Page 96 of Breakaway
"I'm standing in my kitchen. Mouse is judging my posture."
"Mouse is correct. Your posture is terrible."
"My posture is fine."
"Your posture is a six-point-two on a good day."
"You don't get to rate my posture. You're a thousand miles away."
"I'm rating it from the screen. The data is clear."
I laugh. It comes out rough and tired and real and it surprises me and I let it happen because the laugh is mine.
"Wes, thank you for asking."
"I'll always ask."
"I know." I look at his face. The balcony behind him, the sky darkening. "Love you."
"Love you, Luca. Call me tomorrow?"
"I'll call you tomorrow."
His face goes dark. I stand in the kitchen with the phone in my hand and Mouse back on the counter and the last of the daylight through the window. The session is done. It is not resolved and it is not fixed. But it’s a start.
?
Chapter 33: Wes
Icarry my coffee to the balcony and the morning is warm, overcast, the sky pressing flat against the surface. I have stood here a thousand times across eight years and the view has never changed, but I have. I have changed underneath it so slowly that I did not notice.
I called Luca last night. Short call. He sounded tired and steady and he told me about practice and the wild-card math and a chicken recipe he tried that came out better than expected. His voice had weight in it. Not heaviness. Substance. I have been listening to his voice across a phone for seven months and four nights ago, after his session, the voice changed. Not dramatically. The way a room changes when someone opens a window you didn't know was closed.
He is getting better. That is the sentence I have been carrying since the night he called after the session, his eyes still red, his voice rough, telling me things he is working through. I didn’t fix it. I couldn’t fix it because that was never mine to do.
So what is mine?
I go inside. I set the cup on the counter. I pick up the phone and call Kevin.
He answers on the second ring. He always answers on the second ring because the first ring is for clients and the second ring is for people he actually wants to talk to.
"Hey."
"Hey. You busy?"
"Depositions at one. I've got an hour. What's going on?"
"Nothing. Just wanted to talk."
"Wes Mercer called me at seven-thirty in the morning because nothing is going on and he just wanted to talk."
"Yeah."
"That has literally never happened."
"It's happening now."
A pause. I can hear him shifting, the creak of his patio chair. He is outside. He is always outside in the mornings, the coffee on the arm of the chair, the phone between his shoulder and his ear.
