Tell Me A Secret

by Samantha Hayes

  I shake my head and close my eyes. How on earth did I not fall down the steps when I saw him waiting on the pavement? How did I even manage to say a word without throwing up, manage to walk past him, hold a straight path down the street until I reached the flower shop? Truth is, I don’t even remember buying the flowers. It was a distraction, a means of escape, something else to fill my head. I can still hear his words, still feel his hand as he reached out and touched my arm as I slipped past him.

  ‘Lorna… we need to talk.’

  ‘We can’t,’ I told him. ‘Not outside of therapy. And we shouldn’t be doing it inside therapy either.’ It was the hardest thing to say when all I wanted was for him to hold me, take me in his arms, tell me it was all going to be OK. But I couldn’t.

  ‘Please, wait…’ he called out as I walked off, but I carried on, not stopping.

  ‘Don’t follow me,’ I said over my shoulder, though I know he did for a little way. I could feel the heat of his stare on my back.

  I lean my forehead against the glass, allowing the vibrations of the bus to hammer into my headache, thinking back to last night again.

  ‘Has he replied yet?’ Cath had said impatiently. We’d not even got on to talking about the book yet, probably because Charlotte, Mark’s younger sister, wasn’t there. She’s the one who usually leads discussions, drawing us deeper into explorations of what we’ve read, but she was away on yet another holiday.

  Annie glanced at Cath’s phone again, having taken charge of it for the evening. I was holding my breath, desperately hoping he hadn’t messaged back, but also wanting nothing more than to have Annie read out his words. His actual words. Andrew hadn’t mentioned anything about being on a dating site in our assessment session. The betrayal had no right to cut deep.

  ‘Nothing back yet,’ she said. ‘But once he sees your profile, I’m sure he’ll reply.’ Then a concerned look swept over Annie’s face. ‘Tell me you’ve got a good profile, Cath?’ She made a show of shaking her head, rolling her eyes. ‘Great photos and an enticing blurb?’

  ‘Well, I think so,’ Cath said. ‘It’s hard to get it right, though.’

  ‘Oh God, let me look.’ Annie was back on Cath’s phone then, her face gradually changing from blank to incredulous. ‘Oh dear, hon. No, no, this won’t do.’ She held up the phone, flashing a few photographs at us. ‘And how old is that picture?’

  Cath laughed and shrugged. ‘I dunno. A few years, maybe?’

  ‘But you look way better now. You’ve lost a ton of weight, your hair’s different, and these pics are blurry and all… selfies.’ She whispered the word ‘selfies’.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Frankly, it makes you look like Billy No-Mates.’ Then she read out the words, skimming over Cath’s profile. ‘And you sound dull as fuck. “Likes baking, TV and reading?”’ She shook her head. ‘Leave this to me, my lovely,’ Annie said. Then she spent a few minutes typing while we hoovered up pizza and sank more wine. Well, I sank the wine while they all chatted and ate. My mind was elsewhere.

  ‘Right,’ Annie said. ‘Photo time, girls.’

  ‘What?’ Cath put her hands up to shield herself, laughing. ‘No, I look like shit.’

  ‘You look fine. Better than in these pics. Get your wine glasses, everyone. We’re having a group photo.’ Annie stood, dragging Cath up by the arm. ‘Let’s all get near that stuffed pheasant with the huge painting in the background. They’re good talking points for when he messages you back. Lorn? Get yourself up here.’

  I barely heard her. I was frozen – my legs, body, arms unable to move. It was all I could do to keep hold of my wine glass. I couldn’t let him see me on that site, even if it was just for a friend’s profile. It didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem… professional.

  ‘You need to loosen up tonight, Lorn,’ Annie said, sloshing more wine into my glass. Then the pull of her hand on my arm. ‘C’mon, we’re doing this for Cath. And we need to be quick before Hot Guy looks at her photos.’

  Hot Guy…

  ‘I… I don’t feel so great.’ I think that’s what I said.

  ‘Well, you look great and that’s what Cath needs right now. A bunch of gorgeous friends around her to make it seem as though she has the best social life ever. How could any guy resist us lot?’

