Chapter Twenty-Eight
O N S UNDAY AFTERNOON, WHEN I arrive back in Perrin after spring break, I’m supposed to have therapy with Bridget. We had an appointment scheduled over spring break, but I didn’t feel like doing it in Ohio. I wanted to be in my own space.
The clock is five minutes past, then ten. Bridget doesn’t respond to her texts. I email her, too. Nothing.
I’m annoyed. I put on concealer for this.
Soon I start ruminating. Why am I not an important client? Why doesn’t she like me enough? Is she like this to all clients? It’s rude. I get up to make a pot of coffee. Suddenly, I feel the urge to pee, but I can’t because what if she calls in one minute and I’m in the bathroom?
Five minutes later, I resent not peeing. I should have taken the risk because now I continue to wait, and every minute I wait, the more likely she is to call.
Just like that, my phone flickers with a video call. It’s her. Twenty minutes late.
“I wasn’t sure if you forgot about me,” I say when her face appears on the screen. She looks completely nonplussed, like she wasn’t rushing at all.
“How did that feel?” she says softly.
“I’m sorry?”
Bridget leans back from the camera, her face going out of focus. “When you were waiting for me, how did you feel? The last twenty minutes?”
I narrow my eyes. Is this a joke? Why isn’t she just apologizing to me?
“I felt annoyed.”
Bridget nods and her eyes go down, probably to where she’s scribbling in her notebook. “Annoyed?”
“I was frustrated that this session wasn’t a priority. Obviously I know things come up, but maybe a text saying you’d be delayed? We’ve been talking for over a year now and I don’t know…”
“Go on. What else were you thinking?”
“Well, I wondered if you didn’t like me as a client.” I feel ashamed the second the words leave my mouth.
“And how did that make you feel?”
“Bad?” I raise my eyebrows. “I would be sad.”
“Sad,” she states again, totally neutral, which exacerbates my frustration.
“Yeah. I… want you to like me.”
I feel my face turn beet red. My eyes sting, but I try to push the emotion down. How embarrassing. What if she thinks I’m obsessed with her? Some strange stalker with a bad case of transference. Of course I don’t assume she’s like my friend , of course she’s not—
“So when I didn’t come on time, your first reaction was, ‘There’s something wrong with me. I’m not good.’ Is that right?”
My mouth is dry and my throat tightens. Having it put like that feels so stark. Uncomfortable.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Leigh, I intentionally came twenty minutes late.”
“What?”
Bridget nods. “I wanted to see what your reaction would be.”
My mouth drops open. “Is that even legal?”
She swallows a laugh. “Your first reaction, when someone ignores you, is to assume that there’s something wrong with you. You assign your self-worth based on your perception of what others think about you.”
“What would a normal person do?”
“You are a normal person. But a person who doesn’t base their self-worth on other people might say, ‘Oh, she’s late. That’s frustrating.’ And that’s that. They move on. They don’t assume it’s a commentary on themselves.”
I laugh a bit. “Wow, what’s that like?”
“Last session, we talked about your mom. How would you feel talking about her again now?”
“Okay.”
“When your parents separated, how did they explain it to you?”
I cringe at the memory. I’d sensed tension for months prior, of course, an increase in digs about my dad from my mom via text and weary calls from my dad, but when you don’t live in the house anymore, it’s too easy to ignore. To pretend that nothing has changed.
Until I got the phone call. A video call, actually, with both of them—the last one I would ever receive.
“It hasn’t been working,” my dad started.
“We’ve decided to separate,” my mom said.
It felt like a death.
“My mom said they realized how different they were. How they wanted different things.”
“How did it feel to hear that?” Bridget asks.
“Shitty. Sad. Obviously.”
“Obviously?”
“The three of us were good together.” I scrunch my eyebrows, trying to force myself to remember. “I was happy, my dad was happy, I thought my mom was happy. Them deciding it no longer worked was a—”
I pause. Bridget waits.
“A what?”
“A rejection,” I spit out.
“Of what? Of who?”
