He lifted both shoulders and shook his head, clearly not as unaffected as he wanted to appear. “I was six, so I don’t remember a lot. I do remember feeling afraid. I’ll never forget my mom’s face when we left our little house and got in the car to leave. She looked so scared. We only had two suitcases and left everything else to my mom’s family. When we got on the plane to Miami, my mom doubled over.” The edges of his mouth were tight, his handsome face pinched with the images from those times. “I remember she shoved a handkerchief she always carried around into her mouth, and sobbed so hard her shoulders shook.”

A breath shuddered out of me picturing him as a little boy, his entire life changing.

“I’d never seen her like that. I remember I needed to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t tell her. I was so worried about making her more upset. She’d always been a rock you know? Calm,” he said, holding out a steady hand. “When I was little if I fell and showed up at the house with the bone sticking out of my leg, she just turned around to get her purse, and said, ‘You’ll be fine. We can take care of that in the ER.’ But that day, she was inconsolable. But she was just a kid herself, she was only twenty-seven.”

I shook my head as he talked. I could not imagine what it was like to leave everything behind like that. Not knowing when or if you’d come back, if your family would be okay.

I couldn’t not touch him.

I got closer and ran my hand over his face. “Patrice.”

He shook his head then looked at me like he forgot I’d been there the whole time, and then laughed. “I don’t know what it is about being around you, but I just want to spill my guts.” He sounded embarrassed and a little bewildered.

I was going to make a joke or say something to make thing less serious, like I usually did, but I stopped myself. Patrice didn’t need me to make this funny or light. He had opened up to me for a reason. Even if neither of us could admit what that reason was yet.

“I’m always in awe of people that do what you and your mom did. Pick up and start over in a new place, with a new language and which honestly isn’t always very welcoming. And to achieve everything you have. It’s amazing.” The awe in my voice was one hundred percent sincere.

That was the last straw apparently, because he stood up from the counter so he was facing me, our bodies only inches apart. “Why can’t I stay away?”

He didn’t need to say from what or who.