Page 85 of Keeping Score

“I mean, he’s brought it up, but I thought that I’d steered him off the topic well enough to discourage him from actually doing it.”

She stared at me intently in a way that made me squirm.

“Do you not imagine a future with him?”

Her words were like an ax to my heart. I couldn’t imagine a future without him.

“Of course I do,” I told her.

“But you’re running from intimacy with him.”

“Trust me,” I muttered, “intimacy is not the problem here.”

“I’m not talking about sexual intimacy, Maggie. I’m talking about emotionally.”

“But I—”

“You have a pattern of running away or shutting down when things start to get too—what’s the word—real?”

“That’s not true.”

“As your therapist of ten years, I can say with confidence that it is.”

“So, are you saying my five-year relationship is invalid because I don’t want to get married?”

“Not at all,” she said. “In fact, I think your relationship with Brody is one of the realest things in your life. And I think that’s why you’re so scared.”

“Scared?” I asked. “Of what?”

“You tell me, Maggie.”

“I just don’t want to lose what we have. I don’t want things to change.”

“Why?”

“Because marriage changes things. It ruins them. You get too comfortable. And then bored. And then resentful. And then someone leaves.”

“All the marriages you’ve witnessed follow this pattern?” she narrowed her eyes at me.

“Besides Liam and Cassie,” I said. “But they’re the exception to the rule. They’re practically soulmates, and I don’t even believe in that concept.”

“I’ve been married for twenty-five years, you know,” she told me.

“You’re a therapist,” I said. “You practically have a cheat sheet to relationships. I don’t. I’d screw it up. He’d end up hating me, and I wouldn’t know how to fix it.”

“I think you need to be more honest with yourself about what you’re afraid of.”

I pulled back. “I’m not afraid. I’m realistically cautious of screwing up the best thing in my life.”

“If it’s the best thing in your life, I’d think you should have more faith in it.”

“Everyone starts out with faith until it blows up in their faces,” I countered. “No one goes into marriage expecting divorce.”

“And which divorce particularly gave you all these reservations?” she asked pointedly.

“What do you mean?”

“I think, Maggie, that you’re afraid of repeating your parents’ mistakes.”