Something snaps deep inside my chest. “Of me! A rejection of me, okay?” I feel shame at the way my voice rises, but I can’t stop it; the words continue to flow out. “She always said, ‘You’re just like your father.’ Constantly. Even when it was a compliment. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’ Dad and I are heart-on-our-sleeves people. Emotional. Needy. Sensitive. And Mom decided that wasn’t working for her anymore. And Dad! He’s always, like, oh, you push things down; he tells me I’d rather hide away than fight for something. Just like my mom does. So sure, it was a rejection of each other, but…” I pause to breathe, to unwind my fisted hands. “… it felt like a rejection of me, too.”
Bridget nods like she always does: kindly. “How does it feel to say those words out loud?”
“I feel like I’m a narcissist,” I scoff. “You arrive late and I think it’s about me. My parents divorce and I think it’s about me. What does that say about me? Am I egomaniacal?”
“No. But I think you’ve tied a lot of your self-worth up with other people’s opinions. It’s not that you think everything is about you. It just sounds like you can practice more self-kindness. Plus, there’s an opportunity for you to do some work identifying who you are outside of the opinions of others.”
“And how am I supposed to start doing that?”
“You could start by taking some time to just feel your emotions. Not editing them because of what you think someone else will like or what you think is appropriate. It’s not a cure, but something like body-scanning meditation could be a tool for you to regain the trust between your mind and body.”
“Sure,” I say, because everything sounds smarter when someone else says it.
“What about your writing? You’ve mentioned the feedback that your poetry might be stronger if you were willing to be more vulnerable. Maybe a poem is a safe place for you to explore who you are.”
I curl my legs up into a tight pretzel on the bed and sigh. “I’ve tried. You know, I write these poems where I pretend to be Taylor Swift or someone else famous, and while I’m channeling another voice, it’s still me, isn’t it? I mean, what would I even write about otherwise? No one I love has died, I haven’t faced some major trauma, and I don’t have any profound insights on the moon that haven’t been covered by every poet ever. And I just… I can’t bear to write some whiny poem about my parents divorcing long after I’ve moved out of the house and then have ten of my classmates deconstruct it. I want my professors to give me an assignment, tell me exactly what they want from me. And trust me, I’ll deliver. A haiku, an ode, something in fucking iambic pentameter? Great, I’ll do it. I’ve been doing this on my own anyway. But they won’t tell me what to write, so I’ve been coming up with assignments myself. Write a breakup poem in the voice of Taylor , or whatever. And yet, it’s never enough for them.”
I take a deep breath and swallow. That felt sort of nice.
Bridget lights up. “It’s not enough for you, either.”
“Excuse me?”
She shakes her head. “You couldn’t stand how limited you felt at your ad agency. How interesting that there, the parameters and restraints you talked about were a huge burden to your creativity. But now, when you don’t have any, you feel entirely unsafe with your own voice. You’ve been so, so good over the last twenty years, maybe longer, at self-imposing these restraints—molding yourself to exactly what other people want—that when someone asks for vulnerability in a poem, you’re at a loss. You don’t even know what they’re asking for.”
Well, shit. I bite my lip, but my shoulders straighten, a bolt of energy injecting into them.
“Okay, I hear you. But what am I supposed to write about, like actually? Divorce? Life at an ad agency? A bunch of limericks about bid day? Jesus, how dull.”
Bridget laughs. “I’m no poet, but what about… this ?” She waves her hand in the air. “Your tendency to people-please, the frustration of being vulnerable, et cetera. Couldn’t that be interesting to explore?”
I’m not sure what my face is doing, but Bridget gives a light shrug.
“Just an idea.”
Going back to school when you have no idea where you’re supposed to go from here is tough.
I start with a Monday-morning Writing Center shift, one that luckily Will doesn’t share. I exchange pleasantries with Houston and some of the English PhDs as we wait for students to come in. Since it’s the week after spring break and we’re not exactly the hottest spot in town, hardly anyone does.
I’m scrolling mindlessly through Instagram when Houston nudges me, holding his phone up. “Did you get the email? About the fellowship?”
My entire body goes cold and I flick to my inbox. Indeed, there’s a new email, sent five minutes ago. Subject line: Announcing next year’s fellows , from Daniel.
My vision goes glassy as I scan the email for the shape of my name. I know it won’t be there, but still, a kernel, hidden in the back of my brain, thinks, Maybe you misunderstood their conversation at AWP. Maybe you have a chance. Maybe something changed at the last minute .
It didn’t. Hazel got it.
