Ever After Always (Bergman Brothers Book 3)

by Chloe Liese

  Sweat creeps over my skin, and my heart pounds harder. “Well, I’m pretty driven at work, trying to solidify my place in the department but I’m also working on developing a business opportunity that will keep us financially secure. And yes, I’m pursuing it, in part, to assuage my money worries, but also because it’s simply responsible. It’s the right thing to do for my family. Problem is, the risks and possible failure my work presents often trigger my anxiety, so it’s sort of a vicious cycle. Then, when it’s this bad, it makes…”

  Fess up. Say it. Tell her planning for a baby sent your anxiety flying through the fucking roof. Tell her your brain is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, spinning with worries and what-ifs and negative fantasies…

  My mouth works, my hands fisting until my fingers ache.

  Tell her that it’s damn near impossible to relax enough to feel aroused or stay aroused or finish, that if you increased your anxiety prescription dosage, it would be even worse.

  Tell her.

  I bite my cheek until it bleeds, pain and shame tangling inside me. I know I’ve kept more from her than I ever wanted to, well aware that honesty is gold and communication is key. But God, have I had my reasons. Because I know my wife. If I told Freya about my problem, I know exactly what she’d do. She’d shelve her plans, dim her hopes. Go back on the pill, reassure me we could defer pregnancy…

  Silently, it would crush her. And I’m not in the business of crushing my wife.

  Freya peers at me curiously. “Why didn’t you tell me, Aiden?”

  “Because it’s not just my anxiety, Freya. It’s…” I exhale shakily, flexing my hands, running them through my hair. “It’s that my anxiety’s…affected my sex drive. I didn’t know how to talk about one without confessing the other, so I kept it to myself. And I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

  There. A partial truth.

  Also known as a lie of omission.

  Freya sits back, eyes searching me. I’ve stunned her.

  Dr. Dietrich nods. “Thank you, Aiden, for opening up about that. I’d like to ask something, as a follow-up: Why did you feel unable to tell Freya your anxiety is acute right now, that it’s having an impact on your sex life?”

  I meet Freya’s eyes. “I didn’t want to burden her. Freya already supports me so much. I just…I tried to focus on taking care of it, rather than placing more on her shoulders.”

  “You could have told her and been working on it,” Dr. Dietrich says.

  And thick silence hangs in the room.

  But then I would have had to admit…everything. What anxiety was doing to my body, how far it was taking me from her. “I think…” I clear my throat roughly. “I think I was scared to admit it to myself, how serious it had gotten, let alone to Freya.”

  Dr. Dietrich nods slowly. “If we aren’t honest with ourselves, we can’t be honest with our partners. That’s a good insight into yourself. I’m glad to hear it. Now, your anxiety is medicated, and you are in counseling, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You deserve care and support, Aiden. Please make sure you’re keeping up with that.”

  Yeah. In all my ample spare time.

  “Make time,” Dr. Dietrich says, as if she just read my mind. “Freya?” she asks gently. “Thoughts, after hearing that?”

  Freya stares at me, her expression wounded. “I wish I’d known, Aiden. You’re usually so transparent about your anxiety, and I’m always grateful to know so I can be there for you. Hearing just now…that’s hard. I feel shut out. Again.”

  I brush knuckles with Freya. “I’m sorry.”

  She stares at me for a long moment, then wipes away a tear that’s slipped out.

  “Well, now that we have some initial feelings before us, now that I have a sense of what we’re tackling,” Dr. Dietrich says, “let me circle back briefly by saying my company line: There’s a lie we’ve been told in our culture that our romantic partner’s attunement to our emotions and thoughts should be nearly psychic, and that is the barometer of our intimacy. If we feel like they aren’t ‘getting’ us, we reason that we’ve stopped having that magical intimate connection.

  “But that’s not the case. The truth is that we change and grow significantly in our adult years, and to stay close with a committed partner, we have to keep learning them, examining if our growth is compatible or divergent. However, we can’t know that until we take action to understand our partner, particularly as they change to the point that we feel we don’t recognize them. If we discover that we can engage and appreciate and value their evolution, that they can reciprocate those feelings for us, we’ve rediscovered intimacy.”

