by Cassia Leo
If the answer to my question was that Dylan was gay, he would be completely within his right to tell me to mind my own damn business. But I had divulged Jack’s tech-celeb identity, and the sorry state of our marriage. I figured I was owed a little juicy backstory in return.
Dylan looked up toward the ceiling, squinting his brown eyes as if he was trying to remember something, then he looked me straight in the eye. “I think you only get one true love in this life. And if it’s not the fight-me-tooth-and-nail, leave-me-bloody-and-gasping-for-air kind of love, I don’t want it.”
I laughed even though his words gave me goose bumps. “I saw that on Instagram, too,” I said, shaking my head. “But let me tell you from experience, that kind of love is not all it’s cracked up to be.”
After my supplies were packed into the trunk of my Tesla, Dylan sent me home with a book on backyard garden restoration, which was much more lyrical than I had anticipated. He told me it should only take a few days to read, then I’d know everything I needed to know to get started on my mother’s garden and my new job.
I left the store with the book clutched against my breast and a new spring in my step. I had met my neighbors and gotten a job, and it wasn’t even noon. I was making progress.
Now, I just had to figure out a way to thank Isaac for, presumably, talking me up to Vera and helping me get a job. Other than baking and yoga, I didn’t have any skills that didn’t involve computer programming. The whole baking thing didn’t work out with either of my neighbors, and I really didn’t think it was appropriate to offer Isaac a yoga class. Maybe I could offer to fix his computer for free.
I shook my head as I pulled out of the garden store parking lot onto Burnside. I didn’t want to give the guy the wrong impression.
Then it hit me.
I would do what neighbors did for each other. I would offer to dog-sit for him.
After a few hours of reading and a light dinner of four Oreos and a glass of cashew milk, I took a long shower then slipped beneath the cold bedsheets in the guest room. Grabbing my phone off the nightstand, I draped the covers over my damp hair as I opened my Halo messaging app — the app Jack created, which had turned him into a millionaire before he graduated college.
The Halo app graded your text message on a scale of zero to one hundred, with one hundred being the most cringeworthy message in existence. Jack and I had had a lot of fun trying to earn 100%.
Halo was supposed to prevent social ineptitude. When Jack created it, he used data compiled from various websites and forums where text message horror stories and screenshots of cringe-y message conversations were graded or voted on. Based on the words used in the message — parsed text or text recognition from screenshots — and the number of votes or hits it received from the internet masses, Jack created an algorithm that scored the text. The algorithm was constantly learning, receiving information from bots that crawled the web for new slang and cringe standards.
The first message I typed didn’t pass the test. Halo gave me a grade of 72% cringeworthy. The app would not allow the message to be sent until I scored less than 50% — my chosen threshold.
I shook my head as I exited the app and dialed Jack’s number.
“I was just gonna call you,” he said. “How was your day?”
“My day was actually pretty good. I got a job.”
He was silent for a moment. “You got a job? Are you planning on moving into your mom’s house permanently?”
“No, I just need a source of income while I’m here.”
He laughed. “You have a source of income. You have the Bank of Jack. Why don’t you just use one of the credit cards?”
“I can’t. If I use a credit card, that puts me at your mercy.”
He laughed. “You think I’d cancel your cards and leave you high and dry? Is that what you think of me? Are you fucking with me right now?”
I waited a moment for him to calm down before I responded. “Jack, I need to do this for me. I need to know that I’m capable of being more than just Jack’s fuck-doll.”
He exhaled sharply. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic?” I replied. “Every time I’ve brought up therapy over the past two years, it’s ended in a fight that inevitably ends in sex. Are you really so blind that you can’t see how we’ve been using sex to delay dealing with the death of our son?”
His breath roared in the speaker as he fumed with rage. “I don’t want to argue about this right now.”
I sighed. “Yes, I know. I’ve heard that before. On the rare occasion I want to talk about him, it’s never a good time. But when you want to talk about him, and all your fucked-up conspiracy theories, I’m supposed to just sit back and listen.” My voice was strangled by the knot in my throat. “This is never going to stop if you keep doing this to me. You’re hurting me, Jack. Can’t you see that?”
“Can’t you just accept that trying to find out who did this to us is my way of dealing with it? It… It fucking hurts to talk about him any other way, okay?”
I used the sheet to wipe my tears. “That’s exactly why we need to talk about him, and not just the bastard who took him from us.”
I had to find a couple’s counselor fast or the distance between us might finally bring about a fast ending to our slow, two-year demise.
He cleared his throat. “Are you in bed?”
I sighed as I imagined he was going to attempt to have phone sex with me now. “Yes.”
“Good. Sleep well,” he said, then the call went dead.
Chapter 11
Jack
We entered the nondescript brick building in the Pearl District in downtown Portland a few minutes before one p.m. As Laurel searched the directory on the wall for the suite number of Bonita Hawthorne, LPC — Licensed Professional Counselor — I looked her over from head to toe. It had been five days since she moved to Portland and she already looked thinner.