  Megan was laughing. ‘I totally agree. Come on, Lorn. Take one for the team.’

  ‘Pretty please?’ Cath said, getting into it now. Perhaps I could somehow hide behind them in the photo, bow my face at the right moment or bend down to pick something up.

  ‘Sure, sorry,’ I said, trying to force a smile. I joined the back of the group, ending up behind Annie, who’s about five inches shorter than me. I tried to shuffle behind Cath but Megan, the tallest of all of us, had taken that spot. They were fluffing up their hair, pouting, angling their best sides forward, raising their glasses. I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Make sure you get Archie in,’ Cath said, referring to the dead pheasant on the mantelpiece. Right now, I wished I was dead and stuffed. I felt the heat of the standard lamp to my left highlighting my face when all I wanted to do was disappear.

  ‘Ready?’ Annie said, holding Cath’s phone at arm’s length and angling it to get us all in. I heard her snapping dozens of shots. ‘Work it, girls,’ she said, laughing while the others shaped themselves into different poses. I stood stock-still, staring at my feet, allowing my hair to fall over my face. ‘Lorna!’ Cath said. ‘Fuck’s sake, look at the camera, will you? And smile. You’re meant to be having fun, remember?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I whispered, on the verge of throwing up. Then Megan prodded me several times in the side, hitting a spot between my ribs. I yelped, wide-eyed, throwing back my head, unable to help the grin as the helpless laughter set in.

  He teased me about being so ticklish, used it to his best advantage in bed.

  ‘Nice!’ Annie said, snapping a dozen more quick-fire shots before I composed myself. ‘That’ll do for starters,’ she went on. ‘Now, we need to look back in our pics from that night out a couple of weeks ago. Send me any good ones of Cath. We got your back, hon.’

  I sat down again. The others were in fits of giggles.

  ‘He’s still not read the message, so work fast, girls,’ Annie went on. Then she took some more pictures of Cath on her own, posing by her artwork, in her kitchen pretending to cook, on her balcony with some fairy lights picking out the pretty highlights in her hair that she’d had done recently. In the meantime, I just sat, numb, downing my wine.

  Shortly after, Annie had finished. New photos were up, and she’d written an enticing blurb with just enough detail to tempt any halfway decent guy. I had to admit, she’d done a good job. But I couldn’t resist looking when she showed me the group photos. I had to see for myself. And there I was, fully visible, a white smile glowing wide across my face, wine glass inadvertently raised as the lamp lit me up brighter than the others. Cath looked good, but I didn’t suppose that’s who he’d be interested in when he saw the picture. If he saw the picture. Of course, there was still a chance he wouldn’t bother clicking on the profile of an eccentric woman who professed to be his muse. I prayed Cath wasn’t his type.

  Ten minutes later, I get off the bus and walk slowly down my street, clutching the flowers to my chest. A few petals fall to the pavement along the way as my mind floods with last year.

  Does he love me, or love me not…?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lorna

  ‘So what made you change your mind?’ he says. His face gives nothing away, though beneath his defensive look, I can still see kindness. His eyes betray that much. It’s been a week since the initial assessment, not that much assessing went on. ‘About seeing me?’

  I stare at him. Sun streams in through the tall window, casting a golden bridge between us on the carpet. It’s as if no time at all has passed – since last week or, indeed, last year.

  ‘You said you needed my help. It’s my job to help people.’ I clear my throat. While
it’s the truth, we both know it’s not the real reason I agreed to schedule him in for a further appointment. The pull of seeing him again was simply too great. Or, more to the point, I was afraid of the consequences if I didn’t. Of him reporting me.

  He nods a couple of times, the corners of his mouth turning up, as though he knows he’s already won.

  ‘This has to be a short-term arrangement, you understand,’ I continue. ‘An agreed number of sessions.’ My boundaries were already shot by seeing him for the first appointment, let alone a second. But I tell myself that this is different, a one-off, something I need to do. Closure. I’ll record it as a further assessment and, to anyone looking at the file, that’s how it will seem before I refer him on. Nothing suspicious.