  “So what does this have to do with us?” I ask. “You’re saying we’ve changed?”

  She tips her head. “Haven’t you?”

  Freya shifts on the couch. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but yes. Obviously we’ve changed since we were in our twenties.”

  “And perhaps your patterns for practicing and cultivating intimacy haven’t changed with you,” Dr. Dietrich says. “Haven’t accommodated your dreams and your desires, your mental health and your emotional needs.”

  She glances pointedly between us. We both shrink back.

  “But isn’t intimacy just…there…or not?” Freya asks after a moment’s silence. “As long as you’re still both committed to each other, it should be there, right?”

  “Oh, goodness, no.” Dr. Dietrich sips her tea, then glances between us. “Intimacy isn’t intuition. It isn’t even familiarity. Intimacy is work. Sometimes it’s happy work, like picking sun-ripened apples that drop effortlessly from the tree, and other times, it’s like foraging for truffle mushrooms—down on your knees, messy, inefficient; it takes digging up dirt and perhaps coming up empty on your first attempt, before you find the mother lode.”

  Freya wrinkles her nose. She hates mushrooms.

  Dr. Dietrich seems to notice. “Yes, that metaphor tends to break down with my picky eaters. But oh well, we can’t be all things for all people!”

  Silence hangs in the room. Dr. Dietrich’s smile fades softly. “I know this is hard, and I’m putting more in your heads than relieving you, like you think a therapist should. Unfortunately, that’s how this starts. Messy and overwhelming and hard to sort out. But guess what? You chose each other today. You set aside your busy schedules, forked over hard-earned money, and said you believe in each other enough to show up and try. So pat yourselves on the back.”

  When neither of us take her literally, she smiles again. “No, really. Go on.”

  We awkwardly pat ourselves.

  “Excellent,” she says. “So marriage counseling is like any new form of intense exercise: we work hard, then we ease up and give our muscles a break, a cooldown. You’ve done a lot today, so now we’re going to switch gears.”

  I blink at her. “We talked for fifteen minutes.”

  “Twenty, actually. And what a twenty it’s been!” she says brightly.

  Freya scrubs her face.

  “So,” Dr. Dietrich says, reaching behind her. “Without further ado…”

  A box lands with a thwack on the floor.

  I stare at the game from my childhood. “Twister?”

  “Yes, folks. We’re going to limber up—assuming no one feels physically unsafe here or unable to bear touch. Your intake forms said no, but I’m checking in again. Has anything changed for either of you?”

  Freya shakes her head. “No. I’m fine,” she says.

  I nod. “Me, too.”

  “Great. Socks off—oh, well look at that.” Dr. Dietrich bends and unfolds the twister mat, wiggling her socked feet inside her Birkenstocks. “You’re both wearing sandals without socks. Interesting.”

  Freya glances over at me as a smile teases the corners of her lips. I smile back, and for just a moment it’s there, the spark in her eyes. The faintest thread of connection.

  “On the floor, then,” Dr. Dietrich says, scooting her chair back. “Let the games begin!�
��

  Aiden

  Playlist: “Train North,” Ben Gibbard, Feist

  Dr. Dietrich sips her tea, then spins the dial. “Left hand to red.”

  Freya’s arm slips beneath my chest, brushing my pecs. Her hair, her soft scent of lemons and cut grass, so familiar, always enticing, surrounds me. I breathe her in, feeling her exhale shakily beneath me. I have to make my move next, which sends my pelvis brushing over her ass. We’re in an incredibly suggestive position, which doesn’t seem to faze Dr. Dietrich. She steals another sip of tea and flicks the dial once more.

  “Right foot to green.”

  “That’s cruel,” Freya mutters.

  “I’m ruthless.” Dr. Dietrich evil-laughs. “But it’s for your own good.”

  Freya reaches with her right foot, until she’s snug beneath me, tucked against my groin. I close my eyes and picture pressing a kiss to her neck, biting between her shoulder blades. I shift to reach my green circle, wedging my thigh between Freya’s. Need tightens my body, a hot ache building low in my stomach that surprises me as much as it does her.

  She sucks in a breath as my weight rests against hers, my breath warm on her neck. I exhale roughly, then draw in a long, slow breath.

