Chapter Twenty-Seven
As I make my way up in the lift for my next therapy session, my stomach fizzes with anticipation. I feel all bubbly and silly.
I’m excited to see Edward.
Not in a sexy way.
Okay, sure, yes, ten per cent in a sexy way.
But also in a more healthy, processing way.
I can acknowledge that I have feelings for my therapist, but I can also accept that it is part of a wider context – a lifetime of unhealthy patterns.
I have transferred my feelings for Justin directly onto the next man who was vaguely nice to me.
Edward was right. It is classic transference, and it is normal. It will go away.
More importantly, I’m excited to see him because I’ve realised how much our sessions are helping me.
I’m seeing myself so much more clearly than before.
I want to talk more. I want to tell him about my conversation with Orla, about my fight with Sam, about how okay it was bumping into Justin like that.
How there was a sort of closure sense to it.
I want to unpack it all with someone who gets it and doesn’t judge me.
Outside his door, I check my phone. I have another email from Fabian, chasing me about this meeting with the publisher. I had hoped ignoring his last message might magically make the whole thing go away but I guess not. I shoot off a quick email.
‘Hey Fabian, I’m assuming they’re cancelling the contract, so any chance we can just do this over email? I’d rather not be dumped in public again, you know I don’t react well to that kind of humiliation, lol.’
I feel better after I press send. I don’t even want to write the stupid book anymore.
It’s become very clear in the last few weeks that I know nothing at all when it comes to relationships and romance.
I am beyond clueless and in no position to be doling out advice to anyone.
I need to work through my own stuff before I can work on anyone else’s.
‘Olivia, good morning,’ Edward greets me from his doorway. He’s wearing a grey three-piece suit today with a crisp white shirt. His tie is black and woollen. He smiles nicely – but coolly. ‘You ready?’
‘I am.’ I nod, following him in and taking a seat. He offers me a drink of water, and I reach for the glass, taking grateful sips. It helps settle my stomach a little as I try not to look at his mouth.
These feelings are normal, I instruct myself again. Not real, but normal.
‘So—’ he begins, leaning forward, and I cut him off.
‘Before we get started today…’ I smile. ‘I wanted to say… well, sorry.’
He blinks at me, and I sense something shift under the neutrality of his face. He thinks I’m referring to the kiss.
I quickly continue, ‘I mean sorry about this whole’—I wave my hands—‘therapy thing. I’m sorry I’ve been so resistant and so, well, rude.
’ I think of that first session, playing that stupid colourful test tubes game and ignoring everything he tried to ask me.
It seems like such a long time ago and I hardly recognise myself.
Edward’s face relaxes a fraction. ‘I didn’t think any of this would help me,’ I explain, knowing he knows this, but still wanting to say it.
‘I feel silly about what a child I was about the whole thing. I was acting out, trying to run you off, trying to force these sessions to stop somehow. Until last week, really, when I realised how much I wanted to keep going.’ This time, I am referencing the kiss.
I stop suddenly, considering this. Considering the timing of it and what a stupid, self-sabotaging thing it was to do.
What if I did kiss Edward to avoid closeness? Because I knew there was no way this could turn into anything real. Maybe I don’t feel worthy of real love and that’s why I dated Justin for so long, too. Because I didn’t believe I was worthy of someone decent – of an equal.
I shake my head, the realisations coming thick and crushingly fast.
I always felt – feel – less than. Something in me is afraid that people will leave me because I’m not enough.
Perhaps washing Justin’s pants was my way of proving I was worth keeping around.
Like, if I can make myself amenable enough and bring something real and useful to a relationship then maybe I can persuade them to stay.
Maybe I’ve been doing the same thing with Sam, by being her entertainment.
What if I sabotage myself by avoiding anything that could be real and true, because… what? I don’t trust love? And maybe the anger is another way to keep things and people at arm’s length. When you’re angry, it’s hard to feel anything else, right?
‘Do you think I push people away?’ I say suddenly, and Edward frowns.
