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My head rises and falls on his chest, from his deep sigh. “Shhhhhh.” He pets me. “It sounded poetic.”
The sun filtering through green leaves casts an off-color shadow on the tiled floor. The therapist, in her chair across from me, shifts. The leather squeaks. George texted me last night after he left, reminding me that I had this appointment this morning. If I could have canceled it, I would have, but I’m pretty sure George would have revoked my participation in the study. And then what would all of this have been for?
The therapist is doing that waiting tactic. The one where they don’t speak until you do. She probably thinks I’m doing this on purpose, that I’m one of those toxic men who think the only good thing talking about feelings does is justify the use of a slur.
I want to talk to her. She seems nice. Safe. It’s just happening again. It keeps happening. The choking, the blankness, the numbness. I don’t trust myself to say the right thing, so I say nothing at all.
I wonder if Lulu is having a therapy session today. If she’s in the building. If she’s talking about me.
I shut that thought down. It’s both arrogant and wishful thinking. But now I’m thinking about Lulu and I can’t stop. Her hair was on my pillow when I went to bed last night. I found a tampon and an earring on my bedspread. I put them in a dish beside my bed. I guess I can give them to George to give back to her.
George wouldn’t tell me what Lulu said, only that he made sure she got home alright. Voices drift through the closed door of this office and I strain to hear the sound of her voice. What would I even say if I saw her in the hall? Probably nothing. That’s what I always do.
Lulu, though. Lulu would have a lot to say. What would Lulu say? That’s a fun game. It’s an almost impossible game to win because like everything else with Lulu, the reality of her is always better than anything my mind can conjure up.
The therapist—Leigh—shifts again. She doesn’t seem annoyed or angry. She’s patient. She seems kind. If I were Lulu I’d probably say something about the art on her walls or the books on her shelf. If I were Lulu...
“I’m in love with one of the other study participants,” I say.
So much for that money.
Leigh writes something on her notepad. “You don’t participate much in the group therapy sessions,” she says. “Why is that?”
“Aren’t you going to kick me out?”
“For what?” She seems genuinely curious.
“I just...” Might as well go for broke. “I’m in love with her. Lulu Banks. That’s against the rules, isn’t it?”
Leigh shakes her head slowly. “None of us were operating under the assumption that participants’ feelings would or even could stay completely platonic. Many lovers are friends first.”
I’m tempted to fully out us, to admit that things have gone way past feelings. We “touched butts,” as Lulu would say. But then I’d be outing Lulu and that’s the last thing I want to do.
“I don’t know what to say,” I admit. “When we’re in the group sessions everyone seems to know themselves so well. I don’t feel that way. I never do.”
“Have you always felt like that?” she asks. “Like you don’t know yourself?”
I shrug and she raises an eyebrow that very much states she will not let me get away with that non-answer. Now that I’m talking I’ll have to keep doing so.
“Not always. There were certain parts of myself that I kept hidden from certain people, but I knew who I was. I knew what I was capable of. I... I trusted myself more.”
She leans forward. “What changed?”
My face feels hot, my throat tight.
“I was in an accident a few years ago.”
She nods, turning to her desk to pull a file folder onto her lap. She flips through it. “Right. Your medical history mentioned a car accident. What happened?” she asks without any of the sympathetic curiosity that often clouds people’s tones. People who are hungry for the gory details.
“It was late. Or early. I was driving home after a shift at the station. I was a firefighter. I probably shouldn’t have been on the road, honestly. I was tired. Too tired. I should have just slept it off in my bunk. But I was anxious to get home. My grandfather had just entered a new care facility and I had some grandiose ideas about meeting him for breakfast. I’m lucky that it was only me who was hurt.”
A clock on the wall ticks quietly. Leigh sits back in her chair like she’s giving me the space to speak when I’m ready, and it works. The cork that usually bottles up my throat has popped now. “After the accident, I couldn’t go back to work. My grandfather had been a firefighter. So had my dad. And now I was...”
“Not.”
I nod. “I was nothing.” My voice catches and she slides the box of tissues across the square gray ottoman she’s using as a coffee table. I take a few. “I wasn’t able to visit my grandpa for a pretty long time after that. I recovered in the hospital and then an in-patient facility. It took a while before I could drive again. I totaled my new truck so I had to fix up my grandpa’s old one and use his.”
“There were a lot of changes,” she says. “Because of one moment.”
