He should say it. He doesn’t like keeping things inside, doesn’t like pretending one thing when he feels another. Why doesn’t he just tell Lee? He knows she is nervous about the trip. He knows she’s probably still embarrassed about what happened the other night. He also understands, more than anyone, what it’s like to leave someone who needs you.
While he gives Mason his last lesson of the day, he finds himself thinking of his brother, Wyatt. He’d had a dream about him last night—more of a nightmare really.
He watches Mason write. The clock ticks. He shifts in his chair, and the hardwood floor groans beneath his weight. They are working on Mason’s fine motor skills. Simple things like holding pencils, buttoning and unbuttoning shirts, and passing objects through the midline have improved drastically over the last few months. Mason stops, erases, restarts.
“It’s okay. Let’s try this phrase.” He tries to stay present with Mason, but thoughts of Wyatt drag him back.
“I don’t understand this,” Mason says. “Tell me another way to do it.”
Mason looks at him. He could swear Wyatt stares back. The curly hair. The pensive brows. The tapping. It’s like a constant mirror that shuttles him back in time and gives him an emotional kick.
Though he’s been working with Mason for six months, every day it’s an adjustment. He has to regularly remind himself that Mason is not Wyatt. That they are different. He feels unnaturally close to him because of the parallels. He knows he’s not alone—lots of therapists show preferences for students for all types of reasons.
They continue to work, and once the day dies down, Noah drives the short distance home during rush hour, eager for a beer and the game. The city is now overrun with transplants from New York and California. The streets have been scooped with potholes, the traffic giving LA a run for its money. There’s the hope of the overpriced transit system. Tall skinnies popping up on plots of land once unoccupied. Bachelorette parties dominating downtown. Price tags swooping into the millions. His hometown has become a destination. Luckily, he bought his condo years ago before the whole city lost its mind and inflated its prices.
Despite the influx, he enjoys the urban boon of energy. He likes that he can walk to bartaco when he wants to feel like he’s at the beach, to imogene + willie when he needs a pair of custom jeans, or to the farmer’s market to load up on produce.
He misses his family, but he’s invested in Nashville. He’s spent his entire life here, building his career. He left his teaching position at a school to start his own private practice. He now has good friends and a group of students he looks forward to teaching.
But then there’s Lee. He doesn’t know how to handle what’s happening between them. He can still see her lips, wet, pink, and searching for his. The way her body had ignited. The way she looks at him. The way he looks at her. The interest … No. It’s far too complicated to ever get romantically involved, not to mention highly unethical.
He shakes his head, parallel parks his car, and enters his home. It is cold and quiet. He should get a dog. Maybe two. Something to kill the silence. He unpacks his folders from his bag and rustles through paperwork as he does at the end of every night, sorting through various client files.
He takes a quick shower, shelves the files of the children he won’t see until next week, grabs a beer, and flips on the TV. He looks at his phone, checks his texts, and smiles. He wants to go out tonight, but he should really get some sleep.
He types out a lengthy reply, takes a swig of beer, and sinks onto the cushions. His eyes grow heavy as all the various thoughts swirl—Wyatt, Mason, Lee—until he wakes, mouth dry, TV blaring, and drags himself upstairs to bed.
He still can’t shake thoughts of Wyatt. The day of graduation, the day he left him. The day they left him. He brushes his teeth and climbs into bed, not wanting to remember. What good does it do? He closes his eyes and lets his mind wander. It’s hours before he falls asleep.