by Megan Walker
It was more awe I remember seeing in his face when he first caught sight of that monster than proper terror. “Not enough.”
“Well, I am now.” His eyes go mock wide, and I laugh.
He doesn’t quite laugh, but he grins, and it’s real, and I wish the sight of that grin wasn’t so rare lately.
I take a step closer. “I really am sorry, you know.”
“I know. It’s okay. Me too.”
I should leave it there. I know I should. But he’s still got his arms folded, and he’s back to looking away, like he’s shutting himself off, and god, have I really made such a mess of things? I know I hurt him in that fight somehow, and I keep hurting him, and I don’t know how to stop, but I feel like I need to keep trying.
“I mean it, Josh. I know I can be kind of a brat sometimes, and high-maintenance, and I’m sorry. And then I get all insecure and I know I make things worse and—”
Josh’s hands clench into fists, and his face flushes. “Not everything’s about you!”
I take a step back, my mouth working soundlessly for a moment.
And then, because I’m me, not so soundlessly. “Well, maybe I have to make it about me! I don’t have anything else to go on!” I let out a shaking breath. “All I know is what you told me the other night,” I say, trying for a calm I don’t feel. “Which I appreciate you telling me, I do, and I know that wasn’t easy. But I know there’s more you’re not saying and I just—I don’t get it. I don’t get what’s happening, I don’t get where all this is coming from, I don’t get any of it.”
Tears have sprung to my eyes, and I wipe them away.
Josh squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s not about you,” he says softly. But he doesn’t say anything else.
I step closer to him again, touch him on the elbow. “Okay,” I say. “Do you think it might be worth going to see Dr. Bauer? Like, on your own, or maybe as a couple?”
Dr. Bauer is our therapist. We started seeing her soon after we were engaged, because not only did I have lots of issues from my dad to work through, but we figured starting off working toward better communication would only be a huge plus in our marriage. The therapy seemed to help with that, but eventually we both stopped going, getting busy and feeling like we had things totally under control.
But things don’t seem particularly under control at the moment.
Josh scrubs his face with his hands. “I don’t—I don’t know.” There are tears shining in his eyes, and he looks for all the world like a lost little kid. Scared and alone.
My heart feels cracked apart, and I wrap my arms around him. If nothing else, I want him to know he’s not alone, no matter what.
His rigid stance softens in my arms. He leans into me, but just barely.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.” His voice is barely above a whisper.
The surprise of that alone draws me back—I want to see his expression, the look in his eyes. But the moment my arms leave him, he slumps down to the ground in front of the armchair, like there’s nothing else holding him up. He sits with his knees up, his elbows resting on them, his head buried in his hands.
“Josh,” I say, but I’m not sure what else to say after that. I kneel down next to him, but so I can still face him enough to see what’s going on—to try my best to see, at least.
He still doesn’t look up from his hands. “I think all the ways I help people—it’s fear, part of it, but it also makes me feel better about myself. And either way, it’s like it’s all ego then. But if I’m just helping people for selfish reasons, if that’s what I do, then what does that make me?”
The cracks in my heart deepen, and I can feel the sharp points of the edges. I think of how Josh told Ben that he felt like a terrible person. Josh. Who is truly one of the best, most good-hearted people I know. Who fights for his clients for a living, yes, but also because he cares—I know he does, no matter what emotional crisis he’s having now. Who would give everything he has to give for the people he loves—and yes, me most of all. I know it, even if I doubt it sometimes.
“There is so much good about you,” I say. “You talk like you think you’re this horrible person—”
“No, I know I’m not that,” he says, and I’m relieved for that much, at least. “I work in an industry with some really horrible people. That’s not me. But I don’t think I’m as good as you think I am. I don’t think I’m as perfect as I present myself as being.”
I frown. I’ve never thought Josh was perfect—it doesn’t take long to date anyone, let alone be married to them, before you see that perfection isn’t something anyone has, even the person you love most in the world. But I think I get what he’s saying, or at least starting to. “You think people put you on some pedestal—your clients, your family, maybe even me. And you don’t belong there.”
He takes a moment, but then nods. “Kind of, yeah. I think maybe those who have a good opinion of me—maybe it’s not based in reality.” He looks up then, his dark eyes searching mine. “I don’t know what the reality is, Anna-Marie. What’s real about me, and what’s just me trying to hide. I want to be more open with you, more authentic. But I don’t know who to be.” His voice breaks. “I don’t know who that is.”
God. I’ve never heard him like this. So lost, so unmoored from . . . everything, maybe.
It terrifies me. My husband needs me, and I don’t know how to help him, and I wish Dr. Bauer were here. But she’s not, and I am, and so I’m going to do my best.
I just wish the stakes didn’t feel so damn high.
I take a deep breath and reach out and grip his hands. “Okay,” I say, with a voice as even as I can muster. “What about our marriage? Do you authentically want to be in it?”
His expressions softens. “Yes. Absolutely.”
