“Yes. You screwed up, didn’t you?”
“Why do you assume it was me?”
Analise arched an eyebrow.
I rolled my eyes. “It was both of us.” I scrubbed my face and sighed. “It was mostly me, though. I’m too fucking impatient.”
My sister set her hands in her lap and gave me a look. “Tell me what happened. No sex details, please. I don’t want emotional scarring.”
“No details to give you there, kid.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You haven’t slept with her yet? I figured you would’ve been, like,rightin bed with her, based on the moony-eyed looks you were giving her.”
I contemplated inducing a voluntary concussion just to get out of this conversation. “You told me you didn’t want details,” I hissed. “And I was not moony eyed.”
She snorted. “Okay.”
“This isn’t helping.” I was getting a migraine. I’d never had one in my life, but I was getting one now. “Where’s the sage advice, oh wise one?”
“Tell me what happened.”
The CliffsNotes version was all I was capable of, because when my mind replayed it, I’d get stuck on the details and fucking spiral. In hindsight, I could see Remi’s discomfort, could see her gearing up to admit what was going on in her head. And it was in that hindsight that I felt that familiar self-loathing when my worst instincts ran right the fuck away with my mouth.
After my somewhat-matter-of-fact retelling, Analise’s brow pinched. “So you hear her fears as rejection because Father has twisted your perception of how you engage with the world. That if something isn’t going perfectly, you’re failing.”
My stomach twisted like a knot, cold sweat forming along my hairline. “That’s ... that’s not exactly right. She can’t even tell me what she feels for me, Analise. But even that is a moot point because I was so fucking impatient that her kid probably thinks I’m a monster.”
“There is no way he does.”
It still felt like breathing through thick mud when I recalled Gavin’s face. “You didn’t see him.”
“No, but I know Remi. She’d never let him think something of you that’s untrue.”
“I felt like a monster,” I said wearily. “Isn’t this always my problem? Something happens that I’m not expecting, and I just ... don’t fucking think.”
“Your intent is always good, though,” she added in a gentle tone. At the expression on my face, she held up her hands. “I know, I know. That doesn’t make you feel better, but it’s the truth. Every time you’ve gotten yourself stuck in a corner like this, you’re headed in the right direction. You just ... go about it the long way. Like you’re climbing up the side of a mountain barefoot when you could just take the sidewalk around the base. You’ll get there eventually, but God, you make it harder than it needs to be.”
“This is a really flattering analogy.”
“Yeah, well, you’re kinda bad at this.”
“I’m ten years old than you,” I snapped. “Let’s cut the condescension by about fifty percent, please.”
“Relationally, you’re atoddler.”
“Hey. I’m trying here.”
Her eyes were fierce. “I know you are. And he’s made you think you have to do everything exactly right all the time, and youdon’t. It’s okay to tell her that you’re feeling a little lost and confused, which is whatshewas doing, by the way. You just swung way too far in the other direction. Youdon’t have to walk away because something got you all up in your man feels. That’s what you do. You shut down when it gets hard, with everyone.”
I rubbed a hand over my mouth, glaring at her just a little as I did.
“I’m aware,” I managed through a tight jaw. “I just don’t—I don’t know how to stop myself before I get to that point.”
“I don’t know. Maybe put yourself in time-out?”
I gave her a dry look.
“I’m not kidding. Tell her you need five minutes. Chances are, you won’t even need it. By the time you walk away and get his voice out of your head, you’ll be fine.”