“It’s probably easiest if I start by expanding on what you already know. Putting things in context. Starting with how it was for me in high school.”
“You mean how you and James struggled?”
“We were bullied, Maureen. That’s the right word. I know it might seem strange now that you know us as grown adults, but you have to picture me as the short, skinny, kinda-goth, kinda-emo teenager I was. It just didn’t fly at Seattle Elite. James wrestled with being the shy, chubby kid, but I was always the mouthy little punk who defended us both.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, James told us about some of the shit you pulled. Like when you knew one of the jock kids was copying off you, you deliberately bombed a test so he would too.”
“Oh man, I forgot about that one.” The memory came back to me, and I stifled a laugh. “I think the reason I fought back more than James is that I had a different relationship with our classmates. You remember I told you I worked at Wallingford Capital? Well, it’s actually my family’s company. My grandfather founded it. So I knew those rich kids my whole life. Our parents did business together, golfed at the same clubs, attended charity functions. You can guess the rest. James didn’t show up until freshman year, and his family was different. Working class.”
“At least you had him for high school.”
“You have no idea. It made those days a little better. But at home, it was still tough.”
“Tough?”
“You could probably imagine I wasn’t the kid my parents had envisioned for themselves. They never had a second child, and I grew up feeling like a constant disappointment. Not athletic, or brainy, or social. When I was little, they took me with them to all their events and tried to make playmates out of their friends’ and colleagues’ children, but eventually, they gave up. I embarrassed them.”
Maureen startled. “They said that?”
“No. Not outright. I felt it, though. To give them their due, they tried. This time of year always reminds me. They were away a lot while I was growing up, but always made time for Christmas. It’s one reason I like the season so much. But even the rest of the year, when I had nannies and later housekeepers, they called and talked to me a lot. Asked how I was doing. I never doubted they loved me, even though I knew they were…confusedby me. When it became clear I wouldn’t be a country club brat, they gave me art supplies and video games and tried to make me happy. I’m pretty sure they knew what was going on at school—that the kids their friends bragged about made my life a living hell—but they didn’t know how to help.
“Every month or two, one of them would come into my room with some great new idea. ‘Why don’t you try the debate club, William? That could be fun’ or ‘Eloise Murphy told me her daughter still needs a date to prom.’ My father offered to pay for private coaches so I could ‘consider joining lacrosse.’ They refused to see I would have sucked at debate. I could barely keep my grades up as it was. Eloise’s daughter—Adelyn—would have died laughing if I asked her to a dance.”
“And lacrosse?”
I waved my hands a little. “Um…yay sportsball?”
She giggled before covering it with a cough, taking a sip of her tea. “It must have been rough, having them keep pushing you to try things they knew you weren’t into. I’m glad my momsupported my purple hair and kept me stocked with fashion magazines.”
“I bet you looked cute with purple hair.” I smiled, picturing it. “That’s what I mean by wanting to put it in context. I told you yesterday I’d been acting out before my accident. But it wasn’t just that I was being rebellious. I was in pain. For years, I felt like a shit person. A disappointment. An embarrassment. My parents didn’t know what to do with me. And not that I needed them to compliment me on my art—although that would have been nice—it was just this empty feeling that came from knowing the people who loved me most in the world didn’t really like me.”
“Oh, Will—” She slid off the chair to sit next to me on the mattress. I scooted against the wall to put a few inches of space between our sides.
“After graduation, I told my parents I wanted to take a gap year, that I needed a break. I thought I could reinvent myself and figure out what came next. I focused on my art and spent my days busing tables, dismissing my parents’ offer of a cushy internship at Wallingford. At my job, I met Riley. I started calling myself Billy, as though a fresh name could help me be a different version of myself. A version I could like, even if my parents never would. I’d hit afuck everything and everyonestage.”
Maureen looked at me. “You were Billy when I met you.”
I shook my head sadly. “No. I was William when I met you. I stopped being Billy when I lost my fingers.” Splaying the digits of my right hand on the bedspread, I invited her gaze to linger on them. “On the road, there was a piece of glass. Sliced them right off.” I shuddered, thinking about the pain I’d felt then, the only real pain from that night I could remember. “Somehow, I had enough adrenaline coursing through my system to stay conscious for a few minutes, enough to crawl to the fallen bike.I’ve been told the noises coming out of me didn’t sound human. Woke up the neighborhood. One witness told police he would never forget the sounds I made before I passed out, as long as he lived.”
Maureen smiled wanly. She ran her fingers along my scars. “Now I can’t stop picturing you making, like, wolf howls or something.”
I choked out a laugh. “When I woke up from the coma, I kept waiting for my parents to show me those disappointed faces they’d perfected during my childhood. But they never did. On the night before I left the hospital, they came into my room and sat down next to me. They told me how much they loved me, and how worried they were something truly bad was going to happen to me. Not just with the accident, but because of the choices I’d been making beforehand. They seemed petrified.”
“I’m sure they were. I used to get scared whenever Marley or Miranda had a cold. I can’t even fathom worrying about brain damage.”
“Exactly. Which is why something flipped in me that day. Being Billy, the free-flowing artist, hadn’t served me any better than being Will, the angry high schooler. I was so tired, and I felt like I owed my parents so much, that I surrendered to the idea of doing things their way. I figured I should stop fighting it and just be William, the finance robot. It wasn’t like the alternative mademehappy, so at least with that, I could makethemhappy.
“For a long time, I lived as the William my parents wanted me to be. Convinced myself that going through the motions of a life was the same thing as living one. I went to college, graduated early, got my MBA, and started working at Wallingford. I began dating Rosalyn, who also worked there. She was someone my parents wholeheartedly approved of.”
Maureen squirmed at the mention of Roz, and I put my hand on her leg.
“I was never in love with her. I was sleepwalking through my existence at that point. In a way, it was unfair to her, but deep down, I think she knew, and the way I functioned worked for her. It was steady. It was good for business. Where it all went sideways was when my parents started hinting about marriage. Rosalyn lives to please them and started pushing for it. Not because we had an undying love for each other. More like she wanted to bring our partnership to its inevitable next level.”
Maureen settled back against the headboard, although her expression remained tight.
I squeezed her thigh reassuringly before continuing, “Another important piece of context is that, through those years, I also went to therapy. At first, it was just physical rehabilitation and occupational therapy, but eventually, my physical therapist convinced me to see a psychotherapist about my mental trauma from the accident, about how numb I’d grown. I was waking up to what my life had become, realizing that I didn’t want to live for my parents, no matter how grateful I was for what they’d done for me. I didn’t owe them all my choices.
“One day, five years ago, Rosalyn and I had another fight about marriage. I’d been putting it off for months since she’d initially brought it up, and she basically demanded an engagement. She accused me of stringing her along, not being a good son, being indecisive—basically whatever buttons she could think of to get me to feel guilty and see things her way. I knew I needed to break up with her, but I didn’t want to do it in the middle of this huge argument. So, I told her we’d talk about it the next day. I needed some fresh air, so I took a walk…” I gave Maureen a meaningful look, knowing she’d make the connection.
