Chapter Twenty-Three Paul #2
In my head, I tell myself I'd always kept a line between us, a firm boundary. She was a coworker, a friend. I had always seen her as an attractive woman. I checked her out and admired her, but that was that.
I rationalized it as admiring a piece of art. I already had a Masterpiece at home, but it's also nice to look at other pieces, right? However, as we began working together more closely, I maintained a professional relationship until...
Until Sophie approached me, held her robe open, and said, "Paul, can you come look at this?"
"When Sophie found a lump in her breast," the words escape from my throat in a ragged gasp, and I'm briefly worried I'm going to vomit. "That's when it shifted. That's when... everything became real. Scary."
Dr. Forseti nods, her tone neutral. "How did it proceed from there?"
"We made appointments for Sophie. I talked to my friends, to my family, and... to Elise about it. She was one of the first people I told. At work the next day."
"And how did each of the people you talked to respond?"
I swallow hard. "I told them about the lump—and I knew what it was.
I mean, we didn't know, but... I just knew it was cancer.
I could feel it, and I was terrified. My friends told me to be there for Sophie.
My family said things would be okay, that we'd figure it out together. All of us. We would figure it out."
My throat tightens on the next words. "And Elise..."
Dr. Forseti tilts her head, her expression still open and disarming.
"What did Elise tell you?"
I close my eyes, thinking back to my shameful actions, playing in my mind like a horror movie.
The venting lunches, the after-work conversations while lingering by my car, the meetups at Haunts.
The way I was able to just crack open my skull and unspool all of my fears, my concerns, my desires. Me, me, me...
"That I was valid to be scared, that this was going to change everything, and that I needed to prioritize myself.
.." My voice breaks as the truth threatens to strangle me.
I take a deep, uneven breath, the tears spilling down my cheeks with no resistance.
Surrender. "She validated every ugly, selfish thought I had in my head.
And I wanted—craved—that validation more than anything. "
Dr. Forseti nods, lifting her pen to write something down.
"You were spending a lot of time with Elise? How often would you have these types of conversations?"
"Almost every day," I admit, wiping my wet eyes.
Dr. Forseti motions to the box of tissues on the table in front of me, and I grab one roughly.
"We had doctor's appointment after doctor's appointment and all these terrifying words like tumor and biopsy and cancer and mastectomy and chemotherapy and radiation.
.. I felt like the floor was being torn out from underneath me. .."
"And Elise threw you a rope?" she asks quietly.
"It was just—" I start and catch myself, the justification on the tip of my tongue, the excuses crawling up my throat and trying to force their way out.
I dig my palms into my eyes until it hurts, until my vision turns to stars.
"Jesus Christ! I still keep trying to justify it!
What the fuck is wrong with me?" The last word comes out in a yell that echoes off the walls.
Dr. Forseti doesn't even flinch as I continue on, furious at myself.
"I tell myself I didn't know how to handle the pressure.
That no one in my family had gone through this before.
That I felt invisible, but that's bullshit.
It's all fucking bullshit. Sophie was about to start fighting for her life, and I just wanted someone to pat me on the back and tell me, 'Poor Paul, this is so hard for you. '"
My mom's scolding after I came home like a kicked dog, with my tail between my legs, echoes in my head.
"You shortsighted, immature little boy..."
God, my mom was right.
Dr. Forseti lets my outburst hang in the air for a couple of moments, letting me sit in it before she tilts her head. "Have you always been impulsive?"
"I..." The question catches me off guard, and I shake my head.
"No, I don't think so. It wasn't just a.
.. mistake," I admit, hating the sound of my own voice.
"It wasn't something that just happened.
I didn't get drunk. I didn't slip. I thought about it, and I had multiple times where I told myself to stop.
To go home. That I had Sophie. Then I did it anyway, and I kept going back to it. I kept choosing it. Choosing her."
She nods slowly. "When faced with trauma—like a loved one's illness—many people experience what we call acute maladaptive coping.
