“I left. Excuse me for panicking when I realized my boyfriend of almost a year has a secret family.”

Ramona’s eyes got wide, and she shook her head.

“Dog.”

Truman should really be getting home to his own dog—his actual dog. They would take their evening walk, maybe chat with Mr. and Mrs. Dinstein if they were on their porch as they usually were. Then they’d go home and watch YouTube videos or listen to a podcast. Then they’d go to bed. Alone. Like they usually did.

Only now Truman groaned, realizing that the reason he usually went to bed alone was probably not, as he’d been told, because Guy had trouble sleeping in bed with someone.

The other lies revealed themselves in a landslide of horror that threatened to crush Truman.

“God,” he groaned. “I’m such a fucking chump. He’s not going on vacation with his brother for a month, is he?”

Ramona shook her head regretfully.

“How did this happen? How did I do this? How did…I… What…”

He dissolved.

Ramona led him to the couch gently by the arm.

They’d met two years ago when she worked in his favorite stationery store. Her job had been short-lived, but their friendship endured, and in that time, she’d led him to her couch gently more times than she should have needed to. Ramona had an uncanny ability to see things he wished to keep hidden, and she was disturbingly honest, which meant she didn’t allow those things to stay hidden.

Now, she looked him dead in the eyes, a telltale sign that she was about to unearth.

“Just say it,” he prompted her, ready to get the truth-telling over with. Suddenly he really, really wanted to bury his face in a pillow and sob.

“You don’t ask for anything,” she said simply.

“What?” Truman’s spine stiffened.

“Sorry, sorry, edit: Guy is a total piece of shit. Meant to say that first. It’s not your fault. But you asked how this happened, and aside from Guy being an emotional abattoir, it happened because you do not ask for anything for yourself. You accept what people give you, and you don’t ask for what you need. Or want. It’s a problem.”

Truman closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the cushion.

It was a problem.

He didn’t mean to not ask for things. When other people offered ideas for what to do or where to eat, he got excited. He already knew everything he liked. Their preferences expanded his own. That was good, right? To be open-minded and flexible?

But he knew that after a while, people got the idea that they didn’t ever need to ask him what he wanted because they knew he’d be fine with whatever. And that…that wasn’t. That was the problem part, he was pretty sure.