“Okay. So what happened then? What was the awkward encounter that made you run out?”
I go silent, then, fuck it, decide to keep going for a bit.
“Thane? What happened? Did he declare his love mid-fuck or something?”
I zip around a few more speed-limit drivers.
“Oh my god, is that really what happened?”
"That's about the size of things. And then I…pulled out and left,” I say, wincing at the memory.
“Ouch. He must have been a really bad match for you to run out of there.”
“No,” I practically whine. “He was perfect.”
“Okay.”
“I swear, I’ve been to therapy since then.”
“That’s good. What’d you learn?”
"I had it twisted for a really long time that love is a bad idea, that it turns people into assholes like my dad. So, in my mind, I didn't want to fall in love with him because I’d shred him apart day after day with my unhappiness.”
“What would have made you so unhappy?”
I drum the steering wheel with my thumbs. “The whole suburban life: the house, the cars, the kids, the dogs, the HOA, the insufferable neighbors named Tim and Molly…all of it. Just talking about it makes me feel claustrophobic and angsty. Trying to do that would have doomed any possible relationship to failure from the beginning.”
“That sounds very dramatic. Quite a leap fromI love you.”
“You’re not wrong,” I admit. “I used to catastrophize everything, assuming I’d be the asshole in every relationship.”
More pen tapping. “You're speaking in past tense, like you no longer think you do that.”
“I don’t.”
“Why is that?”
I chuckle to myself. “Well, the relationship I had with my first therapist was sorta unusual.”
“Oh, god…please don’t tell me you slept with him.”
I laugh as I make the turn on Navasota, passing the Texas State Cemetery. It’s set in a heavily treed neighborhood and feels peaceful to me. “No, ma’am. He was in his eighties when we first met. Actually, he was one of my first clients as a trainer. He was a retired child psychologist and we just got along. He had really funny stories and, after a while, I realized that our training sessions had started to become more like therapy sessions, so I stopped charging him. We would work out and talk, and it was really cool."
“That sounds nice.”
“It was. He’s since passed away," I say, pausing to figure out why I feel emotional talking about him. It wasn't that he died; he was quite old when he came to me. But he was old and sharp. Old and spry, old and…everything my mother never had a chance to be.
"Anyway, he helped me work through some things."
"Like with your mother?"
I won’t even pretend to be shocked that she knows. “Should I be annoyed that you’re into my personal information or happy that I don't have to go into the whole saga with you?"
"Let's go with happy for now."
"Fine. Anyway, he started me to thinking that family didn't have to be so terrible. He always tried to get me to hook up with his granddaughter, and I finally had to tell him that I was gay. He was so disappointed. Not that I was gay, mind you, but that he didn't have anybody in his immediate family that was both gay and available."
"That's adorable. He wanted you in his family."
