No contact delivery. My favorite pizza, garlic knots, and a cookie skillet. In the comments was a special note to me:
'Dating sucks, but you rock. Treat yourself today, hun. Love, Kat.'
I chuckled, tear droplets clinging to my lashes. Why the hell was she being so nice to me?
I brought the box inside and sent her a text.
My fingers trembled, my lap warm with steamy, cheesy goodness.
Not that I was necessarily ready for that step.
I smiled. So, someone loved her even with her quirks. And her cat obsession. Maybe because she was warm and friendly. Yet, somehow, she’d almost, somewhat befriended me.
“The Widow brought Victor to me,” she’d said, once. Like it was a blessing.
If only I could reprogram my history, or at least learn to function with it properly. Not everyone was bad. I didn’t want to lash out or run again. Maybe I did need therapy, just not in the way my parents prescribed it.
I took a bite of a garlic knot, the warm bread buttering my tongue with memories of what it meant to relax with someone, to laugh. I’d want to have that again. I picked up my phone and looked for telehealth options.It was time to talk to someone who wouldn’t be compromised by social niceties or be offended if I said the wrong thing. There was no wrong thing to say in therapy.
32
Gratitude
I found a nice local therapist of German descent with a clean office, telehealth options, and a countenance mixed somewhere between a distant, thoughtful grandmother and a no-nonsense professor. We talked every other day when she could squeeze me in with the intention of adjusting to once a week, then once a month, especially since I no longer had True Tech health insurance.
“Maybe I should’ve waited to quit,” I joked.
“Do you want to go back?” she asked, pushing her clear-rimmed glasses up.
“I…don’t miss the job,” I said, wrapping myself in a non-fleece hoodie.
“But the people? The purpose?” she prodded.
“Yes.” I supposed I did. “Especially the toy demonstrations,” I said quietly.
They were bound to ramp up as the holidays inched closer. Thanksgiving was in two days. At least Kat and Victor had attempted to play games with me to take my mind off everything.
“Do you miss the emotions of those around you? The carefree child in your memories? Or is it more about the distraction?” the therapistasked.
I shrugged and slumped at my desk. It wasn’t just nostalgia or the bright, funny guy with dimples. “He was always more than a distraction.”
“He was a comfort.” She nodded. “A friend, at least the way you saw him. Perhaps he is used to that role, as you became used to being a loner. It’s hard to break out of those boxes in which we see ourselves, especially with reinforcement. But we must, if we want to grow.”
“Yeah.” I picked at the edge of my dark phone. Everything was fine in that box until it wasn’t.
“Do you want to call him?” she asked.
“No.” That was way too personal. “Maybe text. But even then, I’m not sure what to say. I’m not sure if I should move on and let him live. I’m…a lot. I just wish I could be there for him in something unrelated to his ex like making her present and distracting him with our arrangement had been. I want to help him.” A sharp pang shot through my chest, and I scoffed. “I know that’s unlikely, since I can barely help myself from having emotional breakdowns on a regular basis.”
“You're working on it,” she said, in a way all too close to the way he did. “Sometimes if we break, it is our brains and bodies saying something needs to change: medicine, situations, and mindsets. We make modifications.”
Well, I’d always been good at modding games. “Maybe I could text him,” I said.
