35. Learning The Hard Way
35
LEARNING THE HARD WAY
“Y ou’re going to be late for work,” Justine said forty minutes later when she walked down to the main door to let Garrett up to her apartment.
“I’ve got time,” he said. “And if I’m late, then I am.”
He always put his patients first and for him to not worry gave her pause.
“I don’t think they will appreciate that,” she said.
“I messed up, Justine. I already said that, but I’m not going to go to work with us fighting like this. There is more to say and I want it said.”
“You were pretty clear,” she said. “You didn’t tell me because you didn’t know where I stood.”
He wasn’t wrong with his words.
It hurt to hear them, but sometimes things just hurt in life.
Something she was learning the hard way this year.
“It came out wrong in my anger,” he said.
“I don’t think it did,” she said. “I think you’ve been sitting on that little bit for a while and watching your words so that you didn’t feel as if you were pushing me for fear of pushing me away. Right?”
His eyes searched hers. “Maybe.”
“See,” she said, pointing her finger. “Intentional.”
“Come on, Justine. There is no winning here and you know it. You’re mixing two things up. If I told you I wanted to stay on the island then it might sway your decision. Can’t you give me some credit here? I told you I could do either, so it’s not much different than you not knowing. You need to make your decision for yourself and not what I want.”
“No,” she said. “That isn’t right and you know it. You want to be here. I can see it in your eyes. I can see you are more relaxed and I’ve heard it enough from your family members. I can see it because in the short time I worked in Boston, I’m feeling it here too. But what I needed to know was more of what brought you here. It’s more than the three deaths. It’s because you were a cancer patient too. That’s important and you didn’t share it.”
He stopped for a moment. “What are you feeling?”
She wasn’t going to push him right now on her comment even though she wanted to.
“Life is just different here. Boston is crazy and fast-paced. More than I was used to before. I guess I had a mixture back home, but here, as much as I’m working, I don’t feel as if I’ve got no life. That all I do is eat, sleep, and go to work.”
“Because of me?” he asked.
“That is part of it,” she said. “You have to understand. Right now, I can’t make a decision in my life based on a few months of a relationship with someone. I saw the things my father went through. The choices he made and stuck with. He should have divorced Elise, but I think he didn’t want to feel like a failure again. So he pushed through it and maybe stuck his head in the sand.”
“Don’t compare that to us,” he said. “It’s only going to piss me off. Neither one of us is a drunk or has done anything in our lives even remotely close and you know it.”
She’d never seen him angry like that. Irritated or frustrated, but the look in his eyes now was more intense than ever before.
His eyes were narrow, his stance was tense.
He’d always been so patient and now he wasn’t.
She’d never been with someone like that and wasn’t sure how to handle it.
But she would not back down either.
This was too important to let go.
“Fine,” she said. “I won’t. My point was, you just don’t know and if you are going to make some long-term decisions and choices, you want to be as informed as you can be. And I haven’t been with you as much as I thought. Or you haven’t been with me.”
She saw his eyes fill a bit. Anger she could handle better than hurt.
“Seriously? Me having cancer as a kid is a deal breaker for you?”
“No!” she said. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”
He threw his hands up. “Justine. I don’t know. Your reaction to this is part of the reason I haven’t said anything yet. Do you know how many women I’ve dated who have found out and wondered if something about me was altered because I didn’t have a thyroid? That didn’t understand what it does to your body and just thought, oh, it’s hormones. So are you going to be someone who is unpredictable? Or not be able to have kids? Not be able to get it up or have sex at times?”
“That’s stupid,” she said, frowning. “And not me. I understand it and that is why I’m bothered. You know I understand those things too.”
“Fine,” he said. “You do. But let’s call it PTSD then. It’s hard to get past being the kid in middle school having cancer, surgery on their neck, and going to school with bandages or scars. I got called names and talked about behind my back. You moved because you didn’t want to be talked about or listen to your father being judged, try being a kid with that going on.”
“It couldn’t have been easy,” she conceded.
“It wasn’t. And I knew or understood more what cancer was all about because of my father’s job. So there was this fear I was living with too. Maybe it’s hard for me to talk about now, and I’m sorry. I’m not making excuses, but you’ve got enough going on in your life too. I didn’t want to add to it for something that was from over twenty years ago. And because you do know about it more than someone else, you’d know and understand that too.”
He wasn’t wrong with anything he was saying.
“I just feel as if there is so much going on in my life that is out of control. I’m not sure how to get it back either.”
