground, when you’re supposed to leave it be. I don’t know.”
She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I can claim to have felt like it was sacred ground. I just couldn’t imagine... I just couldn’t imagine. And maybe we needed this. Maybe we needed something more finished. Something not quite so painful.” She turned to her side again and put her hand on his chest. He closed his eyes. There was a goodbye in those words. He knew that. Goodbye had always been the only option. Because he couldn’t do forever. Which meant goodbye was inevitable, which meant he couldn’t rail against what she was saying. Not without changing everything, the entire landscape that he had built up inside of his chest.
The map to who he was.
He remembered vaguely thinking that she was a map to somewhere else, but... He wasn’t sure he could follow it.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
And that meant accepting the silent goodbye.
But for now, they were here. For now, there was no leaving here.
“You changed me,” he said finally. “Everything that I’m doing... It’s because of you.”
“Well, because you were angry at me,” she said.
“Does it matter? It was still a change.”
“I guess not. Because I guess the same could be said for me.”
“What are your plans for Christmas?” he asked. His own family would have their big rowdy get-together, and he would pretend he didn’t hate it.
“I’m going to visit my mother. In Palm Springs. That’s where her house is. She wanted to be warm. She wanted palm trees.” He saw a tear slide down her cheek. “I’m always so afraid that I might lose this. You know, the money is a big deal. My mother raised me in a trailer, never knowing if we were going to have enough to make rent, to keep the lights from being shut off. I found that in the end, revenge wasn’t the important piece so much as love. Giving back for the love my mother showed me. She’s a tough woman. But she loves me. I know that having me made her life harder, but she never acted like I was a burden. She always said that I was a gift. I like giving her things. I like paying her back... I like...”
“You bought your mother a house,” he said. “And on top of all of that, you’re her daughter. I don’t think you’d lose her if something happened with your career.”
“Maybe not. But she’s the only person that stayed in my life always. The only person who was there at every step, and I finally got to give back to her, and what if someday it isn’t enough?”
Unspoken was the idea that she clearly felt like she hadn’t been enough for her father.
“Do you think you weren’t enough for me?”
The words scraping his throat raw, it was dancing close to things that he didn’t want to talk about. Things that he didn’t want to admit.
“What else is a woman supposed to think? If I had been enough...”
He reached out and put his hand on her cheek. “No. If you learn one thing from what I told you, if you take one thing away from it, then take this. If there was anything that could fix me, it would’ve been you. It was never fair for me to touch you. Because when I tell you my problems are mine, and when I tell you they are built into the deepest part of who I am, I need you to believe that.”
She didn’t say anything. “Like I said. I think we needed this. I think this is important.”
He nodded slowly. Except he didn’t really like that conclusion for some reason. He’d always been like this with her. He wanted it both ways. To have her. To stay safe. He already knew he couln’t do both.
“I might not be able to fix all the things inside of me, but maybe I can fix what I did to you,” he said.
“I don’t need you to fix me, Flint. That’s actually been part of the conclusion that I’ve come to. Yeah, I was angry at you. I was. But I was afraid too, because if I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have saved all of that for a song. I would have said it to you. Yes, I was hurt by what happened. You know that. I was devastated. I let myself believe that what you said about yourself was wrong. I let myself believe that because things changed for me they would change for you too. But I wasn’t trying to spare you by holding back, I was trying to spare myself.”
“That’s all any of us are trying to do,” he said, the words coming from somewhere deep inside of him, and he hadn’t realized how true they were until he’d said them.
But he made a concerted effort to shut off any realizations that might come as a result.
“My family always does a big Christmas thing,” he said finally. “And I pretend that I like it. But I don’t. I pretend that I like it, because you have to do that with your family. You have to do that for your family. Especially when... You know, I feel like they’ve all moved on without me. Like they’ve all reached some kind of healing that I just can’t find. Some of my brothers have lagged behind a little bit. But now three of them are getting married.” He laughed. “Well. Not all of them. My brother Buck... Something happened a long time ago, and he left. There was an accident and he... He wasn’t the same after. I know that eats at my parents. Because even though he didn’t die, they lost another child. He was never himself, and then he went away. He’s the only one that didn’t stay. The only one that didn’t stay on the ranch, the only one that didn’t stay in the rodeo. I’m angry at him, you know. I’m angry at him for leaving. For not doing what I do.”
“And what’s that?”
“I don’t feel any of it either. I don’t feel healed. I don’t feel happy to be there. I can’t handle the emotions of it. I can’t handle the way my mom wants to talk about my sister and share memories. I can’t handle sitting around and telling stories, like there could ever be happy memories of somebody that you’ll just miss for the rest of your life. But I do it. And if I want to rage, I do it on the inside. Because I did what I had to do to deal with myself so that I could be there for my family. So honestly, fuck him.”
He watched a series of complicated emotions flit across Tansey’s face. And of course, he saw pity among them.
“I never wanted you to feel sorry for me,” he said.
“Only a jerk wouldn’t feel sorry for you. Are you sorry for me that my dad left?”
“Well, yeah...”
“I’m sorry for you. Because this is hard, and terrible. Because it’s more than anyone should have had to deal with. Because it’s difficult and sad. Because...”
“What?”
“Because it’s not fair. All the things that happened to us that break our hearts before we can ever make choices. You don’t choose your family. And I had a terrible father. You have a great family, but it still came with tragedy, and I... I just don’t think it’s fair.”