  Dr. Dietrich flicks the dial again. “Left foot to yellow.”

  We move accordingly and morph from sexually tense to explicitly uncomfortable. I am not made to bend like this.

  “Um, Dr. Dietrich?” Freya says, her voice faint. “Can you spin the dial again?”

  Dr. Dietrich frowns at it. “Huh. The dial doesn’t seem to be working.” She chucks it over her shoulder, where it lands in the haphazard pile on her desk. “I suppose I’ll just have to ask you a question, and once I have your answer, I’ll pick somewhere new for you to go.”

  “What?” Freya squeaks.

  “Tell me one thing you love about Aiden.”

  “Besides his ass?”

  I frown over at her. “Freya, be serious.”

  “Aiden, we’re playing Twister and in a more adventurous position than we’ve ever—”

  “Freya!”

  She clears her throat. “Sorry. Okay. I love Aiden’s conviction. Oh my God, my back hurts.”

  Dr. Dietrich does not care about spinal discomfort. “Conviction for what?”

  “That’s another question!” Freya yelps.

  “Aw, too bad,” Dr. Dietrich says. “I happen to be the Twister captain, and I say what goes. You gave me a half-answer anyway. Better hope I don’t pick right foot to green next.”

  I glance at that spot. I think Freya would snap in half.

  My arms are shaking, my glasses fogging up as sweat drips into my eyes. “Frey, can you just answer her?”

  “Jesus, Aiden, I’m thinking.”

  “You have to think about what you admire my conviction for?”

  “Pipe down there, big guy,” Dr. Dietrich says.

  “I love his conviction,” Freya blurts, “about making the most of everything life gives him. He savors life’s simple gifts, wrings every drop of meaning and opportunity from them, then he brings that conviction to his students, to his work…” Her voice falters. “To us. At least he did. Now can you please pick a spot before I slip a disc?”

  My heart sinks in my chest. God, how badly I’ve messed this up. All of this has been for her, and all I’ve done is made her feel like my last priority.

  “Well done,” Dr. Dietrich says. “Left hand to blue.”

  Freya immediately shifts to a comfortable downward dog. I’m so fucking jealous.

  “Now you, good sir,” Dr. Dietrich says, adjusting her glasses. “One thing you love about your wife.”

  “She lives out her love, so you can’t help but feel it. The moment I knew Freya loved me, I knew it. I didn’t have to guess. We hadn’t been dating too long. I came down with the flu and she stayed with me even when I was contagious. When I was finally not delirious and begging to die—yes, I am a man-child when sick—I asked her what she was doing, risking herself in staying with me. She just smoothed back my hair and said, ‘I wouldn’t be anywhere else.’”

  I swallow roughly, glancing over to Freya. Her head hangs. She’s sniffling.

  “I looked into her eyes, and I saw love,” I whisper past the knot in my throat. “I felt love. And I want that back. I want to feel love with Freya again.”

  Freya crumples to the Twister mat, covering her face as she starts to cry. Before Dr. Dietrich can say anything, before it’s a conscious thought, I’ve tugged Freya into my arms.

  Dr. Dietrich crouches down, setting her hand steady and soft on Freya’s back.

  After a few eternal minutes of her crying that makes my heart feel like it’s being sawed out of my chest, Freya sits up, wiping her eyes. “Sorry I lost it,” she whispers.

  “Let’s call that a game. Have a seat, you two,” Dr. Dietrich says, easing back into her chair.

  Freya and I stand, then drop back onto the sofa, our bodies landing a little closer than they were when we started. I try not to notice, to place weight in it. If Freya does, she doesn’t show it.

  Dr. Dietrich says, “Freya, I’m concerned that you just apologized for crying. I’m proud of you for doing that. Feeling our feelings is brave and healthy.”

  Freya gives Dr. Dietrich a watery, faint smile, then blows her nose.

  “What are your tears for?” Dr. Dietrich asks her. “What are some feeling words?”

  Freya bites her lip. “Hurt. Confused. Angry.”

  “Good. Go on, if you like.”

  “I don’t understand why we’re here. If Aiden wants to feel love with me, why did our communication suffer to begin with? Why did he keep it from me—his work, his anxiety, and its impact on how he felt about physical intimacy? Was it really just because he was figuring that out within himself? He couldn’t tell me…any of that along the way?”

