Chapter 6
Chapter Six
WILL
‘Have you ever been to Greece?’
‘I have,’ my therapist, Lucy, says.
‘Athens?’
‘No.’
‘How come?’
‘Just never got around to it.’
There are lilies in a Tiffany vase on her coffee table, and I’ve stared at them instead of meeting her eye.
By now she knows all about Ollie. He comes up in every therapy session.
As does my family, my brother in particular.
I’ve told her all about my tendency to compare myself to others, my low self-esteem, and my general unhappiness in life.
I’m sat opposite her in the middle of the room, one foot resting on a spotless white rug, faux fur.
The other is curled underneath me, going numb, but I like the buzz of pins and needles.
‘I was invited, but I’m not going,’ I say, filling the silence. She likes her silences. Lucy crosses her legs, my eyes drawn to her camel-coloured Birkenstocks. She adjusts the black linen trousers she’s wearing. ‘I cost it up today and the flights aren’t the problem. The accommodation is.’
‘How much?’
‘Well, I was checking a few flashy hotels, but they were coming in close to one thousand five hundred for the weekend.’
‘Did you look at cheaper accommodation?’
‘No, and a lot is booked already,’ I say.
Lucy’s hands rest on the arms of her pale green chair.
Her office is painted a steel grey. You’d think she might want to encourage happier tones in here, but it’s not her priority.
Or her style. There’s only one splash of colour in the form of canvas artwork that hangs behind her desk, colours of red and orange, depicting what I think is a man on fire, but who can tell with all those brushstrokes.
Maybe it’s one of those things I’m supposed to interpret so she can use it as a personality study.
‘I can’t believe they’re getting married,’ I say, sure that I’ve said this already.
To her. To anyone who will listen. Because it’s the truth.
I move my deadening leg, wincing as I do so.
I cross my ankles, tucking them underneath the chair.
My hands slip between my knees. ‘I mean, I’m glad he’s happy, but like, do you think he’s marrying him simply because he wants to get married? Do you think he’s genuinely happy?’
‘What do you think?’
I peer over her shoulder, at the artwork. ‘Well, he’s just trying to do what he thinks he should be doing. His parents, they’re pushy. You know, I think they’re saying to him he should be married by now and all that crap.’
‘Do you think he’s rushing it?’
I heave a sigh. ‘No, I suppose he isn’t.’
‘Do you want him to be happy?’
I twist to look at her. ‘Of course.’
She gives me an encouraging nod. ‘And what about you?’
‘Me?’
‘What makes you happy?’
‘Happiness is subjective, don’t you think?’
She chuckles, a throaty, warm laugh. ‘But seriously, what do you think would make you happy?’
Rolling my shoulders, I stare at the floor, allowing my eyes to lose focus. ‘Ollie.’
She gives nothing away. I stifle down a scream at her stoic expression as I try to convince her of my truth.
Her signature silence stretches on, Ollie’s name the last word uttered.
‘I shouldn’t have said no, should I?’
‘You tell me.’
Damn, Lucy.
‘I knew how much it meant to him, I knew how much he wanted to get married, and yet…’ I shake my head, words evading me. ‘If I’d truly known, though, how much that meant to him, I would have said yes.’
‘Would you?’
‘Yes.’
She cocks an eyebrow.
‘Sure. Yeah. Oh, I don’t know.’ I place a hand to my forehead, heave a dramatic sigh.
‘I guess at the time I didn’t see it as a necessity.
Marriage just seemed like a … like a faff.
Like, what was the point in marrying the man I’m already living with daily?
I dunno. To me we already felt complete. The legal side of it scared me.’
‘Only the legal side of it?’
I nod yes, then shake my head no. ‘Like, marriage felt very grown up. I look at my mum and dad and their own shambolic marriage. Their split ended up splitting me, too. Every anniversary it’s like trying to appease angry bears.’
Lucy says nothing.
‘What if that had happened with Ollie?’ It comes out as a whisper, and I clear my throat.
‘You know? Like, what if we got married and then Ollie realised he’d made a mistake?
Or he stopped talking to me but felt obliged to be with me because of the rings on our fingers?
Or… Or what if we got married and I felt trapped?
And it’s so expensive, isn’t it? Everyone feels pressured to get you something, or to get involved, and you get all these people with different opinions, and it all gets a bit…
’ I wave my hands in the air. ‘And divorce. Divorce is expensive. What if he stayed with me because he couldn’t afford it?
’ I’m pleading with her, but of course, she says nothing. ‘He’s not mine anymore,’ I say.
‘Would you like him to be?’
She already knows the answer. I pause before answering. ‘I thought about going to the wedding. Trying to tell him he’s making a huge mistake. A win him back situation.’
‘But you’re not going to do that now?’
‘No.’
‘Because of the cost?’
‘Yes.’ I stop. ‘Well, and it’s just a crap thing to do, isn’t it?
’ She doesn’t react. ‘Like, the idea is a good one when you’re drunk as fuck, but when you start to think about it, you know, ethically, then you realise it’s a pretty grim thing to do.
He’s in love. In love enough to propose and marry someone else. It’s my own fault.’
‘Ethically…’ Lucy says, testing the word. ‘Is love ethical?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Plenty of people risk it all for love.’
That’s right, they do. There are whole songs about it.
‘Why do you think he invited you?’
It’s a question I’ve asked myself. ‘I don’t have an answer.’
‘But if you had to think of one reason, what comes to mind?’
