Page 200 of In at the Deep End

“Too well. I made you imagine every possible way you could fail him.” Jeff swallowed. “But I never stopped to ask whether Matt thought loving you was a failure.”

“Because you were right about one thing.”

“Which thing?”

“I am older. There are things I can’t give him.”

“Maybe.”

Owen frowned. “‘Maybe’?”

Jeff shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t want the things you’re so certain he wants. Maybe he wants the things you keep refusing to believe you can give him.” He sighed. “I thought I was protecting my son. But the truth is, I was protecting the version of his life I had already decided was right for him. And I had no right to do that.”

Neither of them spoke.

Outside, someone laughed. A glass clinked. The ordinary sounds of the party continued.

Owen scraped his fingers through his hair. “I love him.” There was no hiding now behind wanting him, or pretending it was just affection or attraction or a summer that had gone further than expected. “And because I love him, I thought I had to let him go.”

Jeff held his gaze. “That’s where you got it wrong.”

Owen looked down at the tiled floor. “I wanted to spare him. I wanted him to have a whole life, to wake up one day and not regret choosing me.”

Jeff nodded. “And did you ever ask him whether he would regret it?”

Owen didn’t answer.

“Did you ever ask him whether he wanted the choice?”

“No.”

“Did you ever ask him what he wanted?”

Again, Owen said nothing.

Jeff’s voice softened. “That’s the part you need to understand. You weren’t trusting Matt to love you. You weren’t even trusting him to know himself enough.”

Owen flinched.

“You made the decision for him because you were afraid he’d make the wrong one.”

“I was afraid I was the wrong one.” Owen closed his eyes. “I could hurt him.”

“You already have.”

The words landed with brutal simplicity.

Owen couldn’t look at Jeff. “That’s why I can’t go back.”

“No, that’s exactly why you have to.”

He said nothing.

“Because right now Matt isn’t sitting somewhere worrying about what might happen twenty years from now. He’s sitting somewhere wondering what he did wrong. He thinks he wasn’t enough. He thinks he lost you because he asked for too much.” Jeff’s voice quavered. “You don’t get to leave him carrying that.”

Owen’s breath caught. “He thinks he did something?”

“He thinks he caused this.”