Chapter 38
Ammon called.
Tean didn’t answer.
The first time, it was only once.
Then three times the next day.
Then six calls in a row, until Jem finally took Tean’s phone and turned it off.
He showed up on the porch, and Tean went into the office. He could hear Jem and Ammon shouting for almost fifteen minutes—not the words, thank goodness.
Tean went back to work, and Ammon started calling him there.
Finally, Tean picked up the phone and said, “Stop calling me. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Tean, please—”
After that, the calls came from different numbers.
And a week later, security had to walk Ammon out of the DWR lobby because he wouldn’t stop shouting Tean’s name.
“I can’t do this,” Tean told Jem one night.
And Jem, face grim, held his hand and said, “I’m going to handle it.”
“No. Don’t. I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”
And that turned into its own argument.
Which was why, two weeks later, they drove together to the therapist’s office.
It was located near The Avenues, in a stately old home that had been carved up into office space.
Inside, though, it still had traces of the craftsmanship that had gone into the original structure: polished wood floors, a cavernous fireplace, even a stained-glass window in the foyer.
The waiting room had comfortable sofas in gray upholstery, and instead of the overhead fluorescents, a few lamps filled the room with a warm glow. The air smelled faintly like lavender. Jem bounced his knee until Tean put a hand on it, and Jem offered a slanted—and surprisingly tight—smile.
An inner door opened, and a man said, “Mr. Leon?”
The man who stood there was average height—maybe a little taller than Tean—and stockily built, with wavy hair and a very un-Mormon beard. White, probably in his late thirties, he had blue eyes that made Tean think of a Husky. “I’m Hudson Miller,” he said. “Good morning.”
Jem spoke first. “It’s Dr. Leon.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hudson said.
“No,” Tean said with a look for Jem. “It’s fine. Nice to meet you. Just Tean, please. This is my boyfriend, Jem.”
“Nice to meet you, Jem. Tean, if you’re ready, we can move into my office. Jem, are you going to be joining us?”
“No,” Tean said.
Jem settled back onto the sofa with a half-smile, and Tean followed Hudson deeper into the office. When he glanced back, before he passed through the doorway, Jem was staring down at his clasped hands, and the smile was gone.
“Have a seat,” Hudson said as he settled into an armchair.
The office was done in the same neutral tones as the waiting room.
There was a loveseat instead of a sofa, with a small coffee table in front of it.
On the coffee table, a decorative tray held what appeared to be a ball of moss, a small ficus, and a box of tissues. Windows looked out on the mountains.
“Did you find the office okay?” Hudson asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Before we start, I want to go over a few basic items. This is what’s often called an intake session, so our goal for today is to get to know each other and talk about what brings you here.
What we talk about is always confidential, unless there’s a risk of harm to you or someone else.
You didn’t indicate a preference for how frequently you want to meet, so that’s something I’d like to discuss after we talk more about our goals and the work we’re going to do together.
Typically, I take notes throughout the conversation.
If that bothers you, I don’t have to do it, but these notes are also confidential, and I’m the only one who will ever see them. ”
Tean nodded.
“Do you have any questions?” Hudson asked.
Tean shook his head.
“What made you decide to come in today?” Hudson asked.
Tean ran his hands over his khakis, stretching the fabric over his knees.
“Last year, I was involved in a shooting.” He cleared his throat.
“I shot someone.” And then, like falling: “I killed someone. The police investigated, of course. I was protecting Jem, and there were never any charges. But I am…not handling it well.”
“That sounds very heavy. Thank you for trusting me with it.” Hudson paused, maybe to give Tean a chance to speak. When Tean didn’t, he said, “When you say you’re not handling it well, can you tell me more?”
“I’m not sleeping. When I do, I have nightmares. Sometimes even when I’m awake, I see it in my head, but it’s like I’m there.” Tean pushed a hand through his hair. “There are times that I feel like I’m dissociating.”
Hudson nodded. “Is any of that happening right now?”
“No.”
“If you feel like you need to take a breath, or you need to ground yourself, let me know. We can always pause our conversation at any time.” Another of those gaps came again. “You said you’ve been struggling with this for a year. What made you decide to address this now, specifically?”
In spite of his best efforts, Tean felt a smile cut across his face. A hard smile. A cutting smile. “I assaulted a man. I nearly lost my job. I’ve been pushing Jem away.”
“When you say—”
“But the real reason is because I have a…an ex. And he keeps trying to contact me. And I don’t know what to do.”
Hudson hesitated for a moment.
