As Chase stepped through the door, looking downtrodden and shut off from the world, I remembered the text I’d received from Toby’s sister a couple of hours ago. He’s taking the breakup really hard, she’d written. I don’t know what to do. I think it’s bringing up past abandonment shit with his bio parents. Tristen and her wife had adopted Chase about ten years ago, when he was 6, old enough to know that his parents had abandoned him but too young to know how to express his feelings about it. They’d taken him to therapy several times in the past, but he rarely took to his therapists, preferring to lock his emotions up rather than open the wound again.
“Hey you,” I said with a half smile, opening the door wider for him. “Come on in.”
Chase eyed me suspiciously before shuffling inside, b-lining straight for my room. He found Crackers snuggled up on the sofa and instantly plopped next to her, waiting for her approval before scratching behind her ears.
I took a seat beside him, waiting.
“Mom told me maybe you could help with my, um, social skills or whatever.”
Nodding, I silently wondered why Tristen had suggested he come to me instead of Toby. “What’s up?”
He took in a deep breath, staring steadily at Crackers as he spoke. “Skylar broke up with me, and I don’t want to hear that I deserve better or there’s other fish in the sea or any of that crap. I know I’m the one who fucked it up. I need to fix it… I need to fix whatever is wrong with me.” As if knowing Chase’s need for emotional support, Crackers stood, stretching her front legs then crawled into his lap, purring softly.
“What do you think is wrong with you?” I wondered.
He shrugged. “She said I don’t listen to her and I’m judgmental.”
“What do you think?”
Another shrug, but he thought for it a moment. “I think she could be weird and annoying sometimes, and a bit demanding. Like she expects me to be something I’m not. It’s not fair. Why can’t she love me for me?”
I felt a pang in my chest, feeling for the kid. The pain of abandonment… of not being good enough… was all too familiar. There was a pull from him to make it all go away, so I wondered what to say, settling instead for silence as he held in tears, petting Crackers like his life depended on it.
“Did mom tell you why she broke up with me?”
I shook my head.
Chase let out a heavy sigh, as if he didn’t want to repeat the story. “She showed me this painting — she’s always showing me her weird artwork and I just don’t get it. So I told her that. I told her it was weird and I don’t know why she doesn’t paint normal stuff like a landscape or animals or buildings or even people. And she just lost it on me. She said I don’t care about her and I’m always criticizing her art. But what did she want me to do, lie?”
My heart ached again, imagining the young woman’s fury at Chase’s seemingly innocent critique, knowing that beneath the fury was her own shame and hurt, and her boyfriend didn’t even recognize it.
“She told me I don’t empathize with her and that this relationship…” he paused to suck in his tears, “won’t work.”
“Oh Chase,” I said, my own eyes welling up.
As if knowing what I was thinking, Crackers jumped down, stretching again before sauntering into the kitchen for food.
“Come here,” I requested, taking this gigantic, oversized teenaged boy and helping him to sit on my lap, wrapping my arms around him awkwardly as he finally started to let himself tear up. He rested a head on my shoulder, probably realizing how ridiculous we looked but not caring.
“What do I do? How do I fix this? How do I fix me? Why do people keep leaving?”
I squeezed him tighter. “First we just feel your feelings, later we can talk about the other stuff.”
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