Teacher - Voyeur

“The last person that said they loved me killed herself. It’s not exactly something you let go of. It stays with you like a mark you can’t ever get rid of. It had a big enough impact that I never wanted to be in the same position again.”

“Hanna isn’t Sabrina,” he said softly.

She wasn’t, but I was still me, and there lay the biggest crux of it all. I looked away, unable to admit what really haunted me, instead staring at my thumbs sliding up and down the condensation of my glass. “What if it’s not the girl. What if it’s me? Sabrina killed herself because I couldn’t love her back. Not the way she needed. I cared for her, but it wasn’t enough. What if I’m not enough, and that’s the final straw for them?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kent growled, leaning in close. “Sabrina killed herself because she had mental health issues she refused to get help for.”

“Maybe if I could have at least said it. She’d have stuck around long enough for me to help her. Maybe I could have eventually loved her and helped her.”

“No. Love doesn’t fix sickness. It can’t cure cancer, so how do you expect it to heal a mind?”

I didn’t have an answer. I couldn’t.

“God, is this what you’ve carried around? I knew you blamed yourself, but shit, D.”

“Of course, I blamed myself. She blamed me. She wrote a fucking note making sure I knew it.”

“Daniel, I don’t know if you’re trying to remember her as some perfect person or remember your relationship as something great because you’re trying to preserve her memory or what, but you’re wrong. She was toxic. I didn’t know her before college, but whenever I saw her with you, she took and took from you. She’d scream at you all the time and demand you drop everything for her, and when you didn’t, she always acted out to make sure you came running. She put it on you because it was easier to blame you when she didn’t want to look at herself. You tried to get her help, and she didn’t want it. You did everything you could, but this wasn’t some angel of a woman who adored you that you couldn’t love back. She tore you down so you would stay with her because you took care of her when she didn’t want to take care of herself. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t love her. Hell, I know more than anyone, you can’t choose who you love and that it’s okay.”

I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but Kent was right. Hearing him retell the past, let other memories flood in. I remembered the times I’d begged her to talk to someone because I saw her crumbling, and I hadn’t known how to hold her together. I remembered caring for her and holding on as tight as I could, but the further we got from high school the harder she thrashed through life and left me with cuts and bruises, the less she wanted to stand on her own and clung to me, wanting me to fall with her.

She hadn’t been the same girl I’d met in high school, and I knew a lot of it had nothing to do with me. But she’d left a note letting everyone who read it know that she couldn’t go on without me and that weighed on me—it skewed my vision. You didn’t remember the worst of the dead. You remembered the good times—the best of them. Apparently, I’d slapped on rose-colored glasses of my relationship with Sabrina, of the girl I used to know, and I’d let her down. She’d been perfect in my eyes, and I’d let her down.

We’d been happy, and I’d lost it, and I never wanted to feel that pain again, so I shut it off.

“Is this why you don’t date?”

“I date,” I muttered.

“Once or twice. Mostly just for sex. If someone wanted more, you moved on.”

“It’s not like you dated.”

“I didn’t date because I didn’t want to be tied down until Olivia.” I cringed at the reminder he was with my niece. “But you were always different—more settled. I wanted to travel and explore. Food, women, experiences, everything, and I couldn’t do that with a partner. But you, you liked staying put. You like stability. I was shocked I somehow became the first of us to settle down.”

“It’s not like that. I didn’t want to settle down either,” I tried to defend, but he gave me a look to let me know he didn’t believe me.

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not fucking scared.”

“Okay,” he said, sarcasm dripping from the simple word.

“Fuck you.”

Kent laughed, knowing there was no heat behind my words. “It’s okay, man,” he said, slapping my back. “Sabrina fucked you up. It’s traumatizing, and I get it. But Hanna isn’t Sabrina. Not even close.”