She moves to the couch where Wyatt slept, sitting on the edge of the cushions, her arms still folded. “I mean, Neil, I know that she isn’t the easiest person to get along with, but she’s your mom.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” I tell her. “Especially when she doesn’t act like a mother.”

I don’t want to get annoyed with Lindsay, but I’m really not in the mood for a lecture about how I should forgive my mother. I don’t have to forgive her for anything.

“Have you actually talked to her about how you feel?”

“You know just as well as I do that she doesn’t listen.”

“You could still give her a chance.”

“And you can leave if you’re going to keep asking me about her.”

“Okay, okay.” She holds her hands up defensively. Then she sighs. “What are you going to do about Wyatt?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s clear that you’re in love with him. So what are you going to do?”

I sputter, almost choking on my own spit. “What are you, you can’t just—”

“Please, Neil. I saw the way you two looked at each other. It’s obvious you’re in love, even if you were faking at first.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, finally making my way over the couch, slumping down next to her. “Wyatt deserves better. And now he’s not coming back.”

“What makes you think that he deserves better?”

“Because the only reason I dragged him here was to show up Josh.”

“You really think that?”

“I think I need to go back to therapy,” I say, only half joking.

Lindsay laughs quietly, leaning back on the couch. “In this family? We could all use a lot of it.”

I let out a low groan, covering my face with my hands.

“I fucked up, Lindsay. I fucked up big-time.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, I mean …” I pause. My next words come so easy, and I think that’s what scares me the most. “I love Wyatt, a lot.”

“Why don’t you think you deserve him?”

“Because of how I treated him, how I treated Josh, how I used them, the things that I said to them both.” My own family, my own fucked-up past, the way I let my own parents’ relationship influence me and how watching their love fall apart over the course of years has me so fucked up.

There are a lot of reasons that someone like me doesn’t deserve someone like Wyatt.

“It was easier that way,” I say.

“Why? What made it easier?”

“Isn’t it easier for him to hate me now? What if we break up? What if things go wrong? What if we fight and argue; what if we’re married one day and he decides that he wants a divorce, that he hates me. It’s just … it’s easier this way.”