“Damn, good for Wiebke.” Houston sounds genuinely pleased for the fiction fellowship winner, even though he just lost something.
I nod. It’s a placeholder, really, for an emotion I can’t name.
“Yeah.”
Houston leans closer, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, man. You really wanted it, didn’t you?”
I shrug and it occurs to me suddenly: I haven’t really wallowed. Over my parents’ divorce, maybe. I let the facade slip in front of Bridget. Over Will, hardly, but Gen’s listening was helpful anyway.
But for this? My big stupid dream about being a poet? About never going back to marketing and pencil skirts and bathroom panic attacks? About leaving the MFA with a fellowship, networking contacts, a jump-start to publishing in all the best journals?
No, I haven’t allowed myself to mourn at all. I micromanaged my mind, too scared to feel.
“Yeah, I did.” I don’t dare turn to face him.
Houston puts his hand on my shoulder, just for a second, and squeezes. I force the muscles around my mouth to turn up in a grateful Thanks , but my mind is elsewhere.
“For what it’s worth, I really liked your Taylor Swift and One Direction poems.”
I stiffen. As a fiction writer, there’s no way Houston could’ve heard them, unless a poet showed him the early drafts I submitted to workshop.
“What? When did you read them?”
Houston’s eyebrows raise. “William read them. At the reading. We all thought you… knew.”
My heartbeat stutters and all I can do is shake my head. I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me. But it makes the sharp feeling in my chest worse. He wanted to give me my moment that I’d worked hard for. He wanted my voice to be heard, didn’t he? And then I absolutely ruined it.
I make an excuse about needing to pee because I’m thirty seconds away from giving in. From letting every atom of my existence ache, freely. Just this once.
“Are you okay?”
The voice is soft and tentative and weirdly familiar. I open my eyes and see pointy-toed pink leather boots.
I look up in horror. Erica Go, in a glorious navy jumpsuit, is watching me cry on the floor of a bathroom in Gilman Hall.
I pat my fingers across my eyes, trying not to make the mascara streaks worse than they surely are. “I’m totally fine! I have allergies. Never been better!”
Erica laughs and slinks down like I’m a child who got her knees scraped during recess. “Honey, I’ve been there. You don’t need to lie to me.” She sits on the bathroom floor next to me. “Now, really, what’s wrong?”
I stutter. “Wait, why are you here?”
“I came back to campus to sign some contracts and take some meetings with Daniel about next semester.”
“Oh.” I sniffle, the sound of snot curdling through my nose.
“But what’s got you crying on the bathroom floor?” Her voice is kind and soft, a dialed-back version of her poet voice. I feel like I’m made of glass, like she can see through me.
“In a year I’m going to have to go back to Boston to shill diapers.”
Erica bites her lip. “That is quite possibly the last thing I’d thought you’d say.”
“I don’t want to be in marketing. I want to be a poet.”
Images of last year in the Boston office bubble up, me going through the motions of being someone who cares about teasers and headlines and preambles. Just thinking about it, I feel tense, my body rejecting it.
“Cool. So be one!” Erica pulls out a pack of Kleenex from her chic purse and hands a tissue to me, like all of this is easy.
“Just because I want to be like you when I grow up doesn’t mean I can. Poetry isn’t really an industry that’s hiring. That’s why I wanted your fellowship so badly.”
“Ah.”
The bathroom door opens. A girl walks in and gives us a funny look before going into the stall. Erica opens her mouth, but I shake my head, and she nods. We wait for the girl to finish peeing. The second she leaves, Erica starts again.
“You know, after my MFA, I worked as a hairstylist for five years before I ever wrote another poem. I had zero connections. We didn’t have fellowships like this at Emerson. So I stuck to hair for a while. It felt easier. But regardless of what your hands are doing during the day, some of us are still writers. I wrote poems in my head while I cut bangs. One time, I accidentally gave this very corporate woman baby bangs because I was trimming a sonnet in my head. I was getting to the last few lines while I was cutting her hair and realized they all had to go. So she ended up with these bangs that were a few inches above her eyebrows. Can you imagine? Baby bangs at Deloitte? My poem turned out great, though. I submitted it to Best New Poets and they accepted it.”
I stare at her in wonder. “And her hair turned out great, too, didn’t it?”
