Chapter 17 #2
“Right.” But there’s a question primed behind the tightly uttered syllable, like he’s looking for confirmation. Like he, too, is wondering if in some alternate universe we’d still be happy, or if every path would have inevitably led here, to the end.
“I should tell you,” Liam says after a pause, eyes shifting to the mud then back up to mine. “I’ve been talking to someone.”
I jolt up, every internal alarm in me suddenly tripped. “You mean like dating?”
He licks his lips and swallows; something unreadable crosses his expression. “I mean like a therapist.”
“Oh.” The word punches out of me with a sharp exhale.
“I started seeing someone a few weeks ago.” Then in a lower, more cautious voice, he adds, “It’s really helped.”
A rush of something—anger, hurt, confusion—swims in my chest.
If this were a game to test how reactive I am to certain topics, Liam going to therapy would be on the Chernobyl end of the scale.
Liam, who never shares his feelings, who spent nine years finding every excuse not to talk about his family, is seeing a therapist? And it’s helping? With what? Our breakup? Or something else?
My thoughts zigzag back and forth, trying to unravel this new detail, until I realize Liam’s watching me, clearly waiting for a response.
“What made you decide to see a therapist?” I finally force out.
“Kevin, actually,” he says.
I blink. “Kevin? As in the guy who has a porno stache and thinks lining his mantel with empty liquor bottles is the height of interior decorating?”
“Kevin’s actually been a good friend these past few months,” Liam says, giving me a look as though to say when I needed someone.
“But eventually he got sick of seeing me mope around and said maybe I should talk to someone. I didn’t want to at first, but…
” He hesitates before saying in a low voice, “Things got bad.”
My joints tighten. “What do you mean bad?”
He looks away, his eyes focusing on the stump of a nearby tree, before he says, “I wasn’t doing well.
I was drinking a lot and calling out sick from work.
I got really behind on my lab reports, and for a while, I thought we might lose our research funding.
Kevin got worried and helped set up an appointment for me to talk to someone. ”
His words shoot through me, and I’m not sure what to focus on. That Liam, who cares more about his job than anything, started slacking at work? Or that said slacking is the thing that finally got him to seek out help—not the end of our marriage?
I draw my hand along the ground, tracing patterns in the mud. After a beat, I ask, “What do you talk about with the therapist?” His mouth parts, eyes widening like he’s surprised I’d ask. “I mean, sorry, that’s confidential; you don’t have to tell me,” I say quickly.
“You, mostly.”
I feel my pulse in my throat.
Liam talks about me?
I consider pressing him on it, but to be honest, I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. I don’t want to know what he tells his therapist about me. Or what they might say back. I don’t want to hear why I wasn’t worth fighting for.
“But we also talk about family stuff,” he says. “She’s helped me work through some of my repressed feelings, as she calls them.”
A conflicting swell of emotions presses against my chest as I think about all the phone calls he never told me about, all the nights he emotionally withdrew, all the times we went to bed in silence because he didn’t want to talk about something that happened with his sister.
We were together for nine years, and he never once sought professional help to work through his family trauma. But now, when we’ve been broken up for only three months, he’s suddenly working on himself? Where was this interest in mental health three months ago? Hell, three years ago?
I want to be angry. To turn my pain into something with claws and sharp edges.
And yet, as his eyes meet mine, as I watch his hand flex from his side as though stopping himself from touching me, I know that I can’t.
That despite the bubble of frustration and resentment concentrating in my core, there’s a part of me that’s glad he’s getting the help he needs.
Maybe it wasn’t for me or our marriage, but at least he found the courage to do it for himself.
“I’m proud of you,” I tell him after a pause. “For taking that step.”
He looks up, his soft eyes meeting mine. “Thanks,” he says quietly.
“How’s it been?”
“Hard,” he admits, and I see the answer written across his face. In the deep lines surrounding his mouth.
“Sometimes it feels like I’m making progress, like I’m working through some of this shit from the past. But then something happens.” He gestures vaguely. “And suddenly I’m a helpless kid all over again.”