‘What makes you say that?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Sam and I had a… tiff the other day.’
‘A tiff?’ He is reflecting everything back; making me do the work. God, that actually really is annoying.
I take a deep breath. ‘It was mostly just petty lashing out, but there was some real stuff under there.’ I grimace. ‘I worry she encourages my worst tendencies. It feels like she likes me best when I’m self-sabotaging and creating drama. Like, she wants me to be a fuck up.’
‘Why would she want that?’
I consider this, feeling intensely disloyal.
‘I sometimes think she needs me to be the mess in our lives, because then it makes her feel less like a mess herself. She’s dissatisfied with things – she hates her job, she’s still grieving her dad – and maybe if I’m even more of a hopeless case, then she can feel…
superior. Like things aren’t that bad because at least she’s not Liv.
And I allow myself to be that person for her because I need her to need me.
I have to be useful to her so she’ll keep me around.
’ Because she won’t let me wash her pants – I don’t say.
‘Have you ever talked to her about it?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘It came up during the row, and things really blew up. We’ve barely spoken in a week.’
‘We don’t always take things said during an argument seriously,’ he says. ‘Especially if it was very heated. So, it might need repeating in a kinder way.’
‘It was very heated,’ I confirm. He regards me silently, waiting, so I start speaking again, fast. ‘I don’t think it’s a conscious thing she does.
I don’t think Sam is doing it deliberately.
It’s just a dysfunctional pattern we’ve fallen into.
And it was actually quite fun for a long time, but I don’t think it is anymore.
Another friend, Jools, said to me recently that women put themselves through so much pain for no reason, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
’ I pause and he waits. ‘Sam is one of the best people I’ve ever known,’ I tell him fiercely, though he said nothing.
‘She is my twin flame and I wouldn’t be without her. ’
‘It sounds like you just need to talk to her then,’ he says softly.
‘Calmly – non-heatedly. If you can both see the toxic patterns and work on trying not to slip into them, you’ll be fine.
Sometimes we have to work just as hard on keeping our platonic relationships healthy as we do with the romantic ones.
Friendships can be dysfunctional, too. Even the best ones. ’
‘That makes an awful lot of sense,’ I say slowly. ‘But being honest is sometimes really hard. Harder than it should be.’
‘Why do you think that is?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. What if telling her the truth means she doesn’t want to be my friend anymore? What if she…’
He looks at me. ‘What if she leaves you? What if you offer her love and your whole, real self, and she rejects you?’
I know what he’s getting at. What if she deserts me like my parents did?
‘Did you have the same struggle in your relationship with Justin?’ he presses, and I stare down at my lap. ‘Being honest with him about how you felt, I mean?’
‘I guess so,’ I say quietly after a minute. ‘But I don’t know if I was being honest with myself around him either.’
He leans forward slightly. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I suppose I mean’—I clear my throat—‘I think I was lying to myself as much as I was to Justin. I kept telling myself I wanted this. I wanted to look after him, I wanted to be there for him, I wanted to wash and dry and iron his clothes. I told myself I wanted the relationship with him.’ I shake my head.
‘But I don’t think I did, not really. I was lying to him and to myself.
Maybe that’s why I was so shaken when he dumped me.
Because I was that deep in the lie. I was so entrenched in it, I couldn’t fathom that our relationship was…
well, total shit.’ A wet spot lands on my hand, and I realise I’m crying.
He hands me a tissue as the tears come thick and fast.
After a few minutes, I attempt a smile, trying to trick my brain into cheering up. ‘Let’s talk about something else for a minute,’ I say. ‘I meant to ask – how’s your mum doing?’ His careful-therapist face slips just a little.
‘She’s great. She’s been resting a lot and taking it easy, but she’s doing much better.
Thank you for asking.’ He reaches around to the table behind his armchair.
‘In fact, she sent you some brownies to say thanks for looking after her favourite son.’ He hands me a Tupperware, and I shake my head with delight.
‘Oh my god, that’s so nice! Tell her that her favourite son, Jake, didn’t even need my help, he had all his friends there, looking after him.’
