Externalizing [mxm]

Chapter 13

They fell silent for a moment, and then Brendan cleared his throat as he shut his yearbook. “Anyways, I’ve got artist statements to suffer through, so I should be heading home.”

Marc nodded and broke Ariel away from the TV long enough to take Brendan home.

Brendan had been the one to tell him to cut his dad out; but even then Brendan still tried talking to his parents. It wasn’t that easy, not that Marc ever thought it was, especially if Brendan was still trying to hold something together with his parents.

Marc was also just grateful that his father had never caught on well to technology—Marc had grown up as it had just been coming out and changing, but his father had been left behind.

***

“You spend a lot of time with Brendan,” Dr. Sterling commented.

“So?” Marc couldn’t help but answer defensively. “I figure if it’s something a teacher and parent shouldn’t be doing, then he’d say something about it. It happens sometimes, doesn’t it? And it’s not like we’re dating.”

He could see the last bit got her attention, and Marc instantly regretted it. “Does that come up often?” she asked.

“Only twice,” Marc admitted. The second time had bothered him less. “And it’s not like it’s going to ever happen either.”

“And why do you say it like that?”

“Brendan just started dating someone new, first off. And then I don’t think he would see me like that—he never gives me those long looks you know, like if someone has a crush on you,” Marc explained, fairly reasonable.

“But you’re not saying why you yourself wouldn’t like him, just why he wouldn’t like you,” Dr. Sterling pointed out.

Marc stalled and gave her an affronted look, and so she continued. “How was your relationship with your ex-wife?”

“Whitney?” Marc paused. “Fine I guess. I mean I thought we were fine, but she thought otherwise.”

“Do you still love her?” Dr. Sterling prodded.

Marc shrugged. “I don’t know. The more I look back at it all, the more I wonder if that’s what it even was, or if she was just someone I enjoyed spending time with so that I labeled it as love.” He’d thought over that long and hard since he’d left. He wasn’t sure he could even define what ‘love’ felt like in his mind—Ariel was one thing, but that wasn’t romantic. “Sometimes you can just like spending time with a person,” Marc added on the defensive again.

“Has there ever been anyone else you feel like you might like or have liked in the past?” Dr. Sterling wanted to know.

Marc had to think about that. It had been too long since he’d thought of anyone in anyway. “I had a crush on someone before I started dating Whitney,” he admitted, though it was a far off memory. “But I changed that quickly.”