His face crumples, and it breaks me apart into tiny, fragmented pieces. First for him, for the pain he’s still carrying. Then for me, for all the doors that stayed closed between us. All the conversations we never had.
“I’m so glad that you’re talking to someone and that it’s helping.” I pause, searching for the words I’m not sure how to say. “But there’s a part of me that wishes you’d tried when we were together.”
As soon as I say it, I’m afraid it’s too much. That I’ve taken things too far, broken this tenuous, fragile moment between us. But his eyes widen, understanding sifting through his features like grains of sand falling through an hourglass. After a long pause, he asks, “Would it have helped?”
It’s a derivative of the same question he asked me earlier. But this time the answer feels clearer.
“Yeah,” I admit. “It always felt like your family stuff was this wedge between us, and I could never quite reach you. Like you didn’t want to let me in. And maybe if you had…” I swallow, looking away, unsure how to finish that statement. Or maybe I do know, I’m just afraid to say it.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice low, barely above a whisper.
He doesn’t elaborate, but I can tell he means it, and a bristly ache emerges against my chest.
“I’m sorry too,” I tell him. Though I’m not sure what exactly I’m sorry for. Sorry that it ended the way it did. Sorry that we’re both hurting. Sorry he never opened up to me. Sorry that whatever we once had wasn’t enough to save us.
A breeze lifts the ends of his hair. Somewhere in the distance a bird croons. His eyes catch mine, and I wonder if he feels it too. This soul-bruising crush of loss. If in some strange way we’re in this together, branded by the same marks, hurt by the same wounds.
“So what are we going to do?” I ask after a beat. “Should we start rationing food? Peeing in water bottles?”
“Probably. I mean since we’re going to be stuck here forever. Or at least until a lion eats us.”
“There aren’t lions here,” I say.
“Not that we know of,” he says, giving me a look.
I whack his arm and he laughs, a real one, all low and throaty, and I realize how much I’ve missed it. How much I’ve missed a lot of things.
“You know,” I say, tracing a circle in the mud with my index finger. “Maybe this was actually a good thing.”
“Which part?” he asks. “Getting lost in the jungle? The spider? Or the fact that we’re covered in mud?”
“I thought you said we weren’t lost?”
His teeth tug on his bottom lip, fighting back a grin. Yet another thing I’ve missed.
“I mean maybe us getting stuck together wasn’t a bad thing,” I say. “The whole near-death-by-spider thing sucked, but now that I’ve lived to tell the tale…” I pause, my eyes tracking to meet his. “I’m kinda glad this happened.”
His mouth wavers into a smile. “Me too,” he says, letting his knee bump against mine. The base of my throat warms as I bump his back.
We sit there, our knees touching probably longer than they should until he stands and holds out his hand to me. “Should we try and get out of here before we have to drink each other’s pee?”
I take his hand, but as I try to stand, pain shoots through my leg once more and I stumble, straight into Liam’s steadying grip.
“You can’t walk on that, Roslyn.”
“I’m fine,” I insist.
He hits me with a hard look. “No, you’re not.”
The bossiness makes me want to argue, but I know he’s right.
“So what do we do?” I ask.
His eyes sweep up and down the length of my body, examining. “What if I carry you?”
My mouth turns to chalk. “Oh, uh…You don’t have to do that. It’s not that bad.”
“Roslyn.” He says my name low and serious. “Either you let me carry you, or you’ll have to wait here for me to get help. It’s up to you.”
I bite my lip, weighing the wisdom of letting Liam carry me. Or more precisely, letting him touch me. Everywhere. But then again, I don’t think I have a choice. It’s not like I’m going to stay here with the spiders.
“Fine,” I say, exasperated. “I guess you can carry me.”
“Good, because I wasn’t going to leave you alone with the spiders.” Then he scoops me up, hands sliding under my thighs, and presses me against his chest.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I’m not sure if he means my ankle, or the way his arms are wrapped around my body, holding me close enough to hear the tap tap of his heartbeat, or something else, but I tell him, “Yes, I’m okay.”
And this time I mean it.