“Yes.”
“Why?”
I close my eyes again. It’s Summer on the other line. Summer, who’s never run from me and my problems. Who laughs and loves freely. “Because it’s so fucking hard. As soon as I’ve… I’ve done one of these things, I want to get in a cab and go to you. I want to disappear into your apartment. Watch you organize your mismatched mugs on the shelf you have above the sink.”
“They’re collectibles,” she murmurs.
“But if I’m there, Summer, I’ll never leave. I know that now. I’ll sit on your tiny kitchen chair and ask you to explain the story behind every single one of those mugs because you’re irresistible when you light up because of something you’re passionate about. I won’t walk out the door and fix myself.”
“You don’t need fixing,” she says.
“I do. You showed me that, too.”
“I did? Anthony, I like you the way you are.”
“I like who I am with you too,” I murmur. “But I want to be that man all the time. I’m working toward being him, baby.”
She hadn’t seen it all. Hadn’t seen me snap at my family. At my business partners. At random waiters in restaurants. I hope she never has to.
And I can’t risk letting myself snap at her.
There’s faint sniffling on the other line. “I’ll be here,” she promises. “When you’re ready.”
“It won’t be long,” I vow. I wouldn’t survive this if it was long.
“I miss you,” she says. “So much more than I anticipated. Just sleeping at night feels difficult without you in my bed.”
“Fuck, baby, I know. Just hearing you mention a bed makes me excited.”
Her laugh tightens my chest. I need that sound in my life like I need air. Like that plastic cane, it shows me the way forward. “I miss that too,” she says. “A lot.”
“Soon.”
“Good, because I’m not the only one who misses you. Ace does too.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Oh yes. He’s lying by my side now, and I swear, his ears perk up whenever you say something.”
“Hi buddy.”
“Yep, his ears perked up.”
I laugh, and she joins in, the sound everything to me. Everthing. “Guess what?” she says. “I’ve decided to do something.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. On Saturday, I’m going to an open mic night with Posie. To perform.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. It feels like my stomach might give out, though, and it’s only Monday.”
I push up into sitting. “You’ve got this. I’ve heard you sing. Your friends have heard you sing. Summer, you’re amazing.”
“Mhm. Yeah.”
“Do you know how rare it is to sing well? Not a single person in that crowd will be thinkingoh, I could do that better.”