Fight, flight, or escape. Some escape into substance abuse.
Some fall into reckless behavior. And sometimes that escape becomes sex.
Infidelity. People who are completely happy and in love with their partner suddenly cheat.
There are many cases like yours—men and women who cheat on their partners after a cancer diagnosis. "
The thought that I'm a statistic does nothing for me. That's not what I'm paying her for anyway, I don't want to feel better—well, I do, but I want to find out why. I want to be able to sleep again at night. I want to be a man worthy of forgiveness, I want...
God, I just want Sophie again.
"You said you kept going back, you kept choosing Elise. What did you feel with her?"
"It wasn't love," I say immediately, shaking my head in disgust. "It wasn't even real.
I can see that now. It was all physical.
Empty. I think... I think I was addicted to the way it made me feel—wanted, needed, powerful.
But... it wasn't real. It was a high. Like trying to drown out the noise in my own head with someone else's body. "
"Tell me about when you told Sophie."
I shift in the chair, guilt crawling over my skin like ants.
"When I told her, I felt this disgusting relief.
The weight had been lifted from me, and now I realize—I'd just dumped it on her instead, like she didn't have enough to carry already.
The look on her face... it'll haunt me to the day I die.
.." I trail off on a sob and dig my fingers into my eyes, "I told her that the mastectomy—that losing her breasts—was a problem. "
"That’s quite hurtful. Was that true?" she asks, and I feel sick from replaying that conversation, those cruel words.
"Yes—no. I... yes, it mattered to me, but—" I clench and unclench my fists, frustrated, agitated, coming unglued.
"I love her body, but I love Sophie more.
God, I love her so much. I just want her back.
Please, help me get her back..." I beg, a man stripped down to nothing.
I'm seconds away from falling from my chair, begging on my knees for Dr. Forseti to help me, to fix me, to make me better so I can get Sophie back, so I can be the man she needs.
Her look pins me in place, simultaneously pitying and sharp.
"Paul, why are you in therapy right now?"
"I..." My voice dies in my throat, and she continues, placing her pen down on the notepad and folding her hands in her lap.
"Because, I'll tell you, if your only objective is to get her back, this process will not work. You are doomed to fail. You can't hinge therapy on trying to get your ex-fiancée back. If I do this, I'll get this. That's not how this works."
Her words are not the ones I want to hear... but they might be what I need to hear.
"Say if you do all of this, and she doesn't take you back, then what?
You fall back into old patterns, you don't heal, and god forbid you do this to another person when life comes knocking.
The only way you're going to make true, lasting change is by doing it for yourself.
Funny enough, your selfish choices led you here.
Now you need to be selfish again—focus on yourself—to find a better path forward. "
◆◆◆
I trudge up the stone walkway to the familiar front door, my heart pounding so hard it feels like it might crack through my ribs. My palms are damp. I've already wiped them on my jeans three times, but it's useless.
It’s odd, being so anxious as I stand in front of a place that had once been my safe place.
With a shaky hand, I press the doorbell. The sound echoes inside the house, and I try to search for the right words that disappear the second I hear footsteps on the hardwood floor. When she pulls the door open, her face goes shocked for half a second, then it sharpens into something harder.
Disappointment.
She's standing in the foyer, wearing a soft Starling Cove High sweatshirt, jeans, and her slippers. Her arms cross over her chest like a shield, her eyes narrow, and she opens her mouth to speak.
"Ma, I'm sorry.” The apology falls from my mouth rapidly like word vomit. "I'm so sorry, you were right. I'm selfish and immature, and you were right to be ashamed of me. I hurt Sophie. I deliberately hurt her, and I hurt you and I... I'm so ashamed of myself."
She's not slamming the door in my face, but she's not softening either. "And are you still talking to—"
"No," I croak, shaking my head desperately, knowing exactly who she's talking about. "No. No, that's... done. For good."
She stares at me, that gaze that can see right through me, and lets me stew in it. She looks at me like I'm a stranger, like whatever part of her that was proud of me is dead and gone. It hurts, and I have to avert my eyes to say the next words.
