“You can make up. That’s what friends are supposed to do when they have fights. That’s what they tell us in school.”
“I know, bud. And it’s good to make up with someone after you fight. This wasn’t really a fight though.”
“What was it, then?”
“It was more...it was more like a decision. It’ll make sense to you when you get older, but sometimes people become friends, and then... and then they become more than friends... but sometimes it doesn’t work out, so they decide not to be friends anymore...” I let my voice trail off. I was not explaining this very well.
“How can you be more than friends?”
I sighed. “Listen, Declan, it’s late, okay? This isn’t a conversation to be having right now; maybe we can talk about it some other time. But I just want you to know that I don’t think we’re going to be hanging out with Miss Allie anytime soon, okay? I just don’t want you to be expecting that.”
He frowned and yanked the sheet up to his chin. “That’s dumb,” he said. He rolled over onto his side, his back facing me, and I knew that, unless I told him we could go over and see Miss Allie tomorrow, that the conversation was over.
“Goodnight, bud,” I said, leaning over to give him a kiss. I gave his shoulder a squeeze, but he didn’t bother to turn and give me a kiss on the cheek back, like he usually did.
As a doctor, I understood the connection between mind and body, and I firmly believed that an unsound or unsettled mind could and often did manifest as a physical ailment. It could be as disease, could be as weakness; either way, I didn’t want to get sick and I didn’t want to get injured, and it was with that in mind that I forced myself to call a therapist.
Which was how I found myself sitting here on a Thursday evening. Ben had left work early to hang out with Declan so I could drive over to Gardner for this appointment. Lisa Farrell was someone whose name I knew, though the two of us had never met, which was good. I didn’t want to go see someone I already knew.
She was an older woman, probably somewhere around my mother’s age, and she sat in the wingback chair opposite me with a notepad poised on her lap.
“No one is forcing me to be here,” I said, “though with that said, I’m not sure that I should be here to begin with.”
She nodded thoughtfully, though I was pretty sure she’d probably heard some variation of that line hundreds of times.
“Why don’t you tell me why you decided to call,” she said. “Just tell me that without consideration over whether or not you should be here or not.”
“I’m here... well, there’s probably a lot of reasons I could give, and they’d all be valid. But the real impetus for the call was because I recently broke up with a girl who I was very much in love with. More than anyone I’ve ever been with before, in fact. And I’m having a hard time getting past that. And my son is having a hard time with it, too. He’s confused, and he wants to see her. It’s just been pretty difficult because she also still happens to live right next door to us.”
“And you’re still in love with her?”
“Yes,” I said, without hesitation.
“Why did you break up with her if you’re still in love with her?”
“Because something happened, and it made me realize how dangerous being in love could be. I guess it’s been so long since the last time that I kind of forgot. And honestly—I’ve never felt this strongly about someone before.”
“That’s interesting, then, wouldn’t you say? That you’ve found someone and you feel these intense feelings for her, yet you’ve decided to end it anyway. Tell me about that.”
“What is there to tell? My son Declan—he’s 4—we took him down to Boston for the day, to see Allie’s parents. Well, her mom and stepfather, which was kind of a big thing for me to begin with because it was like meeting her parents and all, even though I’d technically already met them. But this just seemed like a bigger deal, because here we all were, taking a road trip together, going down to hang out with her parents for the day. But that’s kind of beside the point. I guess I only bring it up to illustrate the fact that things were definitely getting more serious between the two of us. So, we were all looking forward to the day, and then Declan, he ended up getting lost. Not for that long, and he was totally fine, but he was still lost, and for those 15 minutes, it was like my entire world just stopped. And not in a good way. I had never felt so scared, so powerless, in my entire life.” I shuddered just thinking about it. “And it was my own fault. We had just come out of the museum and I stopped and gave Allie a kiss. I wasn’t paying attention to Declan because all I wanted to do in that moment was give Allie a kiss.”
“And that’s why you broke up with her?”
There seemed to be a note of surprise in Lisa’s voice, which in turn, I found surprising. Surely, she had heard worse. Surely, people had confessed much crazier things to her.
“Yes,” I said. I knew how ridiculous it sounded just saying it like this. But she hadn’t been there; she didn’t know the feelings that accompanied it. How I would never be able to even look at myself in the mirror again if something had happened. “You weren’t there,” I said. “You didn’t see what happened.”
Even I could hear how defensive I sounded, but who the hell was she to judge me? I had made this decision not for her, not for me, not for anyone but Declan. “This wasn’t what I wanted to do,” I said. “Do you think I wanted to break up with someone that I felt this strongly about? That I still have these feelings for? Do you think this is easy? Because I can tell you that it’s not. But I’m putting someone else ahead of my own wants and desires, which isn’t a bad thing, is it?”
“It depends on the situation.”
I stared at her. “So are you saying you think I did the wrong thing?”
“I’m not saying either way. All I’m saying is that sometimes, we also need to pay attention to our own wants and needs, as well. There’s a balance. Tipping it too far one way or the other is not good.”
“I know that. But in the case of raising a child, I think it’d be better to err on the side of caution. A relationship can take up a lot of time, and kids certainly take up a lot of time, and I’m a doctor, so my patients take up a lot of time...”
“So it sounds like you don’t actually have that much time for yourself. In fact, it sounds to me like you dedicate quite a lot of your time to caring for other people. Which is admirable, but if you don’t allow time for yourself to recharge and do things that you enjoy doing, you’re going to burn out.”