“How’d you sleep?” Wyatt asks, biting off the end of a piece of bacon.

“Fine,” I say. “Your sister woke me up.”

Wyatt laughs. “She likes new people.”

“Clearly.”

We sit there for a bit, Wyatt not touching their food again. It almost feels like they’re waiting for something. But I can’t read their mind to know what I should say. If I could read their mind, then I probably wouldn’t be in this mess.

“Look, Wyatt—” I start to say at the same time they say: “Neil …”

Then we stare at each other, unsure of who should go first.

“You,” I tell them. If they start with how they’re feeling, then maybe I can figure something out.

“I, uh … I kind of wish that you hadn’t come here.”

Oh.

I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did, but this is a new low.

“You told me to leave, and I did. So the fact that you came to me, it kind of feels like this slap in the face.”

“I get that.”

“Do you?”

“I …” I hesitate. “No, I guess I don’t.”

“I thought that things were finally getting better between us, that we were becoming friends—”

“We were! We are!” I tell them. I can’t stop the desperation in my voice. “I only came here so that I could apologize to you. In person, not over some lousy phone call.”

Wyatt looks up, and we both see that Melanie is standing in the mudroom between the kitchen and what I’m guessing is the laundry room, humming to herself.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she says. “Just folding some towels!”

“Mama, that’s one of Mom’s dresses.”

“Oh, right.” She looks at the garment in her hands. “Got confused.”

“Let’s go outside,” Wyatt says. They stand, and I follow, grabbing my shoes from the living room. The backyard is spacious; there’s this tall wooden play set that I guess is for Lana. Wyatt walks right over to it, taking a seat on one of the swings that hang off the side. There’s another open one beside it, so I take that one.

“So, you came all this way to apologize?” Their voice is quiet, and they won’t look at me; they’re just looking at their own feet as they kick softly at the dirt.

“I felt like that’d be right.”

“You know, it really sucked,” they say. “I feel like I gave you so much, and then you just got angry with me for no reason. You ignored me until you yelled at me without even telling me what I did wrong. Do you know what that feels like?”

“I do, actually.”

They raise their brows.