"I'm in therapy. I'm trying to... I'm trying to change, Ma."
A brief flicker on her face, her eyebrow raises slightly, and the angry, tight line of her mouth softens. Just a little.
"I fucked it all up," I whisper pathetically, "I fucked up my life. Me, only me. I need to figure out why. I need to get better. I just... I want to come home," my voice cracks, and suddenly I feel like a child again, needing my mom, my dad. Needing a soft place to land.
Not that I deserve it.
The silence stretches before she asks, "Where have you been staying?"
"Southport."
"Lord in Heaven," she hisses at the name of the motel, the place having a particular reputation in town. She sighs, shaking her head before stepping to the side. "Come on."
Relief hits me so fast I feel dizzy. Until she snaps, voice sharp, "Don't mistake me pitying you for staying in that flea-infested motel as me forgiving you. We’ve got a ways to go before that happens, Paul Francis."
I nod my head, having expected this, and quickly rush inside my warm home. The comforting scent hits me, and I barely resist the urge to cry.
"I know, Ma—"
"No, you don't know," she slams the front door closed.
In the doorway of the kitchen, my dad appears, arms crossed and expression unreadable.
My mom showed more outward signs of disappointment, words hissed and clipped, but my dad could scare you straight by his looming presence and sharp glare.
They were a perfect team to get me to confess when I got detention in school.
"Dad."
"Paul," his voice is flat, curt, and unimpressed, and it makes me wince.
"You hungry?" my mother asks from the hallway, already walking toward the kitchen without waiting for my answer.
Following her directions, I grab platters of food and bring them to the dinner table. My dad grabs silverware and a plate from the kitchen and sets up my spot. It's not warmth, it's not forgiveness, it's not anything but basic decency, but after drifting for so long, it feels nice.
Not home, but no longer in exile.
An hour later, I’m full of my mother’s food, and I've informed my parents of my current situation—work suspension, friends not talking to me, Elise and the apartment, and the lies.
Their expressions grow increasingly dismayed, darkening with every word I say.
Like me, they can't believe the mess I've made of my life.
Mom sighs, "So, no work for two months?"
"Yes."
"Jesus H. Christ," my dad mutters, crumbling up the napkin in his hand. I don't think I can shrink anymore in my seat, feeling like a scolded child.
Then, the curiosity has been eating at me for too long, and I open my mouth and almost ruin it.
"How's Soph—"
"Paul Francis," she snaps, slapping her hand down on the table and rattling the silverware.
She points her finger at me, "You better hear me, and you better hear me well—you do not get to ask about Sophie.
You don't get to say her name. As a matter of fact, I don't even want you to think about her.
You gave up that right the moment you broke her. "
I open my mouth, but she silences me with a look so fierce it chills me down to my bones.
"She is healing," she continues, her voice trembling now—not with rage, but with the desperate protectiveness of a mother.
Sophie is more her daughter than I am her son right now.
I deserve that, and I can admit I am truly glad that they rallied around Sophie.
"She is rebuilding herself, piece by piece.
And you? You don't get to knock those pieces down again. I won't let you. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I will let you stay here, but there are going to be rules. I don't want to hear a word about you being an adult—consider those privileges revoked while you're under our roof," she snaps, my father, laying a hand over hers in quiet support.
"You will attend therapy. You will perform any household chores or yard work that I instruct you to do.
You will go to church with me on Sundays.
You will volunteer with me at the food pantry.
You will shovel shit at the Wilkins Stables if needed.
And you will do it with no complaints and a goddamn smile on your face. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, ma'am," I tell her respectfully, and she peers at me for a long moment before nodding. She stands and tosses her napkin onto the table.
"You're on dish duty," she calls over her shoulder as she walks to the kitchen. "Welcome home."
My dad is already up, laying a solid hand on my shoulder—not comfort, but not a threat.
"This is the start of your penance, Paul.”