Page 71 of Inception

“I guess you could say I excommunicated myself.”

My eyes widened. “Why?”

A pained expression crossed his face but he buried it just as quick as it appeared. “The ‘why’ is complicated.”

“When did this happen?” I pushed, hungry to know more.

“Three months ago, right after my sister—” He stopped short as though he couldn’t bear to say the words out loud.

A heaviness washed over me. “Was she the reason you quit?”

“No, but it made leaving easier. Look, I didn’t come here to talk about Linley—” His marshaled expression cracked at the mere mention of her name. He squared his shoulders as though digging deep for strength.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, reaching out to console him.

The urge to comfort him was curiously overwhelming, but he stepped away from me before I could touch him, taking a seat on the edge of my bed instead. He was drawing a clear line in the sand and every inch of my body was painfully aware of it.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s alright,” he said in a tone that made me believe it was anything but. “Forget it.”

There was something about the way he reflected back to me that chipped away at my protective wall. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing the person I was when I’d first lost my father. Closed off, harrowed, unwilling to let myself feel the pain. In a lot of ways, I was still that person.

“It’s hard for me too, you know.”

“What is?”

“Talking about him…my dad.”

He didn’t answer.

Neither one of us filled the silence, the room suddenly heavy from the strain of our combined loss. I wished I could know what he was thinking; what was going on behind that thick, impenetrable facade of his. Did he think I couldn’t understand his pain—his grief—because my sister was alive and well? Or did he not trust me enough to confide in me?

“She would have been twenty next month,” he said after a long pause. His eyes were painted in sadness, shades of despair so agonizing that it hurt just to look into them. “I still pick up the phone to call her sometimes, like she’s still here.”

I stepped towards him but stopped, wary of the line.

“How screwed up is that?” He looked up at me expectantly, his voice full of vulnerability. This was a different side of him, a side I’d never seen. It seemed completely incongruent with the hard exterior I had grown accustomed to.

“It’s not screwed up...it happens to me, too.”

“You’re just saying that.” Disbelief stained his tone, though there was something else hiding in there, something that sounded a lot likehope.

“It’s the truth,” I insisted, watching his expression soften. “Like right before I open my eyes in the morning, my dad is still alive, and I swear everything is right in the world.”

His eyes stayed on me as I moved to take the seat beside him. I could almost feel the grief radiating off of him. Or maybe it was my own grief, I wasn’t entirely sure anymore.

“But then I wake up and remember that he’s gone and he isn’t coming back, and all the pain and guilt comes rushing back to me.”

I could tell he knew what that felt like by the way he lowered his head, and in some strange way, it made me feel connected to him. Less alone.

“Most of the time I feel like I’m just waiting. Waiting for him to come home, waiting for it to stop hurting, waiting for it to be okay to live without him again, but it’s like it never happens.” I pressed my lips together and dropped my eyes, feeling overexposed. “Sorry, I’m totally rambling and I’m not even helping.”

“I like when you ramble.”

My head popped back up, surprised by the softness in his words. He seemed distracted and unaware of the comment.

“What if it doesn’t happen?” he asked without meeting my eyes. His body was facing forward, concentrated on some unknown marker. “What if it never stops hurting?”

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