I pause. ‘Our history. Friendship.’
‘Do you think Ollie is offering you an olive branch?’
‘Why would he be doing that? We didn’t fall out.’
‘Remind me when you last spoke,’ she says, but I know she already knows.
I roll my eyes. ‘Okay. Well, maybe it’s his way of saying “Hey, look, nothing to worry about. You should know I’m getting married and I don’t want it to be weird.” But it is weird. Weird to invite your ex. Weird for your ex to be there.’
‘I went to my ex’s wedding.’
‘You did?’
‘And his funeral a year later.’
‘Oh. Lucy, I’m so—’
‘Water under the bridge,’ she says, dismissing me with a curt nod. ‘He drove off one and drowned. Tragic accident.’
My jaw drops and I stare at her. She might be a murderer.
Lucy wraps her knuckles on the armchair. ‘Back to this invite,’ she says. ‘You spent a long time with Ollie. The formative years of your life. Is it that strange that he would want you to attend such a momentous occasion in his life?’
I scratch my forehead. ‘Well, I suppose we were friends first, friends after. But … I don’t think I can do it. I don’t. He might be mature enough to invite me, but I don’t think I can face it. I don’t think I’m mature enough.’
‘I think we should make a list,’ she says. ‘Something you can refer back to whenever you need it.’
‘What type of list?’
‘A list of wants and don’t want. I want you to think of your life a year from now.
’ She stands, heads to her desk. ‘Picture your ideal life. Think about what that means to you. Think of the people you want in your life, where you’d like to be personally and professionally.
’ She opens a drawer. ‘Then, we’ll make a list of what you don’t want.
It will help you stay focused on the good, and refrain from falling into any bad habits. ’
She hands me a clipboard with paper and a pen. I take it from her, staring at the blank page, unsure of where to begin. What do I want?
Well, the answer is obvious. But I can’t exactly write Ollie down, can I?
I glance at her.
‘Anything,’ she says, taking her seat opposite me.
Anything.
I draw a crude table, line down the middle of the page.
Wants.
Ollie.
Because I do want Ollie. I want him back because with him I can deal with anything. Why do I want Ollie back?
Happiness.
But I also need closure.
I want closure. Not on us, but on where we find ourselves.
It comes to me like a glimmer, a parcel of medical aid.
Maybe closure will help me move on. I need to at least speak to him, see him one last time. Get it all out there. See what is possible.
I stare at the written word of closure like it’s another language. But it feels right.
I write down illustrator. In brackets, I put Willow’s adventures. I write about owning my apartment; I write ‘more money’. I write ‘happiness’ and ‘joy’ and ‘excitement’.
In the don’t want section of the table, I write ‘to be alone’. I want someone who can love me, preferably Ollie. Nobody else would compare to him, and if he does marry Alec, I don’t know what I’ll do. Become a spinster, maybe. Celibate.
The soft ticking of the clock makes me chew at the pen lid. My leg jiggles as I stare at the table.
I have to tell Ollie how I feel.
If I can reach Ollie, then everything else will change.
Ollie is the key, the missing piece. Everything else falls into place when Ollie’s in my orbit again.
He will bring out the best in me like he used to do.
This time I’ll be ready to change with him, to grow.
This time I’ll be what he needs me to be.
If he doesn’t want me, then I have to accept that. Truly accept it. Not think of the what ifs, the possibilities. This is make or break. I’m not going to be the one who ruins his wedding or ruins his marriage. But before he marries, I need to speak with him. Just one final time. Just in case.
So, closure. Finally knowing where I stand, what is possible between us.
If it doesn’t go the way I hope it will, then what?
Finally accept that I have to move on. And if I move on, what do I not want that to look like?
As I stare at the don’t want section, it’s like a gate has opened, and scenarios start popping into my head.
I don’t want just anybody. I don’t want a man who doesn’t have a career, or a sense of purpose.
Ollie’s a professor. He’s smart. I want someone like that.
Someone I can have deep conversations with.
Not somebody who is happy doing the bare minimum.
I don’t want someone with no drive, no ambition, no credentials.
I write this down. It’s harsh, written like that, but it’s what I want.
Liberated, I write down professions that I don’t want my future imaginary non-Ollie boyfriend to have.
He must not work as a: fisherman (the smell), a farmer (the smell), butcher (the smell). Humour is great, but he must be serious when the time calls for it. Nobody wants a joker. Must be tall, brown-haired, smart and educated. At least a Master’s or preferably a PhD.
Like Ollie.
I smirk at PhD. Write it again, only this time spelling out: Pretty Huge Dick.
Like Ollie.
I could be here all day on what I don’t want. Flippantly, I write: if he’s not Ollie, I’m not interested.
‘Finished.’
‘Good,’ Lucy says, smiling. ‘Care to share?’
I shake my head. ‘Not particularly.’
‘Any insight?’
‘It’s contradictory, but it makes sense to me.’
‘That’s fine. The only one who needs to understand this is you.
It’s just something you can keep with you and refer to.
If you forget about it after today, that’s fine, too.
But sometimes it’s nice to be able to write down some things and see what comes.
I bet there are things that have come up there that you hadn’t realised you’d been thinking. ’
It’s a reflection on me, but what’s therapy if not to bring out the sides of ourselves we don’t like?
‘There is,’ I say, glancing at ‘closure’.
Athens. Ollie. Closure.
In the final spare space in the wants, I write: to be in control of my own life. Oh, and sex. Because my God, I want sex.