Erica clasps her hands together, matter of fact. “Oh no. She looked terrible. She refused to pay, rightly so, and the salon fired me on the spot.”
My mouth cracks into its first smile of the week.
“What I’m saying is, you don’t need anyone’s permission to be a poet. I think the fellowship is a nice opportunity, but it’s just an opportunity.”
“But I know myself. I need all the help I can get. I’m not the type who’s going to write on the weekends and submit to endless journals and awards just for a shot at maybe being in Best New Poets . This fellowship was supposed to be my fast track. I’m not good at persevering through rejection. It’s so much work and I am clearly terrible at dealing with it. Look at me. I was told no and now I’m sitting on pee-soaked tile crying to my idol.”
Erica guffaws. “Nice way to treat your idol! Why didn’t you tell me the floor was pee-soaked before I sat next to you?”
My mouth drops open. “No, I’m just being dramatic, I don’t think it’s actually—”
Before I can continue, she grins and shoves my shoulder lightly. Like, I’m just joshing you, bitch . Is Erica Go my friend now?
I shake my head. “So I’m just supposed to do this forever?”
“Fall and get back up? Yeah, I think so. What other choice do we have, you know?”
A low, rumbling ugh escapes my mouth. “I was hoping I was special.” It’s facetious, of course, but sometimes my subconscious desperately wants to be the exception.
Erica laughs. “You’re not. I’m not, either. And isn’t that the most comforting thing in the world?”
I’m not sure it is. It’s no warm blanket or cup of coffee or the feeling of Will’s hand on my lower back, that’s for sure. But maybe I can get there.
“I really messed up things with this guy, too. I’m so fucking afraid of rejection that I rejected him before he could reject me. But he’s perfect, Erica, really. I just feel like I’m not smart enough or cool enough or a good enough writer, and he’s going to kick me to the curb decades from now when he realizes that. How am I supposed to risk that devastation? He already rejected my writing once in high school and then he rejected dating me at Middlebury. How am I supposed to ignore those things? Why did he have to reject me at Middlebury?”
As I speak, Erica nods earnestly, like she’s absorbing every single word. She opens her mouth, and I’m prepared for mind-blowing, life-changing advice that’s going to make clear what my next eight moves should be.
“I don’t know why he rejected you at Middlebury. I’m afraid I don’t know… anything about Middlebury. Or you, really. Or this guy.”
“Oh, true.”
Erica stands up then and offers me her hand. “I can offer some generic advice, though, that I think is pretty tried and true. I recommend getting used to being more vulnerable. It’ll feel uncomfortable at first, exposing yourself, but it gets easier over time and there’s really no downside. Only good things come out of being yourself and asking for what you need.”
We stand in front of the mirror, side by side. Erica fluffs up her hair and retouches her lipstick. She gives me another tissue to blot away the gray splotches under my eyes.
When I’m done, she turns to me with a grin. “You’re a poet, Leigh, don’t worry. Only a writer would describe this dank bathroom floor as prettily as pee-soaked tile .”
I snort and she laughs and then we walk out of the bathroom together.
Maybe not as fellowship mentor and mentee, but something closer to that than faraway strangers.
When I get back home, I don’t feel like doing anything but writing.
It’s not a common feeling for me. I’m motivated by deadlines and praise and prestige. It’s why I could never have developed a poetry habit without the structure of the MFA. Why I probably never would’ve applied to the program if Goldfinch Review hadn’t accepted that lone poem I’d sent in months prior.
But right now, I do it just for me. As an outlet, as a refuge. I fill up a Word doc with verbs like tug and break and tussle . I command every scraped-cheek tear into a flinty noun that threatens all the nouns before it. I add adverbs where past writing teachers warned me not to, lest I inadvertently dull the impact of an action. The tension that knifes behind the muscles of my face cuts phrases into stanzas. Every breath I take blooms into a loose rhythm, the kind that hurtles words down a page even when they don’t feel like being pushed.
I write until I have nothing left to give and the words become simple again—one-syllable bites like love and yes and will .
My eyes snag on that final word—no longer a name, but a promise of forward motion. I close my laptop and reach for the book he gave me, Death Is a Peach We Refuse to Eat , which I buried in my bookshelf weeks ago.
I devour every single page, and when I’m done, I start again.