Chapter 33 Blunt #2
“They weren’t in love at all?”
“Nope.”
“And that just seemed normal to you then,” she said, as if she were presenting me with the answer to two plus two. Gently. Holding out her hand and offering me four.
Could I take it from her? Could I accept such a simple answer? One that had been under my nose my whole life? That I hadn’t inherited a flaw, that I’d simply done all I knew? “I suppose,” I said, trying it on for size.
“That was the model you had before you. Even if your relationship was different, the marriage you saw was one not based on love, but on obligation,” she said, and I was surely being counseled by her now.
I was the patient. She was the therapist. And the therapist understood all that the patient didn’t.
The therapist guided me through that dark forest to the clearing on the other side.
I could see a small sliver of light, and I wanted to grab it, hold onto it.
I didn’t want to slide back into the darkness.
Because maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t broken. I just hadn’t known anything else.
“So you’re saying I stayed with her because of my parents?” I asked, raising my eyebrows, wishing I didn’t feel like the guy on the psychiatrist’s couch right now. But hell, I wanted to understand what was wrong with me. Or not wrong with me.
“That’s why it took you until a week before the wedding to call it off.
Because you stayed with her, since you didn’t know the alternative.
Love looked like obligation, not like some—” she paused, as if hunting for a word, “incandescent thing.” That word hit me hard in the gut.
Like a revelation. I’d called her incandescent in an email.
It wasn’t a word you heard often. But it was the fitting adjective to describe the difference between how I’d felt for Aubrey, and how love was supposed to be.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, and I felt just the tiniest bit lighter.
With her insight I understood my own motivations.
My worries. My fears. I hadn’t wanted to wind up like my parents, but I didn’t know any other way to be, so I did what they did.
“I guess I didn’t. But I must have been doing the same thing. I never thought about it like that.”
“It’s my job to help people see things in a new light. In a light that might help them understand,” she said, and she seemed to be returning to the woman I went to Paris with, not the therapist. I wanted to reach out to her, hold her, ask her if we were going to be okay.
But I had to focus on Michelle, rather than myself. “You’re not mad that I kept this from you? That I didn’t tell you right away?” I asked, the worry roaring back into me that once again I’d taken a misstep. A big one.
She shook her head. “No. I understand that it was difficult to process. That you had to tell me in your time, and in your own way.”
“And you don’t hate me for not loving her?” I asked, my shoulders feeling lighter, my heart freer again. Because of her.
“No. That was your normal. That felt normal to you. It took you a while to realize it, but you did come to that on your own. You did realize that love doesn’t have to be based on obligations. That takes a lot of guts to call off a wedding, when you realize you’re not in love.”
But, but, but. There was still that big overhang. There was still that empty ache in my chest that guilt had set up camp in. I might understand why I’d stayed with Aubrey now, but that didn’t exonerate me from the damage I’d done. I inhaled deeply, exhaled, and said the hardest thing of all.
“But it’s still my fault she died,” I muttered.
She shot me a sharp look, as if my statement didn’t add up. “I’m going to be blunt with you.”
Blunt was good. I could handle blunt. I needed blunt. No more circling around the cold, hard truth. Dive in headfirst. “Please. Be blunt.”
“Get over yourself,” she said firmly, her eyes fixed on mine. She was intensely serious. It was a command. It was an order, and it floored me.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands, surprised by the crassness of her comment. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it’s really narcissistic of you to think you caused her death,” she continued in the same strong voice that left no confusion about how she felt.
“How is that narcissistic?”
“Jack,” she said, as she slid back into full therapist mode again.
“You took her to the mountains. You brought her to a safe place for her. You gave her bad news in the most loving way possible, given the circumstances. You did the best you could and no one the whole world over would think an Olympic skier couldn’t handle that run,” she said, giving voice to my own justifications.
That was why I’d taken Aubrey to Breckenridge.
I’d thought I was giving her a safe landing.
Could it be that I was right? That I had? That the rest was simply—
“It’s called luck,” she continued, filling in the questions that were in my head. “It’s called a risk. You didn’t cause her death, and you need to get that out of your head right now.”
With her words, I felt the heavy weight lift.
I didn’t know it until now, but I had been seeking absolution.
I had wanted to be washed clean of my regret.
I’d needed to hear that sometimes, terrible things happen, and you don’t cause them because of what you said twenty minutes before.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say the hard things.
“So we’re okay then?” I asked, the world seeming to come into focus again. The sun dared to shine through the window, the sounds of an early Paris morning floating into the room. We could have our croissants, get a coffee, go to a museum, find a secret nook…
She laughed once, then shook her head. “Not so fast.”
“Wait. You just said you understood,” I said, furrowing my brow. I couldn’t lose her. I couldn’t bear it. She was my anchor. She was my sanity.
“I do understand. I understand as a therapist. I understand as a professional. But as a woman who loves you? It’s a lot harder.
I understand in my head, but my heart wants to retreat,” she said, placing her hand on her chest, already shielding her own heart from me.
From the way I could wield malice without even trying, apparently.
“And not simply because of what you told me. Because I don’t want to be part of a pattern.
I don’t want to be the next woman you care for, but don’t love.
I know you were only doing what you learned.
But I’ve been putting myself on the line for far too long.
This isn’t separate for me any longer, Jack.
I wish it were. I truly wish I didn’t feel all that I do for you.
But it happened. I fell in love with you, and I need to really think about whether I want to keep putting myself out there when you’re not even sure if you know how to love,” she said, grasping my hands.
“I have given you my whole heart, all of my body, and everything in my soul. And I have never felt so wanted. But I need to be loved.”
“But Michelle, you are. I swear,” I said, wanting desperately to convince her, but failing, judging from the way she winced, as if my words had wounded her.
They sounded weak even to me. That was not how you told a woman how you felt.
“Let me rephrase that,” I said, wishing it weren’t so damn hard just to say it.
She stood up, smoothed out her shirt, and held up a hand. “I’m going out for the day. Just to walk. To be alone.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, my heart racing with worry.
“I don’t know. But I need some space. And to be frank, you probably do too. Maybe you need to spend some time processing. It’s kind of a big deal what you shared with me,” she said in a sympathetic voice.
“When will I see you again?” I asked, hating the way I sounded, but needing to know if this was the end.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you…are we still staying together?” I asked tentatively, because it seemed as if the entire trip had been upended now, turned on its head.
“That’s a good question. And I don’t have the answer to that. This is why I need some time alone right now to think. All I know for certain is we have an expiration date in a week anyway. So, really, what’s another week?”
It was a damn good question. We’d already gone further, pushed more, fallen harder than we were supposed to.
What would happen in another week? Too much, too little, not enough?
Or did she mean what did it matter now if we shared these final days?
Maybe we’d done all we could for each other and it was time to move on.
She seemed to be waiting for an answer, but I didn’t have one.
She walked away.