“You want to move here?” I say dumbly.
“We do,” Grant confirms.
“So you don’t think I’m a bad father?”
May leans over to pull me into a side hug. “Are you kidding? How could anyone think that? You’re the best freaking dad.”
“We think you’ve done a wonderful job here,” Elise says. “Really. I didn’t mean to imply that youcouldn’tdo it alone, only that you don’t need to, because you have us. And we want to be a real part of your lives from now on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dad.”
“Sorry. No. I mean...” I take a giant gulp of my coffee to buy myself a few seconds. I’m having a hard time processing what they’re saying. This past hour has been a lot. First Travis, and now whatever this is.
They want tomovehere?
Elise reaches out to touch my arm again, this time her fingers lingering a bit longer. “We hope you won’t mind. We’re not trying to get in your way or take over anything. But the two of you are pretty much the only family we have left.”
“Family?” I repeat like it’s a foreign word.
“Well, yes,” she says as if it’s obvious.
“I didn’t know.”
She tilts her head, giving me a puzzled look. “Didn’t know what?”
Okayyy. This is awkward.
I bite the inside of my cheek. How do I tell her that I never considered them my family because I didn’t think they thought of me that way?
But they do. It sounds like maybe they’ve thought of me that way all this time.
Woah.Travis was right. He told me I wasn’t giving them a chance. That it was only my anxiety making me think they hated me.
For a second, a warm feeling rises inside of me. But it crashes back down when I think about Travis again.
Elise and Grant are right here, sitting in front of me and telling me we’re family. Letting me know they care. That they want to be here. Permanently. They want to stay and spend time with Mayandme. And I should be happy about this. I think Iamhappy.
Yet it still feels like there’s a giant, gaping hole in my heart. A place Travis methodically carved out of me to make room for himself in there. And I let him do it. Because I believed he was going to stay and fill it.
But now he’s gone.
It was all fake. We’re not anything.
It only took seven words to destroy the relationship it took us over ten years to build.
After he gave me a perfect glimpse of what it’s like to have everything with him, I don’t know if I can go back to only a friendship. And I don’t even know if he wants that. He didn’t say we were friends. He saidwe’re not anything.
“Brenden, are you okay?” Elise asks gently.
No, I am totally not okay. Rather than say that, though, I take a moment to look at her. Really look at her. I’ve known her and Grant for over thirty years. They’ve been in my life now longer than my own parents were—which is a terribly painful fact I can’t bear to think about right now.
When I was young, they were just my best friend’s parents. April didn’t get along with them too well, and since I only really saw them through her eyes, I figured that was their fault. And maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t, but that doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?
We all lost April. But they’re still here, and I’m still here. And I’m a grown ass adult. It’s time for me to stop being intimidated by them. To stop feeling like I’m going to get in trouble. They haven’t done anything to hurt me. May and I don’t see them often, but they’ve still been there for us. They loaned me money when I needed it, and they check in on us. Just because we don’t have a lot in common doesn’t mean we can’t have a good relationship.
Elise, who wears cashmere sweaters that are probably more expensive than my electric bill, is sitting here in yoga pants and a baggy T-shirt, because she was more than happy to try yoga in the middle of the town green when May asked her to. And while Grant looks slightly more uncomfortable in his workout clothes, he did it too.