  Justifying, always justifying…

  ‘Do you say that to all your clients?’

  He knows how it works, knows the rules.

  ‘No, not always, but I’m saying it now. It’s for the best.’

  ‘You know it’s wrong to see me at all,’ he says. His voice is provocative, testing me. ‘But I’m glad you are.’

  ‘It almost sounds as if you want it to be wrong,’ I say, floundering, not being authentic or genuine. Not counselling. My heart thumps. It’s not stopped racing since he was last sitting opposite me.

  ‘We could look at it as closure,’ he says, as if he’s read my mind. His voice is deep and slow. Just how I remembered it, washing over me as I’d lie with my head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, breathing in the scent of our sex, him stroking my hair, wanting the moment to last forever. Knowing it couldn’t. He told me he loved me many times.

  But I never said it back.

  ‘So, you feel as though you need closure?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  I shake my head briefly, wishing I hadn’t. ‘This isn’t about me… Andrew.’ I can hardly call him David, the false name he booked under. ‘It’s your time to explore your feelings. Your safe space.’ The irony of it sticks in my throat, makes me want to choke.

  ‘Safe space?’ he says, knowing exactly how to get to me.

  ‘Yes. To get some understanding of the issues that brought you here in the first place.’

  Every word is killing me. Why the hell did I agree to see him again? When did my resolve crack? Was it at the end of the assessment last Monday, after he’d left, and I felt so empty and alone, as though our affair had just ended all over again?

  On my journey home, I’d wondered if it might be abandonment issues that I wasn’t even aware of, but I couldn’t fathom what. I examined every part of myself, overthought everything until I yelled at myself in the rear-view mirror to shut up with all the psychobabble. Cath would have been proud.

  Or maybe was it several days later on Thursday that did it, when he was waiting outside the clinic? Or perhaps it was at 3 a.m. the other night when I sneaked downstairs to check my phone. The texts were from him, of course. Just one or two words. The right words. Words he knew would bore into my heart. And all the more dangerous because they’d come to my regular phone. I didn’t reply.

  But by Friday he’d called the clinic reception again, still posing as David. Sandy had passed his message on to me, asking for a further appointment. To refuse him would have aroused suspicion, perhaps even got Joe involved as to why I wasn’t taking on a client. The ‘yes’ slipped off my tongue before I could think.

  ‘Answer my question,’ he says. ‘Why did you change your mind about seeing me?’

  He always had a knack of turning things around, getting me to say what he wanted to hear. Except the one thing he needed to hear. That I loved him.

  ‘I treat all my clients the same,’ I say, looking away. ‘And seeing clients again for more sessions after a few months, or even years, have passed is not uncommon. Sometimes people need to talk again.’

  ‘You disappeared,’ he said.

  ‘I got a different job.’

  ‘I know you changed your mind about this appointment because you’re still in love with me. That you’re secretly pleased I came to see you.’

  It’s a kick in the face.

  ‘No, Andrew,’ I say, feeling sick, but only because he’s right. ‘I can’t treat you differently to my other clients. It’s not eth—’

  ‘Not ethical?’ He laughs again. Not a nasty laugh – far from it – but a laugh that shows me he knows what I’m thinking, that he’s got to me. I can’t let him do this again.

  ‘Look,’ I say, leaning forward, lowering my voice. ‘You know as well as I do that nothing about our previous client–counsellor relationship was ethical. It couldn’t have been less ethical.’ If I’m not careful, I’ll be right back where I was last year and looking for a new job. Or worse, getting struck off. And then Mark is on my mind again – the man who loves me, trusts me, would protect me with his life. I want to throw up.

  ‘Agreed,’ he says, sitting back on the sofa. ‘You know you did wrong.’

  Me? I feel like hitting him. Reaching out with a heavy book and swiping him around the head, watching him fall sideways, unconscious. But I also want him to take me in his arms, wrap me up, make me feel how he did last year – the best I ever have with a man.

