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“You said you don’t feel like you belong here. Let’s talk about that.”
I focus on the painting above her head, a series of thick, looping black brushstrokes on a white canvas in a gold frame. It’s exactly the kind of calming art I’d expect to find here. I follow the brushstrokes over the canvas like a route on a map and slowly my breathing evens out, my blood pressure drops to an acceptable level, and the tears stop.
“My best friend Cally and I were inseparable when we were teenagers. You know that level of obsession that only feels possible when your brain hasn’t fully developed yet? And later, Nora was my best friend. My best—” My voice catches and I have to stop. The clock on the wall ticks down our time and my fingers dig into the plush couch cushions. “The thing was I knew I wasn’t going to marry Brian. So when he started acting weird, secretive, you know? I wasn’t so much sad as, like, pissed. And I started...” I look away, embarrassed. “I followed him,” I say quietly. “I know it was wrong. But Iknewhe wasn’t going to tell me the truth.”
“What did you find?”
“They weren’t even trying to hide it. They met at the local pub, the one Brian and I went to every Sunday for Sunday roast. They held hands across the table. They kissed on the sidewalk and walked up the high street to her flat. I asked her the next day what she’d done the night before. She said she’d just had a quiet night in, alone. I knew Brian would lie to me but Nora, Nora was my best friend, my dearest friend, Nora had never lied to me. We promised each other never to lie.”
“How’d that make you feel?” Leigh asks.
Her emails aside, I haven’t spoken to Nora since I left the UK and I’m ashamed to admit that even after this hurt, I miss her. “Like a fool. It was humiliating. To know that two people who are supposed to care for you the most don’t care for you at all? And for everyone else to now know it, too? My whole life I’ve felt like everyone was in on an inside joke, except for me. It’s lonely being left out. I want to know what the joke is, too, and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong that no one will tell me.”
Leigh nods and jots down another note. “You journal more consistently than any other participant in the study, did you know that?”
I shake my head but internally do a little dance. If they were giving out grades for journaling, I’d probably get a good one.
“And your entries are comprehensive in both what you’re thinking and feeling and the next steps you’d like to take. They also feature another participant quite heavily. Jesse Logan.”
I pull apart a clean tissue, making a pile of wadded-up cotton on the glass table. “Yes. I guess you could say he’s the one success I’ve had throughout all this.”
“One could argue that you have learned to make friends. That Jesse is your friend.”
“One could argue that,” I say, slowly. One could also argue that the flip in my stomach when I can get him to smile, to laugh, is anything but friendly.
She sighs, sitting back in her wingback chair. “You’re an academic, right?”
I look down at myself for a sign that the burnout and impostor syndrome are that obvious.
“Academics tend not to give themselves enough credit. It makes sense. It’s basically our job to be graded. We write and then we ask our peers to review our work and tell us what’s wrong with it and we do the same to them. At a certain point, it just gets easier to turn that critical eye on ourselves.”
“You think I’m being too critical of myself?”
“Well, you talk about belonging. But belonging doesn’t just happen. We have to cultivate the places where we find belonging, we must cultivate those relationships and connections.”
“Are you telling me to bloom where I’m planted?”
She laughs. “Not quite. The biggest difference between people and plants is we get to choose where we set our roots. You get to choose where you belong, Lulu.”
“And you think I’m not trying hard enough to cultivate my belonging here?” That makes sense. Maybe I could join more clubs. Or I could host my own party. Though, I definitely don’t have a big enough apartment.
“No.” She leans forward. “There’s that self-criticism again. I’m saying you already are cultivating belonging, right here. With Jesse. Maybe you do go back to the UK, maybe you don’t. But don’t ever think that you don’t belong when you are clearly working so hard to do exactly that.”
The last time I went to therapy I was an empty shell of a girl who had lost her voice and lost her way. Then, my therapist helped me see myself another way, as more than just the sum of my trauma. Leigh must be just as good, because now I see my research into how we make friends, my attempts at conversations, in a new light. I see Jesse in a new light, too, for the way he always checks in with me even if it’s just with a gentle hand on my back, for how he sends me good morning texts, and corrects people when they call me Eloise, for the way he’ll let me talk and talk and talk and work out whatever I’m feeling onto him like he’s a blank canvas and I have a paint gun. If there’s one person here that makes me feel like I belong, it’s him, even if he’s never said he’s happy I’m here. But now I also see why the psychologists don’t want us hooking up with other participants. How am I supposed to know if I really belong here if I’m falling for my friend?
By the time I leave the session, splash cold water on my face to de-puff my eyes, and get back to my office to collect my things, I’m already running late. I still have to go home, change, prep food, find a bottle of wine I can pilfer from my mom’s collection, and get to Jesse’s house for his party.
“Dr. Banks, how are you?” Miranda says behind me as I run for the back stairs.
“Miranda. Dr. Jackson. Hi.”
“Miranda is fine. How are you?” she asks again.
“Great. Good.” Emotionally raw and unprepared for whatever interaction we’re about to have. “And you?”
She hikes the strap of her bag higher up on her shoulder. She’s dressed in a smart pants suit set, royal blue with a white silk blouse, her lips a cherry red, but her bag is a duffel with a familiar swoosh on the front. “Going to the gym?” I ask.
“Yes. But I’ll be back in about an hour and a half. I was wondering if you wanted to grab dinner after, if you don’t have any plans.”