“That’s what I want to talk about today,” Tean said into the pause. “The rest of it, yes. I know I need to deal with it. But today, I just want—I just want to know how to handle this.”
“Okay,” Hudson said. “We can talk about whatever you want, but I think it’s important that we don’t avoid those other items you brought up.”
“Of course.” Tean tried to laugh again. “They’re all connected anyway.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s happening with your ex?”
“It’s…complicated. He’s married. To a woman. He has children. For a long time, we were sexually involved. And emotionally involved. And I just had to…take whatever he would give me. And then I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“That sounds like it must have been very isolating.”
“We stopped talking for most of the last year,” Tean said, “and in part, that was the…the shooting. But recently, his son had some problems. Jem and I helped. And now Ammon—that’s his name—keeps calling.
He calls me at work. He calls me at home.
He’s shown up at the house, and he knocks on the door until Jem threatens to call the police.
I picked up the phone one time and told him to leave me alone. Obviously that didn’t work.”
“Do you know why he wants to talk to you?”
“He wants to tell me why he…why he did what he did. He wants to tell me he was protecting his son. He wants to thank me. He thinks, because I helped him—because I helped his son—everything can go back to the way it used to be.”
“And what do you want?”
The sudden surge of tears caught Tean off guard.
He blinked them away, but his voice was still rough when he said, “I want not to have wasted so much of my life on him.” He tried to stop there, but the words kept pouring out.
“I’m so angry. His son is gay, and—and a lot of bad stuff happened because Ammon wouldn’t help him.
Wouldn’t be honest with him. Ammon is who he is.
He’s not going to change. I get that. But talking to Daniel, knowing that Ammon is—is perpetuating this horrible cycle.
It makes me furious.” He tried to laugh, but instead, the tears rushed in again.
“I honestly think I’d still be sitting at home, trying to deal with everything else myself, if he hadn’t kept calling, making me angrier and angrier, until all I could think about was how I wanted to tell him, wanted to make him understand that I never wanted to talk to him again, never wanted to see him again, nothing. ”
“Do you think ending contact with Ammon will help with the other things that are going on in your life?”
“I don’t know. I know seeing him would make things worse.”
“Why’s that?”
“It just would.”
The scratch of Hudson’s pen came in answer. “What does ending all contact look like for you? Do you want to block his number?”
“Yes.”
“Have you done that already?”
Tean twisted his hands between his knees. “Yes.” He gave an unhappy laugh. “That’s why I’m here. Because I did it, and it feels fucking terrible. Because I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.”
After a moment, Hudson said, “That sounds like it was a big step for you.”
Tean shook his head.
“Are you upset because you blocked him?” Hudson asked. “Or because it felt wrong to do it?”
“I don’t know. Both.” But immediately, Tean said, “Because it feels so awful. I know it was the right thing to do. Just like I know I shouldn’t answer the door.
Just like I know I shouldn’t talk to him when he calls at work.
Everything between us was toxic. What he’s done to his family is toxic.
He hurt me, and he lied to me, and he made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything.
But do you know what’s so messed up? The minute he needed me, all he had to do was snap his fingers, and I went running.
And I don’t want to live like that anymore. ”
“But?”
The faint sound of traffic filtered into the room.
“But I loved him. For a long time. And I know he’s hurting, too.
I know nobody’s perfect.” Heat filled his face.
“I love Jem. More than I’ve loved anyone in my entire life.
But there’s this part of me that just can’t let go of this stupid dream I had of Ammon.
And I’m angry because I can’t—I can’t be angry enough with him.
Because I just want him to be gone, and I know that hurts him, and now I feel even worse. ”
“I can understand how that would be confusing and stressful. It sounds like you have a lot of resentment towards Ammon for how he treated you, but you also still feel some attachment to him. You also have compassion for him and his situation, and that compassion makes you feel guilty for setting boundaries that you know will be painful for Ammon. Does that sound right?”
“It sounds insane.” But then Tean rubbed his eyes. “Yes. That’s…that’s accurate.”
“What if, instead of trying to reconcile all those different feelings, you practiced making space for them? They’re all part of who you are.
You can recognize and validate them without letting them dictate your behavior.
In fact, I’d encourage you to see your decision to set a boundary with Ammon as a healthy choice, but not one that invalidates the complexity of your feelings.
In the same way that the complexity of those feelings doesn’t make your love for Jem any less. ”
It felt like a long time went by before Tean said in a small voice, “I don’t know.” But then he said, “I want to do that. Set boundaries with him. And I want to get…better, because I don’t want to lose Jem. That’s what I want.”
Hudson smiled. “Let’s talk about that.”