Edward gives me a stern look that makes my stomach flip. ‘Hey,’ he warns.
I laugh. ‘I’m joking. Team Edward all the way. You are second only to my loyalties to Team Charlie Swan.’ I nod at the cakes. ‘Can I have one?’ He nods.
‘Have them all, they’re yours.’ He smiles again. ‘She’s actually very upset she didn’t get to meet you, though it wouldn’t have been the best time.’
‘Maybe another day,’ I say thoughtlessly, and then feel myself flush. Why would I meet her another day? I take off the lid and offer him the tub. ‘I will allow you one,’ I say grudgingly, and he excitedly accepts. We both chew silently, regarding each other.
‘Did you try out your homework?’ he asks after swallowing, and I try not to notice the crumbs freckling his white shirt. He’s quite the messy eater. Why do I find it cute when he shows me his flaws? Maybe because he is so close to having none. The more real and human he gets, the more I like him.
It’s just transference, cut it out, Liv.
Ugh.
A chocolate chip lands in his lap, and I smile. His next patient will love seeing a dent in her therapist’s perfect armour.
‘I did indeed.’ I reach for my handbag, pulling out the anger journal where I’ve made a few notes.
‘I tried screaming into a pillow – a lot of fun but slightly suffocating. I also tried some painting, which ended up being a very intense black vortex of nothingness, which I assume means I’m completely fine’—I grin—‘and I also went back to kickboxing.’ I beam, remembering all that cathartic sweat.
‘I think I’ll be doing a lot more of that, it unleashes something in me. I feel amazing afterwards.’
‘That’s great,’ he says happily, and a crumb bounces off his shirt and onto his lap to join the chocolate chip. I follow its progress then realise I’m staring at his lap.
‘Um, so you think my parents really fucked me up, huh?’ I say quickly, and he looks a little surprised.
‘You asked me earlier if I think you push people away,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘Do you think you push people away?’
‘I was thinking about our conversation about my mum – and my dad,’ I say, trying not to get emotional. ‘They were the two people who were meant to love me most. They were meant to think I was amazing. And they didn’t.’
‘Our brains love a pattern,’ he says. ‘When you’ve grown up with love being this cauterised thing, without feeling or affection, maybe you assume that is what love should be.’
‘So, I tell myself I want love, like everyone else,’ I continue, ‘but I’m also afraid of it, because it wasn’t a good feeling when I was young.
And anything real, with real passion and real care and kindness…
’—I shake my head—‘would be very alien, right? It would be very scary and even feel wrong.’ I take a second.
‘When I kissed you…’ I swallow hard and he interrupts me.
‘I am bound by an ethical guide…’ he says robotically. There is panic in his eyes and I can hear the dump truck backing up – beep beep – ready to tell me to sling my hook.
‘God, I know,’ I say quickly. ‘That’s what I mean, it’s what I was going to say.
A big part of me must’ve known it was wrong when I came on to you.
Rejection and abandonment are part of what love is for me, right?
It’s what that twisted inner child perceives as love.
And so, I kissed someone that would have to reject me. ’
We look at each other, and for a moment – just for a split-second – I think I see pity in Edward’s eyes. And it stings so much.
He’s not interested in me. It’s oh-so clear now.
Not at all. Maybe he was once, before. A while ago.
Maybe he even was for half a second when we shared that kiss.
But now it’s obvious I’m just a client to him.
A patient in need of a lot more therapy.
He’s seen these awful, humiliating, embarrassing parts of me, and any flicker of what could’ve been has been doused with water.
But there is someone out there who I can trust to still love me once I’ve shown them the worst parts of myself.
Who has proven herself time and time again.
I have to go see Samira right now and tell her how sorry I am.
I need to be completely honest with her about all of it, and believe that she won’t leave me.
Because we might have that running joke between us where I say I love you, and she tells me to fuck off, but I know – bones-deep know – that she does love me. And I need her in my life.
Now I just have to make sure she knows it.