The relief of that—and how sure he sounds—nearly makes me dizzy. “So us. The connection we have. That feels real.”
He grips my hands back. “It always has. Even before we were being totally honest with each other.”
“Before I knew you spoke Dothraki, and had Princess Leia fantasies,” I say with a smile.
He smiles back. “And before I knew you wrote Death Arsenal fan fiction. And were so open to re-enacting my Princess Leia fantasies.” His thumb strokes along the outside of my hand. “We’ve always had this connection. And that’s real.”
I scoot closer against his side and wrap my arms around him. “Yeah, it is for me too.”
“Even when we’re having problems?” He sounds hesitant.
But I’m not. Not about this. “Even then. Always.”
There’s a moment where I think we both just let ourselves be comforted by that. But I know now that his issue isn’t really about us, or at least not mostly. And our relationship is far from the only part of who he is.
“What about Ben? He’s been like a brother to you forever. Does that still feel authentic?”
Josh’s brows draw together; it takes him longer to answer. “Yes,” he says. “There’s baggage there. Like, the friendship is real and him being like a brother to me. I know that. But so much of my friendship with him has been me wanting to protect him—like when he first came out, and even later, when he was first into Wyatt, going to that damn pool hall with him practically every day for four months. Was I really being supportive? Or did I just need to feel like Ben needed me?”
I nod. “Okay. But the friendship at its core feels real to you.”
“Yes.” He sounds more sure about that now.
“Good.” I’m starting to feel a little more sure as we go, as well. “I think it’s good right now to figure out what things feel real, even if there’s baggage there.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
Thank god for that. “So how about your family?”
Another long pause. “I love my family,” he says. “Again, there’s some ba
ggage with all of them. But, yeah.” He lets out a breath. “That’s real.”
I squeeze his hands in mine. “Great. Okay. How about the geek thing? How much you love Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones, and painting minis and doing cosplay—all of that.”
He gives a little laugh. “Yeah. Probably my family wishes that was less authentically me.”
“Well, none of them are married to you, and I definitely don’t. Who else would role-play my Death Arsenal Curtis Huang and Jane Jennings fantasies?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? Having sex with a hot girl is incentive enough for most straight guys. No geek cred required.”
I laugh. “Okay, good point. But how many of them would debate the time line paradoxes between games two and five afterward?”
“Definitely fewer.” He smiles. “But I’m glad I’m the one who gets to.”
“Me too.” I lift our joined hands up enough so that I can kiss his knuckles. “So, next. Your job?”
He seems to expect this one to be next. “I love my job. But more baggage, because I’m not sure how much of why I love it is because it’s so tied into my self-esteem. Feeding that ego by helping people out, you know?”
I nod again. I honestly don’t know that that’s as much of a bad thing as he seems to think it is, but I don’t think pointing that out will help.
“This helps actually,” he says, a kind of stark relief in his voice. “It means I exist. There’s an actual me that’s in there.”
My stomach drops. Even after all he’s told me, even as lost as he was . . .
“That was a question?”
I don’t mean it to sound accusatory; I’m just so surprised. He looks away, abashed, and I put my hands on his face so that he’s looking at me again.
“You exist, Josh. You are Josh Rios, and you may not be completely sure who that is right now, but I am. You are a man who is loyal, and who has a strong moral compass. You are a man who cares about people in general, but the people you let into your life—you love them. And I’m the luckiest woman in the world to be at the top of that list.”
His eyes shine with tears again, and he swallows. Nods.
I’m about to tell him what an incredible father I know he’ll be—because, god, I know he will be—when the next question I should ask occurs to me. I take another steadying breath. “Do you authentically want kids?” If he doesn’t, after all that we’ve been through—
If he doesn’t, then that will hurt. Bad. But he’s still more important to me.
He blinks, then nods. “I want that,” he says, I start to let out a breath of relief, just as he says the word that makes my heart skip a beat. “But—”
“But?”
He cringes. “I don’t know if I can do this right now. Starting IVF, going through all that stress. I already feel like I’m about to break, you know?” He shakes his head. “I’m so sorry, Anna-Marie, I’m so—”
“It’s okay,” I say, and surprise even myself by meaning it.
“Really?” His brows draw together.
“Yeah. I want a baby, and god knows I’m not the most patient person in the world, but I get it. The stress sucks, and right now I don’t think either of us need that.”
He ducks his head. “I feel guilty denying that to you, because of all this shit. I hate disappointing you. I hate it. I think—” He blinks away tears. “I think that’s part of why I hide to begin with. Because I don’t want to let you down.”
I can’t help but think that if I had handled some of my disappointment about the infertility better—god, if I better handled my disappointment about not getting that pair of limited edition Balenciaga strappy heels before they sold out, anything—then he wouldn’t be struggling like this.
But he said it wasn’t about me, and I don’t want to keep making it so.
“It’s not you that disappoints me,” I say. “This situation, us wanting a baby so badly and not being to have one as easily as we’d like—that disappoints me. But that isn’t your fault. And as much as I hate my body for it, I know it’s really not mine, either. It just sucks.”
