I wanted to, but then it’d be even worse. More torture. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to myself. Or him.

I choked out, “One month. You got me?”

He groaned. “One month.”

“Do the work.”

“I’ll do the work.”

Oh, heart. Melting.

My knees shook.

A whole month? My heart was being squeezed out of me, but no. We could do this.

“Aspen?”

My hand squeezed my phone so tight. “Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Yes. A whole month. That was it. “I love you too.”

49

Aspen

July had been long.

August was longer. I think because there was more at stake, and because college lay ahead of me at the end of the month. Until then, there was more family time. Nate was around a lot, but August still seemed endless.

No calls from Blaise. No texts.

He was serious, and I was serious.

I was also going insane.

I missed him.

I wanted him.

I cried for him.

I bargained in my head so I could contact him.

But no.

In the end, I didn’t reach out, and he didn’t either.

If he wasn’t doing the work, I was going to kill him.

That was my new mantra, and it was getting me through the month—that and listening to Nate call my parents every night and ream them out for things he’d been holding in since his high school years. Guess he needed a couple weeks to process, but them forgetting my graduation had been like the dam breaking with him.

He got mad, and then he got furious, and then he’d started sharing. I loved it.

Our parents wished he’d stop sharing.

I didn’t.

50

Blaise

“I’m going to admit that when you first called and requested daily appointments, I thought you were insane.”

I sat in my therapist’s office, across from her, and she was laughing.

“I’ve never had a client request daily appointments for an entire month. It was a miracle I could even shift my schedule around to accommodate you. And then to have you actually show up for all the appointments?” She shook her head. “Usually the problem is clients who don’t show up.” She stopped laughing. Her hands folded in her lap, over her pencil skirt. I’d been envisioning Aspen in that same outfit. She didn’t dress like my therapist, but the skirt? Hell yeah. Put some glasses on her, maybe give her a ruler, and she could bark orders at me any day of the week.

My therapist sat up straighter.

Her name was Naomi. She was recently married and had moved from Washington down to Cain. I knew all this because her husband was the one who spoke to her for me. After Aspen’s command—fucking hot command—I did my research.

Naomi Ferrer was new to the area and setting up her private practice. She had the acumen, because I saw her degrees online, and I’d guessed she’d have the most open calendar for what I wanted.

I’d called and made my request. She’d turned me down flat.

Then I found out her husband was one of the professors at Cain, and he was a soccer enthusiast. That’s when I approached my coaches. I’d been hesitant, because shit like this wasn’t usually discussed on the soccer field, but my coaches had supported me. My head coach said they’d rather have a guy getting his head cleared than a hothead who could be a danger on the field. That made sense. One of them spoke to Dr. Ferrer’s husband, and he got her to change her mind. She was even amenable to my soccer schedule, which came in handy because we’d had three matches before classes started next week.

“I’m impressed with you, Blaise,” she told me.

I nodded. “It’s a good thing you didn’t know me a few months ago.”

“You’ve made progress. I was initially worried about the emotional duress I’d be putting you under daily, and the ethics of that, but you handled it. And you did it well, and again, I’m impressed. For an incoming freshman, you’re setting up a phenomenal foundation to build upon. But…”

There was always a but, I was finding.

“You still have not confronted your mother about why she wasn’t honest with you all those years. That’s a problem.”

We’d been through everything else.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy—EMDR. That’d been enjoyable (insert heavy, heavy sarcasm). But the post-traumatic stress crap I dealt with was better. Someone could touch my arm when I was in the middle of a flashback—and I’d had a few more over the month—and I could check myself.

I now recognized the state when I was in it, and I was also hopeful that eventually, the flashbacks would stop happening. For now, though, I could navigate my way out of them using the tools Dr. Ferrer had taught me.

That was all I wanted. It meant I wasn’t such a danger, but my head was still messed up. Sometimes I felt like the more therapy I got, the more crap we dug up, and the worse I got. That had lasted until this week when, surprisingly, some of that shit had started to lessen.

Dr. Ferrer said I could slow down my therapy, but she wanted to see me for another six months. Turns out, a childhood of abuse and trauma really fucks someone up.

“I have a guess as to why you haven’t confronted your mom, but I want you to tell me your thoughts. Because you do have them, right? You have some idea, don’t you?”

God, I missed Aspen.

Right now. I wanted her here. In my arms.

I wanted to hear her voice.

“Blaise.”

“What?” I hadn’t meant to wander off. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, but I would like you to answer my question.”

I didn’t want to answer, and not because I didn’t know. I’d thought about this; I just didn’t like saying it out loud. That made me feel…more raw, if that was possible.

More exposed.

I was getting tired of this daily shit.

Every day I felt exposed, vulnerable, emotionally stripped, and then every night I had to regroup from practice and from counseling. Aspen wanted me to do the work, so I was, but it was hard. The hardest thing I’d gone through… No. That wasn’t true.

Surviving him had been the hardest thing.

That’s when I knew I had to answer.

“Because if I confront her, I will hate her.”

Naomi shifted in her seat, her mouth tightening. She didn’t seem to have expected that answer.

“That door is shut right now, but I know it’s there,” I continued. “I’ve been angry at everyone except her. Been wanting to tear into everyone, hurt them, except her, and part of that is because she was all I had growing up. I had no one else—and yeah, I didn’t fully have her either, but she’s my mom. He broke her too. She didn’t know the extent of what he was putting me through. I hid it. He hid it. She hid from herself, drinking. Then this shit that he wasn’t my real dad came out, and I was relieved. I was thankful. But…”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “I try to sit and think about the ‘what if.’ What if she’d told me? What if she’d told Stephen? I don’t know who wins going down that path, so I don’t. Nothing can be changed. I survived. I used to think I was like him, that I was the lowest piece of shit on this earth, but I’m not. This—doing this shit, keeping focused with soccer, having Aspen in my life—I’m not him. I won’t be him. And I don’t know, a part of me is grateful I attacked Stephen, because I have that clarity now. I didn’t have that before. I couldn’t have that before, so maybe I should yell at my mom. I don’t know. Is that the right thing? Lash out at someone who was hurting right alongside you? Lose the one person I had during all that hell?”

I shrugged, no longer seeing my therapist. I didn’t feel the chair I was in. I wasn’t aware of the room around me. I had no concept of time or day or anything. I just saw my mom after one of the last times he’d ripped into her.

“She was crying so hard. The words he said to her, no one should ever hear those words. But he said them. And she took it, and I realized she’d been taking it for years. Fucking years. And she was still standing too. So I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I have enough bad shit inside of me. I don’t want to let myself think further about the ‘why’ of her putting me in that situation. If she knew what we’d end up in, I don’t think she would’ve done it. That’s obvious. She would’ve told Stephen she was pregnant, but she didn’t. She told him, and he loved her, or that’s what he said, and I have to think it hurt her something fierce to go with him, to decide to keep quiet about everything. We’ve never talked about it, but I know it eats at her. And I know she’ll tell me. She’ll have to, and I know she’s sorry, and I know she’ll apologize for lying to everyone, but… I don’t know. I’m still healing. She’s still healing, and we’re not there yet. We will be one day. I have to believe that. But I’m tired. Of all of it. I’m tired of being a dick. I’m tired of lashing out at people. I’m tired of hurting people, but I also know I’m still me. I’m still an asshole. I know I will say shit to hurt people, and I hate that now. I don’t know. Who am I to judge her, you know? Who am I?”