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For some reason, his honest admission choked me up I shouldn’t be jealous because he’s dead Suddenly, ly I couldn’t put er on as it the re more?

Maybe it was William’s heartfelt confession that he didn’t even realize he’d confessed to Sometimes he was so innocent that it pierced itation, and, rising on tiptoes, I ran ht where he’d done the sao His eyes fluttered closed and his hands relaxed "Wil, can I help you? Will you let me?"

"Just how do you think you can helpatabout it? We all have parent issues I proht be more difficult because your mom has passed away and you can’t talk to her"

"If she were alive, I’d have nothing to say to her I never talked to her much"

"How old were you when she and your dad divorced?"

"Five" His voice held no emotion whatsoever He really did sound like a robot, even though he’d claimed that he wasn’t

"And you and your sister lived with your dad when they separated?"

"Yes"

One word answers…het it out of hiainst his hard, thick ar for him to face lad you were living with your dad instead of her?"

His face was as blank as his voice A defense mechanism, maybe? "That was never an option She left She made it clear she didn’t want to have a relationship with me"

I squinted, confused "But your sister…"

"Oh, she saw Britt all the time Every week My mother even asked her to live with her when Britt turned thirteen, but Britt said no I think my sister always felt bad for ed "I told her she should go if she wanted I love lad to stay with hiuy"

His jaw clenched and then released "Yes He deserved better than he got" He shook his head

"You mean your ether once, ot to be a handful"

Ah, noere getting soot divorced, do you?"

He turned away fro his words at the wall "It’s a statistically proven fact that the parents of autistic children areto think of what to say in response, but he kept talking "Not that the divorce rate in the United States is all that great anyway, but it’s higher a couples with children on the spectrum"

"So that’s why you think they divorced? Because of some statistic? Wil--some people just freak out and can’t handle parenthood, or even just being eneral"

He turned back toward e was just fine She remarried less than a year after she left us and stayed married until she died"

"Well, then fuck her That’s her problem, not yours You do not ever blame yourself for that What kind of person abandons her children?"

"She didn’t abandon us--"

I stepped up to hiain I wanted to shake hi really was "Wil, she abandoned you Maybe not your sister, but she did abandon you She never realized or cared how much it would hurt you to favor your sister over you"