Page 74 of On the Edge

Sitting down on my floor with my back to the wall, I take a drink of whiskey and close my eyes. Fucking friends. It’s a good solution. A way for us to keep in touch and maybe hangout every now and then once we’re both back at South Carolina U. A small part of me is grateful he’s giving me this out—presenting me with the seemingly perfect solution to the mess I made.

But the greater part of me doesn’t want to be his friend. I miss our accidental relationship. Friendship is great and all, but I want to be able to reach over and touch his hair whenever I get the urge. Count the calluses on his palms. Give lazy blowjobs when he’s feeling in the mood, and just fall asleep breathing the same air when he isn’t. Nearly a full month after I dropped a bomb on us, and I’m growing more certain every day that I made a colossal mistake.

I can either protect myself from the imagined hurt of the future, or live with the very real hurt of the present. I chose wrong.

“Henri, I’m sorry about what I said.”

There is a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone. Opening my eyes, I contemplate the whiskey bottle again.Henri wouldn’t like it that you’re drinking, I think. Sighing, I push it away and close my eyes again, leaning my head against the wall. Downstairs, I can hear my family sitting down for dinner. Ethan is laughing, probably at his own story or joke, and there is the soft rumble of my dad’s voice, probably telling him to quiet down. He’s always saying Ethan’s exuberance gives him a headache.

“It is okay, Atlas,” Henri replies softly.

“No, it’s not. I…I was a dick, and I said shit I shouldn’t have—shit I didn’t even mean. I’m not good at letting people in,” I admit, glad that we’re having this conversation over the phone and I don’t have to look into his blue eyes as I say the words.

“I know, Bärchen. It is okay,” he repeats soothingly.

My throat feels tight all of a sudden, and I’m wishing I hadn’t shoved the whiskey out of reach. I’m not used to people being this kind and understanding. I’m used to mistakes and apologies being dangled over my head as ammunition for future arguments, not this calm and generous acceptance without a trace of anger in his voice.

“It’s not okay,” I argue. “You can yell at me, if you want. Youshouldyell at me.”

“Oh, I am not this kind of person who yells,” he says, and I huff a small laugh. “I wanted to hear your voice and talk about your summer. I did not call looking for a fight.”

“No, you wouldn’t, I suppose,” I muse. “I really got lucky the day Dr. Robertson assigned us to be partners.”

“That is funny, Atlas, because I am thinking thatIwas the lucky one.”

We sit in silence for a minute, breathing softly together. If we were in the same room, I’d ask him what he wanted and wait to see if today was a day when he felt like being touched. I’d ask him if I could spend the night.

“Atlas?”

“Mm?”

“Why are you not wanting to, how did you say it…let people in?”

I don’t answer right away. I’ve never actually told the story out loud, so I’m unsure of how the words fit together. How the hell do I pick the scab off of a wound that’s been festering for over a decade?

“My mom—my biological mom, that is—left when I was five years old. She…well, she just brought me over to the neighbor’s house one day, asked if they could watch me while she went to the grocery store, and then never came back. She’d bought a single plane ticket, on my dad’s fucking credit card,weeksprior. Had her bags packed and everything—he never even noticed.”

I pause, trailing my fingers over the wet, whiskey-stained carpet. Henri is silent, thank God. I’m not sure I could choke the entire story out if he interrupted with platitudes and sympathy.

“She was, is, from Hawaii, so that’s where she went. Just packed up and left. And then it was like…Dad didn’t evencare. He was more annoyed about the trouble of getting a divorce with someone thousands of miles away than he was with the fact that his wife and the mother of his child just left him. He was already dating my stepmom before the divorce even went through, and they were married less than a year later. Ethan was born right after that, and it was…it felt like my dad had just decided his original family was flawed, so he went out and found a new one. A better one.”

Needing to wet my throat, I bend forward and reach for the discarded whiskey. I’m not looking to get drunk, but the first time I tell this story isn’t going to be when I’m completely sober, either.

“And I lookexactlylike my mom. I don’t have super solid memories of her, because I was so young, but I’ve seen pictures and we are pretty much twins. I inherited all of her Japanese traits.”

“She was beautiful, then,” Henri comments softly. I let the words sit warm in my chest for a second, bolstering myself to continue.

“Dad hates it. I can tell every time he looks at me that he’s wishing I wasn’t a walking reminder of the woman who left him. Hell, he probably wishes she’d taken me along. My dad and stepmom are both, like, super blond and they have blue eyes; Ryan and Ethan look exactly like them. They look like afamily, and I look like a transplant. Nobody ever assumes we share DNA. I look like the adopted Asian kid.”

“That is hard.”

“I mean…yeah, sometimes. Mostly because my dadmakesit hard. He’s always saying I take after my mom in everything, which isn’t a compliment when it comes from him. It’s all:Atlas, your grades might be better if you took after me more than your mother. Every single thing I do, that he doesn’t like, circles back to my goddamn DNA. I hate it, Henri, I fuckinghateit. And I know it bothers my stepmom, too, like their marriage has three people in it instead of two.”

“It would be difficult, I think, to trust someone not to hurt you, when the one person who is supposed to love you didn’t,” Henri says, so softly I can barely hear the words. It’s hard to breathe again; my throat tight around a golf ball–sized lump. He continues, still in that same low, soothing tone. “I am thinking it would be hard to love others when you are hurt so young.”

“I’m really sorry,” I tell him, because yes, my family might have broken my heart, but I’m the one who broke his. “I’m just really fucking sorry.”

“Bärchen, it is all right. Thank you, but I am not needing to hear apologies, okay? Do you want to talk of something else?”

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