“But this thing I’m going through—”
“Isn’t your fault. It’s not. And if you need some time, that’s okay.” I press my forehead to his. “Even if it was your fault—which it’s not—that would be okay too. You can let me down sometimes, and I still love you just as much. Just like I know that I can let you down sometimes and you still love me. Right?”
His eyes glisten. “Right. Just as much.”
He leans in and kisses me, gently, and then pulls me into his arms. “Thank you. Talking through it like this, it helps.”
“Yeah, well,” I say, placing a soft kiss on his neck before nuzzling in against him. “Maybe I picked up a few skills from a very smart and sexy person I know who is fantastic at listening to people and helping them sort through stuff.”
His lips twist up. “Dr. Bauer?”
I pinch his side and he laughs. “You, Rios,” I say.
He kisses me on the top of my head, and then lets out a small sigh. We sit there for a few minutes longer, just holding each other, and then Josh says. “So . . . this room.”
I look around at what was once our den but now somehow looks like post-tornado trailer park. Okay, a nice trailer park, but still. “This room,” I agree. “Any chance we can convince Ben tomorrow morning that he did this in a drunken rage and needs to clean it up?”
“You mean that’s not what happened?” Josh asks, all innocence. He shakes his head. “Damn Ben and his drunken rages. He has to learn at some point.” He pauses. “You want to watch some Attack on Titan and work on assembling The Bronze for your Buffy table?”
I smile up at him. “You keep making sexy propositions like that and we won’t make it through a single episode before I jump you.”
He hugs me tighter. “All part of my plan, Halsey. All part of my plan.”
Eighteen
Josh
Felix and I meet at a Starbucks in the morning after I drop my car off to get detailed. I warned the clerk at the car wash that they might want to use gloves, and she looked at me like I’m an entitled snob.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
I hope I’m not about to be responsible for someone’s death by snake bite, but I don’t know what else to do, and I’m pretty sure no shop in town is going to touch my car if I tell them it may contain a rattlesnake.
I order my coffee while Felix grabs a hot chocolate. That’s right. No coffee for him.
“So,” he says, as he sits down across from me. “How are you doing?”
“Better. I had a long talk with Anna-Marie last night.”
Felix looks happy about this. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, and she convinced me that I exist, so that’s good.”
Felix cringes. “You were worried you didn’t exist? Is this some existential crisis?”
“I think so, actually. I’ve just been feeling lately that maybe the person I think I am isn’t really who I am.” I shake my head. The words sound as stupid coming out of my mouth as they do in my head.
“Yeah, well, you definitely exist.”
“That’s what Anna-Marie said. And I think I believe her.” I shake my head. “Of all the stupid crises to be having. I’m probably making a big deal over nothing.”
“I doubt it,” Felix says. “Calling your problems stupid won’t make them go away.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it should.”
Felix smiles. “Jenna and I both agree with you, believe me. But it’s never worked for us.”
I nod. “How’s she doing?”
“Better, I think,” Felix says. He takes a sip of his drink. “We really connected last night, and that was good. I don’t think it fixes anything, and she’s not ready to get help yet, but if she’s talking to me, at l
east I can keep tabs on it a little better.”
“That’s good. I think I’ve been doing the same thing to Anna-Marie that Jenna’s been doing to you. Refusing to talk about stuff.”
“Why do you think that is?” Felix asks.
I shake my head. “I told her it was because I’m afraid of letting her down. I’m afraid that she’ll see I’m not perfect.” A thought crystallizes in my head, something else I probably need to say to Anna-Marie, next time we talk. “I’m afraid that she’ll think I’m not the person she fell in love with.”
“I get that.”
I have some of my coffee. It scalds my tongue, but I don’t care. “Do you?”
“Wanting to be perfect?” Felix says. “Hell yeah. I hate making mistakes. Jenna and I have both spent a lot of time feeling like we’re not good enough for the other person, like we’re letting them down.”
“It sucks, right? Like, you love this person so much, and all you want to do is make their life better.”
“And then sometimes,” Felix says, “objectively, you make it worse.”
“Exactly.” I think back to my admission last night, that I’m not ready to do IVF. It’s true. I feel it in my bones. I won’t survive the stress right now.
I wish I could tell her when I’ll be able to, whether next week or next month, or next year. But all I know is I can’t right now.
“Jenna can have a bad day, and that adds stress to my life,” Felix says. “But it doesn’t compare to what life was like before her, or what it would be like without her.” He shrugs, leaning back in his chair and taking the lid off his hot chocolate to let it cool. “The way I explained it to her is that it’s like a paper cut. It hurts, but I still like my hand, so I’m not going to cut it off.”
“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Maybe that’s what I’m worried about. I know Anna-Marie isn’t going to leave me. Sometimes I have fears about that, but I know they’re irrational. But I’m afraid she’s going to stay and I’m going to paper cut her over and over, causing her all this pain.”
