Chapter 38 Ev
THIRTY-EIGHT
ev
Was it weird to think that my boyfriend’s therapist was pretty?
She was. She was older, maybe in her mid-forties, and more than a few wrinkles showed that, but I’d never been one to think wrinkles disqualified anyone from a beauty contest. Her hair was so shiny, silver curls bouncing an inch above her shoulders and one of those short lesbian bangs.
I lowkey wanted to be her when I was older.
To look like her?
Ugh.
Whatever.
The point was that she looked nice as she smiled at Santos and asked him about his day and the weather and if he’d found parking more easily this time. It felt like I was privy to a camaraderie that I shouldn’t witness, but I put my adulting pants on and followed them into her office.
She—Victoria—put her turquoise glasses further up her nose before she asked me to sit wherever I was most comfortable.
My gaze darted between the seats by the desk, the two larger couches, and an armchair that reminded me of old movies and Freudian something. Santos went straight for one of the couches, so I followed.
I only hesitated when she took the seat on the couch opposite to ours.
Was this a faux pas? Should I have grabbed the armchair or the couch she was now occupying?
Santos didn’t indicate that he was uncomfortable.
It wasn’t like I’d invaded his space. The couch was big enough that we didn’t have to touch.
I wasn’t touching him, even if my fingers itched to.
Things had felt somewhat better after Santos had pushed me back into the bed.
After he’d bitten on my shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise, and he made me cum without my cage on, even after I begged him not to, because no wasn’t a safeword between us, and he gave me plenty of time to use one of those.
But, still, things felt rocky. They felt even rockier the closer we got to this building, because as confident as Santos looked on the outside, and as many promises of us against the world he’d uttered in the past couple of hours, I still didn’t know why I was here.
“It’s nice to meet you, Ev.” Victoria set the recording machine Santos had told me about on the coffee table between us. “Is that how you want me to call you? Santos mentioned he was the only one who shortened your name differently.”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Ev is fine.”
“Perfect. And you already signed the papers to consent to being recorded, right?”
I nodded. Clearing my throat hadn’t helped that much, and new people didn’t suddenly turn me into an extroverted version of myself, even if they were professionals and I solely thought of them in that capacity.
“All right. So, before we get started, I want to make it clear that, today, I’m acting as a mediator, or a facilitator, between the two of you, but first and foremost, I am Santos’s therapist, and as I consider I’ve already established a therapeutic bond with him, should you consider you need more sessions after this, the best I can do is refer you to a colleague who specializes in couples therapy. ”
“Okay.”
My heart started beating really fast at the idea of needing couples therapy, but it didn’t matter. I was here for Santos, not to have someone else deal with my own shit.
“I don’t think…” Santos licked his lips. “I feel like I’m losing the fucking plot, honestly.”
I tried not to react, but my eyes widened. I was aware that people spoke differently in different contexts and around different people, but it hadn’t prepared me for Santos, for the way his voice was lower or the way his words came out more terse.
Victoria either didn’t know there was another side to him, or she didn’t mention it. She just asked him to elaborate, and he went on about the events of the past two weeks, and getting so lost in his head, and how terrified he was of losing me. Of hurting me.
The knot in my throat choked me as the two of them stared back at me. They waited for me to speak, but I didn’t know how to do that.
“I’ve been scared of the same thing,” I whispered eventually.
Victoria didn’t react. Santos’s eyes softened a bit, the challenging glint that had been there when he started pouring it all out to his therapist not quite there anymore.
I stood there, motionless, until Victoria took over.
Maybe it was the normal thing for therapists to do, or maybe she realized that someone needed to take the wheel here, and it was not going to be me.
She asked Santos how much he wanted to open up about the trauma and what they’d been working on in the office.
Santos went on about a tale that I thought I knew, except I’d only been aware of the bare bones of it.
The knot in my throat wasn’t leaving anytime soon.
“And I really, I swear I know you’re not that.
I swear I know you would never do anything without…
enthusiastic consent, right?” He screwed his eyes shut before I could answer.
“But I don’t know how to keep the images away, how to stop my head from going to those places, and I don’t know how to do any of it without hurting you or fucking up. Or whatever it is I have been doing.”
I swallowed. If we were home, I’d crawl to his lap and hold him tight and kiss him, and I’d feel like it wasn’t enough, but it would bring me some comfort. I supposed it would bring him some comfort as well because I wasn’t the only one who sought touch.
“I just don’t know how to make it better.
” I wrapped my arms around my midsection as the words left.
They weren’t enough. They didn’t explain enough.
“I keep getting in my head, and convincing myself that I’m the problem, and then I don’t know if you’re doing things because you want me, or because you’ve told yourself that’s what I want, but…
we could agree right here and now that we’re not ever having sex, in any capacity, and I’d still love you, and I’d still want to be with you. ”
And that was probably a lot, and I was about to be accused of using hyperboles again.
I prepared myself for it, but it didn’t come.
Instead, Victoria broke the silence by asking Santos what he thought about what I’d just said and how it made him feel.
I was back to feeling like I was intruding on his therapy time, but neither of them made a move to dismiss me, so I stayed seated, and I listened while Santos talked about feeling weak and like he wasn’t enough of a man, even though he knew that was the toxic masculinity he’d been surrounded with while in the Air Force talking.
Most of the time, being in a space where I wasn’t expected to talk was a blessing.
It soothed every edge and every tendril of anxiety coursing through me to let the conversation float around me, to be allowed to be just a listening ear.
For the first time, today, I itched to become a part of it, while knowing it wasn’t my place.
I wasn’t the professional here. I would say the wrong thing.
It was strange.
“You know, Ev, when I first met Santos, he made it really clear that your relationship was nonnegotiable,” Victoria said.
Every now and then, she folded me in. Maybe she saw how close to crumbling down I was, her therapist senses tingling, or maybe it was just the way these things usually went.
“Usually, when a client uses that word, it’s an immediate red flag, and it was back then. ”
“Oh.”
Santos cringed. “Sorry.”
“What I mean is…” Victoria fixed her glasses once more.
“I have not seen disdain, anger, disgust, or any of the emotions I’m used to witnessing when someone makes such a claim, and then they need to see a therapist to help with the struggles that you’re dealing with.
So, let’s leave today’s session with at least a couple strategies so that you can work through this process. ”
“Maybe it’s just not working,” Santos said before I could agree with what she was saying.
“What do you mean?”
I grabbed one of the throw pillows on the couch and used it to cover up as much as I physically could.
“I mean, maybe I should just put a lid back on everything, and then I could be a good partner to him, and things would go back to normal.”
“But you’d be hurting,” I protested. My fingers clenched around the scratchy fabric of the pillow. “You were hurting before you told me about that woman, and before you started therapy, and it sucked to see that, too.”
“But now I’m hurting, and I’m hurting you, as well.”
“But you’re healing too, right?”
Wasn’t that how it worked? I knew Kara talked about it sometimes, how starting trauma-informed therapy was the hardest, and a mindfuck, and she’d even lost her closest friend, which had sounded like the most horrible thing at the time.
Apparently, they had reconnected recently, but that didn’t make me feel any better.
I couldn’t lose Santos. I refused to.
So I let Santos and Victoria talk through the pros and cons of continuing therapy versus keeping the status quo.
I pretended I didn’t want to scream at him every time he acted willing to sacrifice himself, because I didn’t want to lose him, but I didn’t want him to lose himself, and there had to be a way to have both things. Right?
I wasn’t naive.
I just…
The two of us against the world had only taken us this far.