I hated the idea that this separation was causing her even more stress. I hated even more that the separation was her idea, so she was essentially bringing the added stress upon herself. But what I hated the most was that I had to be here, pretending I believed a complete stranger could understand the intricacies of our relationship well enough to fix us.
No one would ever understand what it was like to be us. It was impossible to imagine. How could anyone imagine being as inextricably bound to a person as Laurel and I were to each other?
We weren’t just lovers. We weren’t just husband and wife. We weren’t just best friends. We weren’t just occasional enemies. We were survivors, bound to each other by the kind of excruciating torture no human should ever have to endure.
If we could get through that, we would get through this. We had to get through this. I didn’t think I could handle losing Laurel.
“It’s suite 209,” she said, turning toward the elevator behind us, looking uncomfortable as I continued to stare at her body.
“Have you been eating or did they run out of Oreos in Portland?” I asked as I pressed the call button.
She shot me an irascible glare as she crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not like I’m not trying.”
The steel elevator doors slid open and I followed her inside. “You need to see a doctor, Laurel.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” I said, fully aware this would set her off, but at least it would also get her attention.
“Thanks. I really needed to hear that right now.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re on our way to see a fucking therapist and you want me to pretend like everything’s okay? You look like you’re one strong gust from being blown away.”
Her eyes shot daggers at me. “Don’t do that.”
She didn’t like me using her mother’s catchphrases. Just how neither of us liked it when the other tried to force a conversation about Junior. I supposed if we were going to approach the difficult topics, we were in the right place. At least, I hoped so.
After my last experience with a head shrink, I didn’t have much faith in the process.
The receptionist behind the desk in suite 209 was young and, apparently, ripe for a good lay, based on the way she was eye-fucking the shit out of me while we sat in the waiting room.
It took a special kind of sadist to flirt with a married man in front of his grieving wife.
Laurel may have been too distracted to notice the receptionist’s coquettish glances in my direction, but that didn’t make it any less sleazy. If that girl were a man, I wouldn’t think twice about clocking her.
I grabbed Laurel’s hand and laced my fingers through hers. “I love you, pixie,” I murmured, smiling at the confusion in her eyes as I kissed the back of her hand.
She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment before her gorgeous lips curled into a smile. “Why? Why do you do this to me? You piss me off, then you do this?” she sighed as she shook her head and leaned back in her chair. “So you’re sticking with pixie now? No more ‘starlight’ or ‘sunshine’ or ‘snookums’ or ‘babydoll’?”
I smiled. “I like the reaction pixie gets. So, yeah, I’m sticking with it.”
The phone on the receptionist’s desk rang. “Yes? Okay.” She hung up and smiled at us. “I’ll take you guys back.”
I held tightly to Laurel’s hand as the receptionist led us to the second office on the right. A chubby woman with caramel-brown skin and square-rimmed glasses balanced on the tip of her pert nose sat behind a desk, typing something on a laptop.
“Please have a seat,” she said, motioning to the two tweed sofas that faced each other.
As the receptionist ducked out of the office, Laurel let go of my hand as we took a seat on one of the sofas.
“I’m just finishing up these notes,” Bonita Hawthorne said, squinting at the screen. “There!” she proclaimed, closing the laptop and grabbing a pen and pad of yellow legal paper off the desk. “Are you Mr. and Mrs. Stratton?”
“Yes,” I replied, standing up as she waddled around the desk.
“Oh, look at you. So polite. Please have a seat.” She sat on the sofa across from us, setting her pad of paper and pen down on the cushion next to her. “Well, as you both probably know, I am Bonita Hawthorne, but please feel free to call me Bonnie. Now, let me start off by first telling you, not only what you can expect in this first session, but what you should not expect.”
Inside, I groaned. On the outside, I grinned like a fucking idiot as she explained how she was not a relationship referee. It was not her job to help determine who was right and who was wrong. She also iterated that our first session was mostly a means to collect basic information about Laurel and me, and the state of our marriage.
Number of years we’d been together: Eight.
Our current living situation: Separated. Bonnie stopped me when I tried to interject to explain how this was Laurel’s choice, not mine.
Did we have any physical or mental health issues? Laurel fidgeted with her sleeve, looking very uncomfortable as she disclosed her doctor’s diagnosis of general anxiety disorder. She also mentioned that she wondered if both of us might be suffering from PTSD.
Had we tried couples counseling before, and if so how did that go? That was a big, fat no.
As Bonnie recorded this information on her legal pad, I could feel her watching our body language closely, trying to figure out how we related to one another. I wanted to grab Laurel’s hand, to send Bonnie a message I hoped she’d interpret positively, but Laurel seemed to be leaning farther away from me as the session wore on. After a few more questions about our employment and hobbies, she declared we would begin by starting with the issue that seemed the most pressing: our living situation.
“I don’t understand how we’re supposed to work out our problems if we only see each other in a fucking therapist’s office,” I said, making not the slightest bit of effort to censor myself.