“Do you need to get it back?” he asked. “Can’t you just move through it like I am? Like we are doing together? I’m going to make mistakes. So are you. That is part of life. Not one of us is perfect or ever will be. I don’t expect it from a partner. Are you one of those people that does?”
“No,” she said. “I even told Jordan that there was nothing negative about you early on. You know that.”
“Which is wrong. Maybe you were looking for it and didn’t see it, and convinced yourself it wasn’t there, but it’s always there. I’m not naive enough to think it’s not with any partner.”
She nodded her head. “Like me running rather than dealing with something head-on.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You did it this morning too. You didn’t give me a chance to explain anything. Or for us to talk this out. You’ve changed since you’ve been here. You’re trying not to do the one thing you’ve always done, but when things get bad, you revert to your old ways. I’m not holding it against you though.”
“That’s why you came?” she asked.
“I came because I don’t run when it’s important enough and the woman I fell in love with hasn’t been running either, until today. I wanted you to know that I’d be here. That I wanted to talk it out. If it’s pushing you, then I’m sorry, but maybe you need to be pushed too. I don’t know that having hours apart stewing on this would be a good thing. I don’t want to let something that happened to me over twenty years ago come between us now because I didn’t tell you. It seems ridiculous.”
When he put it that way, it really did.
“It was a shock to see it.”
“What if it was something like acid reflux meds?” he asked. “Would you have been worked up? Or what if I just had thyroid disease and took meds to regulate it? There are so many other things it could have been.”
“I know,” she said. “But having been a cancer patient in your career and knowing the type of doctor you are, it’s all part of it. I told you that. I think that is why you put so much on your shoulders now too. You know what your patients have gone through so you put yourself in their shoes because you’ve been there. And by doing that, you take on their pain with yours. Maybe I don’t like that you do that.”
His shoulders dropped. “You’re not the first person to say those things to me,” he said. “And you’re not wrong. I think we both reacted strongly but for different reasons. I jumped the gun that you were thinking of me having cancer the same as others.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Sometimes I think you know me so well and then I realize you don’t. And it reminds me it has only been a few months. We don’t see a lot of each other. We both have demanding jobs that take a lot of time away from the other.”
“Don’t put roadblocks up,” he said. “I can see you doing it and it’s going back to avoidance. Before this morning, we had no problem with the way our relationship was going, right? The amount of time we saw each other?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t. Did you?”
“Not really.”
“Not really means that maybe you did,” she said exasperated. “Be honest.”
“You want honesty? Sure, I’d like to see you more, but that is on me and not you. If you want to spend the night when you have to work, go ahead. It’s not going to bother me if you have to get up and leave early. But maybe it would bother you if I got a call in the middle of the night.”
“No,” she said. “It won’t. I know what it’s like.”
“There you go. Something else we’ve been avoiding talking about. I know it’s only been a few months, but you only have a few months left too. So when do we start having these conversations? A few weeks before you’re supposed to leave?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have thought of that. Not a timeline, but when we would have to talk about it.”
“How about we talk about it when it comes up? Or talk about it now? You know how I feel. I know how you feel about being here. Do I want you to make a decision today? No, and I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
Which she appreciated.
“I’ll have to make one at some point. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he said. “I’d never ask anyone to do something they didn’t want to do.”
“Even if it hurt you in the end,” she said. “Because you’ve done that most of your life, Garrett. You take on other people’s pain and problems and don’t share your own. You have to stop doing that.”
“I said it before, Justine. There is no winning here. If I do what you say, it could put pressure on you and make you pull away. If I don’t do it, you’re going to think poorly of me or that I’m avoiding things. What do you want me to do? You’ve backed me into a corner.”
She hadn’t thought of it that way. “It’s my problem,” she said. “Not yours. I want you to be you. I have to make my decisions in life and live with them. I don’t want you carrying any guilt over it. And it’s wrong of me for you to do that. I am backing you in a corner as you said and hadn’t realized it.”
“It doesn’t change the fact,” he said.
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t, but I can’t give you any other answers right now. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“I’ll accept it because I don’t have a choice. It doesn’t change my love for you though. Do you forgive me for not telling you about my cancer? Can we at least move past this?”
She’d be an idiot to say no.
A horrible person on top of it.
Everything he’d said was true and she was only looking at it from her point of view.
Guess they were both pretty flawed.
“Of course,” she said. “Can I get a hug before you go to work?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said, moving into her arms.