It doesn’t take a therapist to work out that Brendan abusing me is more about his issues than my value, but it’s so fucking childish. And it’s exceedingly hard to lie here after the week I’ve had and sympathise with his poor-little-rich-boy issues. For fuck’s sake. The guy has too much time and too much money and too few responsibilities, and this is the result. Total self-absorption.

Well, maybe not total. He’s here, after all. But a lot.

I don’t think I could have stopped my scathing rejoinder if I tried.

‘And you wonder why I didn’t trust you with my secret.’

I may as well have slapped him across the face.

‘Wow. Yeah. That’s fair. Harsh, but fair.’

‘You know what,’ I say, warming to my theme, ‘you have so many redeeming qualities. You’re so generous, and I still can’t believe you flew all the way over here. But it shouldn’t take a crisis like this for you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You were a dick to Elaine when her son was ill, too. Everyone has issues, and everyone’s struggling with something. When you’re in a working relationship like you and I are, you owe it to the other person to have some basic empathy, to wonder how your actions will affect them. I’m not just a Non-Player Character in your life, you know.’ I’m secretly proud of that analogy—thank you Tabs for the video game reference. ‘I’m a human being, and I have feelings.’

He’s crying now, too. He nods violently. ‘I know. I know. And, like I said, I think deep down I was trying to punish you. I was pissed off, and I acted out, and by doing that I hurt you and made you feel the absolute opposite of how you deserve to feel, which is valued and adored.’

He can rationalise it all he likes, but the bottom line is that he has that nasty, infantile streak in him. It doesn’t mean I hate him—not even close—but it does make it very hard to trust him with the stuff that counts.

‘Look,’ I say, because this has been bothering me, ‘I realise I agreed to stuff in that questionnaire that I wasn’t actually ready for, and that was incredibly irresponsible. I did it to get the job, but that’s on me. Like I said, most of the stuff we’ve done, I’ve loved, even when you’ve pushed me out of my comfort zone. I even enjoyed that threesome, weirdly.’ I give him a watery smile, but he doesn’t return it. He’s still crying. ‘I knew you wanted to do certain things with me that I was never going to be comfortable with, and they’re probably things that Athena would do without batting an eye, but⁠—’