“Want to talk about therapy?” He’s staring at the latest argument my father submitted, but I’d rather talk about him than me.
“I’m not sure,” he says, distracted and distant.
“Okay, so . . .” I let my voice trail off.
We sit in silence, Tory glancing over the highlights of my parents’ divorce while my stomach knots in this shameful squeeze, knowing how much worse I’ve made it all. I’ve never quite gotten over the sense that some of their relationship’s demise was my fault. The frenzied legal state it’s at now is most definitely my fault. It’s because I’m selfish, and that might be what ruins me—my mom for sure. I have a feeling Tory’s in that place now, the very beginning of it. I wish he knew his brother was right there with him. They could help each other. I had to swim through the swamp on my own.
“I should put that on my resume,” I say, needing to break the quiet.
“Huh?” He pushes away the page he was reading with a flick of his finger and turns his attention back to me, his hands resting in his lap.
“Bargaining chip. That’s what I am in this whole thing. I’m a bargaining chip for my parents. I don’t really blame my mom, because she’s the one who has also been a parent along with being a manager, but it still feels kinda like—” I cut my words short when Tory interrupts.
“Like every other kid we know gets to grow up normal and we got ripped off?”
“Exactly,” I say. My forehead pinches as I consider that for a moment. “Though, pretty much all of our friends are from fractured families, so we really aren’t missing out.”
“We’re missing out,” he says swiftly. “They’re just missing out, too.”
He stands and wanders around my kitchen, moving on to the hallway plastered in framed photos of me through the years. Most of them are headshots, but some are pictures from performances. My favorite is the one of me in tap shoes with a giant heart covered in sequins around my head.
“You were always a diva, weren’t you?” he teases, tapping his finger on the glass of the frame. I move in closer to cut the glare and take in my ear-to-ear, full-teeth-showing smile.
“I’m certainly always on,” I joke.
“Not always,” he replies. I look to my right and meet his waiting stare. It isn’t that he suddenly sees me, but rather that he maybe always has and finally understands my fabric.
“Therapy . . .” I work to bring things back to him and his needs, but he’s having none of it.
“Show me more,” he says, moving down the wall and pivoting at the stairs. “Your room up here?”
He points.
“Yeah,” I croak out.
He takes the steps slowly, probably not wanting to ruin his good graces with my mom. I follow, noting how he takes time to look at every photo on the way up. The ones here are more personal, family portraits that include people who are no longer alive. My favorite is the last one near the top of the steps, which attracts Tory’s attention. He pauses there, waiting for me to catch up to him as I climb the last three or four stairs.
“You in a wedding or something?” he asks.
“No, it was my fifteenth. We went down to Miami for my quinceañera. Most of my family is down there, which is why my mom prefers to be up here because my aunts and cousins are nosy, and bossy. But that’s also where my abuela lived.” I run my finger along her form in the photo. I felt so grown up on that day, so celebrated and loved. My father even showed up, and for a full weekend, he and my mom didn’t argue once.
“You said lived,” Tory notes.
I nod softly and turn to meet his gaze.
“She died last year. She was in a nursing home down in Florida, and Mom and I hadn’t been to see her in almost a year.” I feel the burn of tears threaten to expose themselves, so I clear my throat and move past Tory to lead him toward my room.
Hayden hasn’t been up here. My mom is never home when he picks me up. I never invite him inside, and he never asks, yet more than anything I want to show Tory this personal window into my world.
We’re both hushed as we move in the opposite direction from my mother’s door. The spare room