  ‘Turning this round is not helpful, Andrew. Maybe there’s some reframing work to be done here.’ I swallow, pulling out the most basic of counselling skills to get me through. ‘I can offer you three sessions maximum and a referral on to another therapist who can help. Does that sound fair?’ It’s a play to keep things calm, to appease him until I can figure out what to do.

  ‘Is that how long you think it’ll be before we’re fucking again?’

  I can’t help the sudden intake of breath, can’t help that my head tips back slightly and I close my eyes for a beat too long. ‘We’ve both moved on. You know it can’t be like that any more.’

  ‘Have we?’ he says. ‘Can’t it?’

  ‘Sounds like you maybe feel stuck?’ I say, composing myself for the tenth time. But then it slips out. ‘Have you been seeing anyone… anyone new?’ I dig my nails into my palm. ‘Oh, apart from… well, you know,’ I add sarcastically, just to let him know I haven’t forgotten her. In fact, I’m grateful to her now. Without the insane jealousy she roused in me, I’d probably still be seeing him, getting myself deeper and deeper into trouble, living a double and dangerous life. In fact, I’d like the chance to shake her hand.

  ‘Not been seeing anyone apart from… well, you know?’ he says, smiling, his teeth on show – that one slightly jagged canine endearing yet dangerous as ever. Since I’ve known Mark, I notice people’s teeth. The scar just above Andrew’s top lip creases upwards. It’s as endearing as it is sinister, and I have no idea why. But it was one of the things that made me find him so insanely attractive. ‘There was no “you know” about it. I told you the truth. You chose not to believe me.’

  I look away, feeling my jaw tighten. ‘OK, so it sounds as though you’ve not moved on at all, then, in terms of seeing anyone new? Perhaps that’s how these sessions can help you.’ There needs to be a reason for him being here, apart from me.

  Then I’m mentally back in Cath’s flat, his image on her phone – the sight of his profile ripping me apart. I can almost hear Annie giggling beside me, flicking through his photographs, making appreciative sounds.

  Artist seeks muse… Loyal, kind, honest to the core…

  ‘So, you’re feeling stuck?’ I suggest. At a crossroads… were his words during our very first session last year. Before everything went wrong.

  ‘Perhaps you feel stuck,’ he says. Then that smile again.

  ‘Andrew, I really get the impression you’re not ready to engage with therapy. Especially not with me. I also feel I’ve made a terrible mistake by agreeing to further sessions with you. It’s not going to be helpful for you to see me as a counsellor and it’s highly—’

  ‘Highly unethical? Yes, I know. You’ve said many times.’ He reaches over to the side table and pours himself a glass of water. ‘Nice ne
w office, by the way. So much nicer than the old place.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I say. ‘To both of those things.’

  ‘OK,’ he says, standing up. ‘I’ll go.’ He lifts his jacket off the sofa and goes to put it on. I see the hard lines of his shoulders standing proud through his white shirt. I look away. ‘You’re right. This isn’t going to work.’

  A stab of panic shoots through me.

  ‘I’m sensing avoidance now.’ I hate it that my voice shakes, not wanting him to go. But it’s what he always did if I had doubts or questioned his actions or we’d had words about each of our situations. He’d up and go – me second-guessing his next move, if he was going to punish me by reporting me to the clinic, impose a week’s silence or, worse, tell Mark. I know it was because he felt hurt, that we couldn’t be together properly. ‘You still have plenty of time left,’ I say. Him cutting a session short won’t look good, even if it’s just Sandy that notices him going. Word will soon get back to Joe.

  Andrew slowly sits down again, looking at me all the while, making a show of taking his jacket off. I feel the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding release.

  ‘No, in answer to your question,’ he says.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘I’m not seeing anyone new.’

  ‘OK,’ I say slowly. ‘So you’re still with her? Or have you been looking for someone new?’ I’m pushing it too far – partly because I don’t believe him, and also because I have no idea if he’s seen Cath’s dating site message or our group photo.

  ‘Does it worry you if I am?’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ I say, hiding my bitterness. But it’s killing me not to know.