He links his fingers with mine. “I’m ready,” he says, bringing his other hand to my face, his thumb stroking my cheekbone in this way that makes me feel safe. Cared for.
“I’ve been scared, too,” I admit, our feet still planted in the bark as our swings sway. “I don’t know if I have the best track record with relationships. I’ve never really been . . . myself.”
Russell drops his hand to my shoulder and waits for me to continue. Listening, but not pushing me.
“For the longest time, everyone has gotten me at full brightness. Every light in the studio on. No darkness, no negativity. Every time I feel something like that coming on, I force myself to act the opposite. I give a compliment or an affirmation to restore the balance, I guess. Or tip it the other way completely. I thought I had to be this very specific kind of person for anyone to want to be with me. And it worked for a while, or at least I thought it did. I even thought I was going to get married.”
The defense mechanism won’t make sense without the explanation. I knew there was no way I could invite him here without unlocking that barricaded door of my past, and yet that knowledge doesn’t make forming the words any easier.
“If I’m going to explain it—and I want to, I really do—I have to start back here,” I continue. “In Redmond. My mom and I . . . it hasn’t always been like this with us. Well, I’m not even sure what ‘this’ is, to be honest.”
“I picked up on a little of that, I think.”
“She was different when I was growing up. She’d have these dark days that made it tough for her to be the person I wanted her to be.” I don’t want to divulge too much of my mother’s mental health yet. It doesn’t feel wholly mine to tell, especially when she’s only a couple blocks away. “And we . . . struggled in similar ways.”
I grip the swing tighter, aware I’m about to throw the door wide open. Somehow, though, it doesn’t feel as difficult as I thought it would be. There’s no pressure in my chest, no flashing neon sign in my brain warning me to shut my mouth—only the desire to share something I haven’t been able to articulate with anyone I’ve let come close.
If my mom can change, so can I.
“I have depression,” I say. “I’ve had it for a long time, and I’ll probably have it my whole life, since it’s not something that tends to magically go away.” I watch his face, the way he slowly nods, taking this in. “When I was a teen, every so often I’d have these days that blurred together. I’d go through school on autopilot, barely registering anything anyone was saying. I’d get home exhausted, though I hadn’t done anything to exert myself. Everything hurt, even though there was nothing physically wrong with me. I felt weighed down . . . like some kind of terrible magnet was tugging me to the center of the earth, this heaviness that made it impossible to find joy in any of the things I used to love. I couldn’t even make myself do my science homework—that was how I really knew it was bad.”
I force a laugh at this, and he humors me with a small smile.
“It wasn’t until college that I was diagnosed. I went to the health center on campus because I was so tired all the time, and everyone around me was having the time of their lives. I didn’t know what was wrong with me that was making it impossible to do that. Making it impossible to make friends. Once I had that diagnosis and started learning more about it, started seeing someone, it started to get better. Not instantly, but by the end of my freshman year, I was finally starting to feel like myself again, this person who’d been a stranger for years.
“I still go to therapy,” I continue, “and I’m on antidepressants. And most of the time, I’m okay. But I still have dark days, and I don’t want to hide any of that from you.”
He cups my knee with one hand, stilling my swing. I didn’t realize I’d been twisting back and forth. “Why would you hide it?”
“I’ve never told anyone. Not anyone I was dating. Not anyone who—who mattered.” I glance down at his hand, watching his fingers move back and forth in this calming, hypnotic motion. “My dad left because he couldn’t handle my mother. So for someone to care about me, for someone to stay—I thought I had to be the overly cheerful person I am on TV. Or else I’d become my mother, and that’s what I’ve been trying so hard to avoid. I told you that’s what my ex thought, that I was too sunshine. And maybe I have been, but I don’t want to do that anymore.” Not with you is the implication. I hope he hears it, because I’m not sure if I have the courage to say it.
“Thank you for telling me,” he says, bringing his free hand to my other knee, his eyes never drifting from mine. “I’ve been to therapy, too. When I first moved to Seattle. There was so much with Elodie I’d never properly dealt with, and I was going pretty consistently for a few years. I’m . . . really glad we can talk about that.”
“Me too.” I motion with my head back in the direction of the house as something glows inside my chest. “The way she was in there—that’s not the mother I grew up with. Or maybe it was, some of the time, and the other times were so tough that it’s hard to remember everything else. I want to forgive her. I want things to be different between us. I had this vision, when I was younger, that I’d have the kind of mother I could go to brunch with every Sunday, and we’d dish about everything going on in our lives. Maybe that sounds ridiculous. And then I imagined getting married, and having a mother who’d want to be part of the wedding planning, almost to the point where it got annoying. I would have loved to be annoyed by her because she was insisting on a sit-down meal over a buffet. But even when I was engaged, none of that happened. She didn’t have an interest in any of it.”
“It’s the worst when family isn’t there for you the way they’re supposed to be,” he says. “When Liv got pregnant, it felt like I’d shattered some unspoken bond of trust. You will not knock someone up. You will not fuck up your future.”
“But you didn’t.”
“It took a while for me to get there.” He’s quiet for a moment, scratching at his stubbled jaw. Pensive. “And I hope tonight is just the start for you and your mom. You don’t deserve anything less than that.”
“Thank you.” If my words are a whisper, it’s only because I’m trying not to cry. “What I’m realizing,” I continue, “is that I like myself the most when I’m around you. And I think it’s because I’m the most honest version of myself. I don’t have to try as hard, and I don’t have to hide. I can just . . . be.”
He turns in his swing, bracketing my legs with his and reaching for my hands again. “I—I don’t know what to say. I’m honored. Truly,” he says. “Letting you get close is the best thing I’ve done in a long time, and it means the world that you brought me here. And none of what you said changes anything. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“And how is it you feel about me, exactly?”
A wry grin. “I think you know, weather girl.” Those six words might as well be composed of hearts instead of letters. It feels like it’s been ages since I heard the nickname, and I’d forgotten how much I love it. What I love even more: the way he pulls me in for a slow, soft kiss as the sun sets over my not-quite-childhood playground.