That’s not it, I think. Alcohol will drown my warring thoughts. Alcohol will shut out every voice in my head.

It will also fuck everything else up.

I don’t know what to do. I’m going out of my goddamn mind. I slam my palm into the steering wheel, another scream knotted in my throat, and the tears I stifled suddenly stream down my face. I couldn’t say no to my father, I couldn’t stop the leak, and my mother never really wanted me—not even now. I always fail. Always.

My hands tremble as I slip out my cell and dial a number quickly. I just want to hear her voice. I press my forehead against the wheel, no more energy to even keep my head upright.

“Where are you?” Lily asks with worry. “You were supposed to call hours ago. Your flight landed, right?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way home,” I lie.

“Are you still in New York? We can meet up for dinner,” she offers, probably not buying my lie.

“Why do you love me, Lil?”

“Lo, really, where are you?” Concern spikes in her voice.

“Just answer me.” I let out a long breath. “Please. Why do you love me?” I grip the phone harder, tears clouding my vision.

“When we were eleven, we were at your house, reading comics,” she says, and for some reason I know exactly which memory she’s trying to draw for me. We were on my bed, surrounded by several open and splayed X-Men comics, and we would read the same one at the same time. She’d wait patiently for me to hurry up, her eyes skimming the panels quickly while I soaked in each line, each bleed of color. “Do you remember?” she asks after a long pause.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice shaking.

“We both knew you were most like Hellion. You make the wrong choices, even when you know where the right ones lie.”

I nod to myself, tears spilling. I try to breathe a full breath, but the pain chokes me.

“But that day, you said you aspired to be Cyclops. Scott Summers was strong. He took care of everyone in the face of crisis. He was a man that people wanted by their side.” Her voice shakes too, like she’s near tears. “Lo,” she says, “you’ve made it. You’re my Scott Summers, and without you, I wouldn’t be here.”

I close my eyes and let that sink in. She doesn’t have to say, I love you because… The sentiment is attached to each and every word. She loves me because she believes I’m strong. She loves me because she’s a part of me.

She loves me because I’ve become a better man through all of this.

“Lo,” she continues. “Whatever Emily said, I need you to know that I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be here when you come home. There will always be an us.”

“A Lo and Lily,” I breathe.

“Or Lily and Lo."

I smile. “Thank you.”

She pauses. “Do I have to say the rest?”

“No, but you can if you want.”

“Don’t fucking drink, Loren Hale,” she says sternly, but it comes off more cute than rigid. It works all the same.

“I love you, Lil.” I straighten up and wipe my eyes with the back of my arm.

“Are you coming home then?”

“I have to make a stop first.”

She sucks in a worried breath. “Lo.”

“Trust me,” I say.

“I love you too,” she tells me.

I turn on the ignition and let those words carry me.

I don’t remember the office being this cold or dark, but I walk in with purpose. I’m no longer sorry or sad. I’m fueled by something else, something darker and stronger that begins to eat at my core. It’s a demon that my father carries, the one where anger turns into vile words. The one where we stop being pathetic and we start being mean. I thought being sober would change me. Make this part of me vanish. But I realize it’s not only alcohol that powered my hate. It’s programmed inside of me from years and years of being raised by someone like him.

“You’re finally back,” Brian says, lounging behind the desk with this nonchalance that has always dug under my skin. “Did you get tired of ignoring my calls?”

“You were nothing, if not persistent,” I snap dryly, slumping down into the chair. I met Brian in rehab, and we discussed my life in grave detail. He was supposed to be my outpatient therapist, and I guess I kind of fucked that up when I stopped going to our sessions. Even more so when I stopped answering his calls.

“So why are you here, Lo?” He leans even further back in his chair.

“How do you not fucking hate me?” I ask in confusion.

“I assume you had a valid reason for skipping the session,” Brian says calmly, “and if not, then that’s on you.”

“I’m not talking about skipping sessions,” I snap. “How can you sit there and listen to my problems and not roll your eyes every two seconds?”

“Why would I do that?” He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look confused or upset. Brian is a blank slate that bounces my words right back at me. All this time, I thought he stared at me like I was this royal douchebag—that I was some loser he had to stomach. But I know I was projecting. I wanted him to hate me. I was begging for it because I’m not worthy of anyone’s compassion.

“I have more money than you will ever have in your lifetime,” I tell him. “You have to sit there and listen to me bitch about stupid shit for hours on end, and then I return home to my nice house with my nice car.”

 “You think I should hate you because you have money and because I have to listen to your problems? Is that why you stopped coming?”

“No, I stopped coming because I couldn’t bear to stare at your ugly face any longer.”

He actually smiles at that. It’s genuine, which makes me feel like a bigger dick. He sets his pen on his desk and sits up. “I know you, Lo,” he reminds me. “We’ve talked for months, so I know that no one, especially your father, has ever told you this.”

“If this is your fortune cookie wisdom, you can save it.”

“Having money doesn’t make you an unfeeling automaton. You’re human. You can still have problems. The difference is that you have the ability to fix them. You just have to want to. Not everyone can receive the same help you can or afford the rehab facility you went to.” My stomach curdles at the truth. “But that doesn’t mean your recovery can’t be difficult. It doesn’t mean that what people say on TV or in the tabloids doesn’t hurt as much. You still bleed like the rest of us. You can cry. You can be upset. That right has not been taken from you.”

I stare dazedly at the ground.

“And Lo,” he continues. “I usually don’t offer my personal opinion to my patients, but I’m going to make an exception with you.”

“How kind.”

He doesn’t smile this time. “Underneath this rough, I-hate-myself-and-everyone-around-me exterior is a good guy. And I think that you have the ability to accomplish great things if you just start forgiving yourself.”

“For what?”

“I think you know what.”

“Well, you’re so keen on giving personal opinions, why don’t you tell me,” I snap.

He doesn’t. Instead he grabs his pen, leans back in his chair and clicks a couple times. “Sometimes the person we think we’ll become is the person we already are, and the person we truly become is the person we least expect.” He clicks his pen again and points it at me. “There’s your fortune cookie wisdom.”

I think he’s telling me that I have a chance. That the life I imagined—where I become the self-loathing man behind a desk, where I become my father—doesn’t have to be the one meant for me. I want to take the leap while my mind is clear, while I can see an alternative future that doesn’t look as grim. I want Lily. A house. The white picket fence kind of happiness. I didn’t ever think I deserved that, but maybe, one day, I can become the kind of person that does.

I shift in my seat, but I don’t break his gaze. “I went to see my mother. My real mother,” I tell him.

His head tilts, but his face has gone blank again. This time, I don’t feel like punching him for his lack of reaction. I just talk.