Her eyes tighten. “You really think I believed you all these years when you said you were fine?” She scoffs and looks away. “You never fooled me, Waylon. I was just...too stupid and too in denial and too selfish to do anything about it. I didn’t want to be the bad guy. I wanted you to have a safe place, where you could just...deal with things in your own way. I didn’t want to take that from you. I didn’t want to run you off.”

I blink. “Ivy—”

“But I see how wrong that was now. I should have done something. Anything. I was enabling you. For years. I should have gone to Reggie as soon as you told me what you almost did on the bridge.”

My heart pounds. “You know about that?”

She cuts me a look. “You told me, dumbass. You showed up here one night a couple years ago—after the first time your dad tried to get parole—drunk off your ass and clearly delirious from lack of sleep, spouting some nonsense about Tom Petty and blue eyes.”

“I don’t remember that,” I whisper more to myself than anything.

She cocks her head. “No shit. You were really messed up. I should have—” She shakes her head and makes a pinched face. “I thought I could be enough for you. I thought we could be enough for each other.”

Throat tight, I nod. “I thought so too.”

Her eyes glimmer in the dark with unshed tears.

“I’m in therapy,” I tell her abruptly.

“I know.”

“Reggie?”

A nod.

I should have known she’d be keeping tabs on me, despite everything. It brings a small smile to my face.

We don’t say anything more right away. The sun’s starting to come up, peeking the slightest bit through the slats between her black-out curtains. Birds have started to chirp their morning song, and I wonder if it’s just in my head or if I actually feel lighter. Freer than I did a day ago.

“You can tell me anything, Waylon,” Ivy says after a while. “I hate that you felt like you couldn’t. Like you had to hide something so big from me.”

I take in a deep breath, understanding immediately what she’s referring to.

“It’s not that simple,” I tell her. “It’s not like I’ve been secretly gay this whole time, knowingly hiding it from you. I don’t even know if I want to label it. It’s just this...thing that’s always been a part of me. Something I thought I needed to squash away, you know?”

She smiles sadly. “That’s just it, Waylon. I don’t know.”

I study her face. “Right. I guess I should start from the beginning, huh?”

She watches me curiously.

It doesn’t take me long to get it all out there. Everything that happened back then.