Laurel rolled her eyes. “You can’t understand it because you can’t understand why the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
I had to smile. It was a sick burn, even if it was a complete fabrication. “Baby, I know the world doesn’t revolve around me. If it did, I wouldn’t be sitting in this fucking office right now.”
“Why does it kill you that I need to hold you accountable to your promises?”
Bonnie held up a finger to interrupt.
About fucking time.
“I think it’s perfectly acceptable that you feel you need some time to yourself right now,” she began by addressing Laurel. “It’s important to reflect not just on how you feel about your marriage, but also on how you feel about yourself and where your life path is taking you.” She paused, drawing in a noisy breath through her nose. “Of course, togetherness is one of the main tenets of a loving marriage. While a break to clear our heads is sometimes good, even necessary, it’s important not to forget that distance can also be more damaging than healing, to some marriages. Not all marriages, but certainly most marriages, benefit from increased closeness.”
I smiled as Laurel avoided looking at me.
She glared at Bonnie. “But, if the reason you feel you can’t come back is because you’re afraid your partner will stop attending counseling, is it not preferable to maintain a bit of distance?” Laurel asked. “He’s broken so many promises to me over the past two years, I can’t even count. He told me he would get rid of the disgusting case pictures in his office last year, and they’re still there. He told me we could start trying for another baby before our fifth anniversary, then he took back that promise. Isn’t there some sort of limit on how many times someone can break a promise before the other person has to say enough is enough?”
Bonnie’s eyes were closed as she held up her chubby finger again and smiled. “You make a good point about trust. Rebuilding trust—”
“Wait a minute,” I interrupted Bonnie as I turned to face Laurel. “I’m not the only one here who’s broken promises. You promised to stay with me for better or worse, then you up and left me with nothing but a fucking one-page letter of explanation. That’s gotta be the worst case of a broken promise in this whole debacle.”
“Now, now, we don’t need to compare broken promises,” Bonnie interceded. “This is not a contest.”
“It sure feels like a contest,” Laurel said, looking me straight in the eye. “Let’s play Who’s the Worst Spouse? The wife who left, or the husband who’s only here today because she left!”
“Okay, okay, I think we’re getting a little off track here,” Bonnie interjected once more. “I… can see I’m going to need to assign some homework. As I said, I am not here to be a referee. I am here to teach you both a new method of communication. What do you normally do to reconcile your differences when you’ve had a big disagreement?”
I pursed my lips to temper my grin. “We have sex. We like to fuck it out,” I replied, relishing how Laurel crossed her arms over her chest, obviously uncomfortable with this admission.
Bonnie blinked her wide eyes to recover. “Well, everyone has their own way of coping. I’m going to suggest something a little different.”
I practically tuned out as she explained how, instead of fucking our brains out when we were angry, we needed to try out a few new conflict resolution exercises. She explained each exercise to us as if we were six-year-olds, then handed us each a worksheet with the exercises spelled out in plain English. At the bottom of the sheet were a few lines where we were supposed to write about which technique we’d tried and what the outcome was.
My only consolation was that I could probably rely on Laurel to forget about the worksheets once we left Bonnie’s office.
“Now, before you leave,” she said, pointing her chubby finger at the ceiling again. “We need to address one of the biggest issues we come across in marriages all across the world: appreciation.” The way she punctuated the word while holding up that finger, made me feel as if I were being chastised. “I want you both to make an effort to thank each other on a
regular basis. Not just for the little things, like taking out the garbage and putting the toilet seat down — though I don’t suppose you two are running into either of those situations while you’re apart. Nevertheless, I want you two to thank each other at least once a day for something big. Thank you for choosing me. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being a considerate person. Thank you for taking care of me. You get the point? Do you see what I’m getting at?” She waited until I nodded. “So can you do that, Jack… and Laurel? Not for me, but can you do that for your marriage?”
Laurel and I turned to each other and we both smiled. Neither of us had to say a single word. We were both thinking the same thing: This lady felt more like a preschool teacher than a therapist, but at least she was mildly entertaining.
“I can do that,” I said, taking Laurel’s tiny hand in mine.
She smiled. “I can do it, too.”
After scheduling our next appointment, we left the brick building in fairly good spirits. I wouldn’t admit it aloud, but maybe talking about our problems with a complete stranger wasn’t a stupid idea after all. There was a certain lightness that came from unburdening yourself of the horrible things you tried to never think, much less say.
I walked Laurel to her SUV, which was parked next to a meter on 12th. As she reached for the door handle on the Tesla, I got a bit of déjà vu, as if I’d done this before. And I had.
“Feels like when I used to walk you to your car in college. Remember that beat up Jeep Cherokee you used to drive?”
She leaned against the driver’s side door. “It wasn’t that bad. It was very spacious.”
“We threw down a lot in there,” I said, reaching up to tuck a wisp of blonde hair behind her ear.
She closed her eyes as she leaned into my touch. “I saw that receptionist flirting with you,” she said, opening her eyes to meet my gaze. “You can have anyone and anything you want… Why are you still fighting for me?”
