The False Flat

CHAPTER 32

LIFE REALIZATION #14: SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T DO IT BY YOURSELF. WELL, NOT IT. JUST ... UGH.

“Grant! Please open the door!” The neighbors would likely be calling the police at any minute, but it was ten in the morning, and I hadn’t heard from Grant since game night the previous evening. I’d let his slightly awkward goodbye and Deanna’s doctor comment and everything else get under my skin.

Nothing was wrong.

He was fine.

So why did I rush through my meeting with the Whitsons? And why isn’t he opening the door?

I raised my hand again, but the door opened, relief flooding me as I fell into Grant. I’d neurotically imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios: Grant unconscious on the floor, or his back seizing and him falling down the stairs he didn’t even have.

But, he was fine. He was ... I stepped back and looked at his face.

He was not fine.

“I thought this was indigestion, but I threw up last night, and I feel worse than I have in years. It’s a bug, not indigestion, and you don’t want to catch this. You should go.”

My mouth moved up and down, but I didn’t think I was saying anything.

“No, this isn’t ER-level stuff,” he said. “If you insist, take me to an urgent care.”

“What?” My hearing tunneled.

“You told me to get dressed, that you were taking me to the ER.” He eyed me suspiciously.

So I had been saying something. At least some part of me knew what to do, whether or not I was conscious of it.

“Right. Let’s go.”

There were fourteen cars in the urgent care parking lot. I’d been distracted by the hollowness around Grant’s eyes, and I didn’t think, not fully, about what taking him to a medical center would mean.

But when we pulled into the parking lot and I saw the words on the door, my head went fuzzy. I tried to tell myself this wasn’t a hospital; it was next to a Chinese restaurant, for goodness’ sake. But my fingers shook. I couldn’t unfasten my seat belt.

I couldn’t do this. He needed me, and I couldn’t freaking go inside.

He saw my ludicrous struggle to extricate myself from my vehicle. “I knew this was a bad idea. There’s no need for you to come in. In fact, you should go. I’ll call Deanna to get me when I’m done.”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll wait for you.”

I disgusted myself. He was the sick one, and he was consoling me instead of the other way around.

“I’ll wait,” I said firmly, giving in to crippling anxiety. I at least had the wherewithal to know that the longer we argued about my certain inabilities, the longer he’d stand in the parking lot, not being treated.

Hesitation flashed on and off his face. “It doesn’t look like there are many people here. Hopefully I won’t be long.”

I nodded. “I’ll be here.”

I sat in the car, wrapped in shame and self-disappointment as he walked in alone. This was ridiculous. I needed help.

I wanted to be the right kind of partner for Grant. I wanted to trust him. I wanted to have sex. And unless I had help, I didn’t think I was ever going to get there. Not sex help, though. I pictured someone standing in our bedroom, directing us on position and form, maybe even holding up a card with a score on it. Was this some sort of sick coping mechanism to distract me from my gigantic flaws? If so, it was weird—much weirder than my numbers or my cycling—but it was kind of working.

Someone came out of the Chinese place carrying a sack with a big, yellow smiley face on the side of it. I wanted to be happy like that, like a damned smiley face on the side of a Chinese take-out bag.

I closed my eyes.

I inhaled.

I exhaled.

I thought of Aunt Tif all those years ago and our few minutes in a therapist’s waiting room. I missed Aunt Tif. Where was Aunt Tif? Why hadn’t my mother let me go to therapy then, so I wouldn’t have to do it now?

I pulled out my phone.

I glanced at the door to the clinic, pictured Grant going through it.

I decided to make the appointment before I changed my mind.