“Come on,” he said.
I guess it was good he hadn’t made toast, because I couldn’t have swallowed that, and he would have burned it.I got a few forkfuls of egg down, but I felt so sick I had to stop.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll come.”
I’d never had a supportive partner before.With my girlfriends, if I’d had a problem, it was my problem to fix, and I didn’t dare show any weakness in front of them.
We took an Uber to the therapist’s office and didn’t speak much on the way.When we got there, the doctor saw me right away.He wasn’t much older than me.Eddie had to wait outside.
I spent the first twenty minutes of the session bawling my eyes out because I couldn’t speak.After I ran out of juice, I stared at the floor.I thought he’d kick me out for being uncooperative, but he just waited.Then I told him what it was.It took forever to get the words out, but he didn’t interrupt.I felt like I was making too big a deal out of it.Other people had it worse.
When I was done, he asked if I thought I might hurt myself.I told him I would never do that.Then he wrote me a prescription for sleeping pills and told me to come back the next day.He handed me the prescription, and I thanked him and left his office.
Eddie was there waiting for me.The therapist made the appointment for me with the receptionist and handed me a reminder card.Then Eddie and I left.
Once we were outside, he said, “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you when we get home.”Because I did not want to start crying in public.
He went with me to the pharmacy, and we sat there waiting, and he was careful not to touch me or say anything that might upset me.All the stuff that had come out in the therapist’s office was settling like flakes in a snow globe, and I was seeing things a lot more clearly.
After I got the pills, he called an Uber to take us home.We didn’t talk the whole way there.When we got home, I sat on the couch.I didn’t have the energy to take my coat off, and I didn’t want to tell him what the problem was, because I knew he’d look at me differently if he knew, and maybe he’d leave, and I couldn’t take that because I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, but there were too many hard, complicated things between us for me to love him the way he deserved.
“Don’t you have work to go to?”I said.
“It can wait.What happened in there, Craig?”
“Get me some water?”I was stalling.
He came back with a glass of water from the kitchen, and I drank it, but it wouldn’t go down properly.He waited for me to talk.
So I did.“I remembered some shit that happened when I was a kid.”I stared at the coffee table because I couldn’t look him in the eyes.“I started to remember last night when you were touching me.That’s what set this off.”
“What kind of shit?”
“You can probably guess what.”
He didn’t speak.
“I was five years old when it started,” I said.“It was my uncle.”
“You don’t have to—”
“He took all my clothes off, and he took all his clothes off, and he touched me, and he made me touch him.He didn’t actually fuck me, but he got off.And the reason it’s never been an issue with me till now is because I’ve only ever been with women before you, and women look different naked.You may have noticed.So being naked with a woman didn’t trigger me.Even with you, I felt protected as long as my clothes were on.He never touched me like that when I had my clothes on.But then you wanted me to take them off, just like he did.He did it for years until I guess I got too old for him.Then he stopped.”
“Fuck.”He sounded like I’d punched him.
I felt him sit on the couch beside me.
“So, as you can see, I’m the guy who has problems getting naked with his boyfriend.”
“God, I’m sorry, Craig.”
“You didn’t do it to me.You’re not the one who should be sorry.”