  Dr. Dietrich sways in her chair. “Well, I think you should ask him. I think it’s also good to ask yourself: have you withheld thoughts or feelings from Aiden that he should know, too?”

  Freya peers down at her hands, then glances up at me, a new kind of vulnerability shining in her eyes. “I...” She clears her throat. “Sometimes I sort of bottle up my feelings and try to get them sorted out before I tell him.”

  “Okay,” Dr. Dietrich says softly. “Why?”

  Freya glances at me nervously, then away. “I don’t want to worry Aiden when my emotions are high. I know it’s upsetting to him when I’m a basket case.”

  “Freya.” I clasp her hand. It hurts so badly to hear she would hide herself, hurt herself that way, to shield me.

  Breathe through it, Aiden. Breathe.

  “Freya,” I whisper, “I always want to know what you’re feeling.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you,” she says through tears.

  “Because I’m the one with anxiety, not you! You don’t need to carry all that I carry mentally, too. I’m trying to make adjustments to make it fair.”

  “Ah.” Dr. Dietrich lifts her hand. “About that word, fair…the idea of ‘fair’ in a marriage, any relationship, I mean it’s impossible. No marriage is fair. It’s complementary. The idea of ‘fair’ is absurd at best, ableist at worst.”

  We both swivel our heads and look at her.

  “Ableist?” Freya asks.

  “Ableist,” Dr. Dietrich says. “Because saying a relationship has to be ‘fair’ implies only a certain balance and distribution of skills and aptitudes is valid. It upholds an arbitrary, damaging idea of ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ as requisite for fulfilling partnership. When in reality, all you need is two people who love what the other brings and share the work of love and life together.”

  Dr. Dietrich smiles kindly between us. “Aiden, you’re trying to shield Freya from emotionally carrying ‘more’ than you think she should. Freya, you’re avoiding honesty about feelings and thoughts that you think might make Aiden feel ‘more’ than you think he should. It’s well intentioned, both of you, b
ut it’s a terrible idea. And lots of couples do it. Even after, Freya, you vowed to love all of him, and, Aiden, you vowed to give her all of yourself.”

  Freya blinks up at me, her eyes wet. I stare at her, wanting so badly to hold her and kiss her tears away.

  “Freya’s just been trying to protect me,” I tell Dr. Dietrich, my eyes not leaving Freya’s. “And I’ve been trying to protect her, too.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Dietrich says. “But we protect our spouses from things that cause actual harm—abuse, violence—not our inherent vulnerabilities and needs. Those are there for them to love and complement. If not,” she says pointedly, “it comes at the cost of our intimacy, our connection…our love.”

  Freya’s eyes search mine. “That makes sense.”

  “Also, Freya,” Dr. Dietrich says, “this is something my female clients often realize in therapy—they hold in their feelings because our culture teaches us that we won’t be taken seriously when we’re ‘emotional,’ but I’m going to tell you, your husband needs your feeling words. Aiden, you understand their importance, I hope.”

  I nod. “I do. But maybe I haven’t made that clear to her. I want you to tell me, Freya. I’ll do better at showing you that.”

  Freya peers up at me. “Okay,” she says quietly.

  Our gazes hold, roaming each other’s faces. It feels like wiping away fog from a mirror and truly seeing what’s in front of me in much too long. I wonder if Freya feels that way, too.

  “So,” Dr. Dietrich says, puncturing the moment. “Your sexual intimacy is impacted by this. Aiden has told you when his anxiety is this high, it’s affected his sex drive. How are you doing, Freya? From a sexual standpoint.”

  Freya’s cheeks turn pink. “I’ve been better.”

  Heat floods my face, too. It feels like such an ultimate failure.

  Dr. Dietrich lifts her eyebrows questioningly. “Would you mind sharing more?”

  “Well,” Freya says. “It’s been…months. I’m not sure what came first—my sense that Aiden was working a lot more or that he didn’t initiate the way he used to. So I felt rejected. Like he didn’t want me. And then I didn’t want to have sex, either. I didn’t want him to be gone from me emotionally but to think he could still have my body.”