“You’ll never know.”She smiles, transforming her face into a much-needed source of warmth.“You do know the perfect therapist doesn’t exist, right?Just like the perfect human doesn’t exist.”She pauses.“What happened doesn’t make you a monster.It doesn’t make you less of a therapist.”She tilts her head.“I’d hate for you to lose your license.Your practice.Many of your clients would be worse off.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true.”She leans over the table.“Because I know that you’re the very last person to take advantage of someone’s vulnerability.”
“And yet…” While I’m surprised that Jan is trying to make me feel better about myself, I’m not convinced I should be allowed to.“There’s no gray area when it comes to this kind of behavior.”
“Of course there is.”Her face is serious now.“There always is.”She pauses again.“How you feel about this and how you’re handling it shows me your integrity is intact.Yes, you made a mistake… but I honestly think you should be asking yourself why you made this mistake more than anything else.Why this need inside you was so great that, in that moment—that night—you stopped caring about ethics.”
“I know exactly why.”
“Lois?”Jan asks, seeing right through me again.
“Avery made me feel something I haven’t felt since Lois and… I didn’t know how much I needed that.I didn’t even know how deeply I had buried anything remotely related to desire… to this sense of being truly alive.When Lois died, part of me died with her and…” I shake my head.“I know it sounds like I’m making excuses, but I know how I feel.How I felt.With her.”
“Oh, Nic.”She sighs, again.“You are aware you can’t see Avery again.Not for two years, at least.”She draws up her eyebrows.“I’m sympathetic, but I do have to draw the line somewhere.”
“I’m very much aware.”I hold up my hands.“And please don’t ask me how that makes me feel.”
“I don’t have to ask.”Jan fixes her gaze on me.“I can tell just by looking at you.”
Chapter19
Avery
When I arrive at Derek and Ben’s, I can’t get the niceties out of the way quick enough.I just want to know what Nic has told them.
We exchange greetings and the obligatory compliments but, thankfully, as soon as we’re seated, Derek doesn’t beat about the bush.
“For the record,” he says, “Nic doesn’t know you’re here.I didn’t tell her I went to your movie’s premiere.I hadn’t planned on going.I was just Ida’s last-minute plus-one.”He waves his hand about.“What I’m trying to say is that she would frown upon this.She’s very torn up about what happened, but…”
“But?”I encourage him.
“You rocked her world.You made life as she knows it shake on its very foundations.”Oh, gays and their sense of drama—I’m loving every ounce of this drama, though.“But she’s your therapist, so.”
“Wasmy therapist.”
“We both know semantics don’t matter here.Nic broke the rules and she takes that very seriously.”
“Yeah.”I take a sip of cucumber water.
“Can I ask you something?”Derek says.Ben sits next to him, his face a mask of concentration, as though he’s watching the most riveting play he’s ever seen in his life.
“Of course.”
“Nic has convinced herself that you could never feel the same about her as she feels about you.That if she hadn’t been your therapist, you would never have given her the time of day at her sister’s birthday party.”
“Howdoesshe feel about me?”Nic could not possibly be more wrong, but I want to play my cards close to my chest a while longer.
“She’s pretty crazy about you.”Derek says it as though it’s as much of a given as that the sky outside is blue.“Otherwise, she wouldn’t have slept with you.Not in a million years.”
“Of course, I would have noticed her.She’s gorgeous and I like her a lot.”It feels so good to say it out loud, even though it’s also terribly bittersweet.“Did you just say she’s crazy about me?”
“Nic has been through a lot,” Ben chimes in.
“She has.Lois’s death knocked the wind out of all of us but for Nic, for a while, it was the end of her world.They were… you know.”Derek’s voice breaks.
“They were Nic and Lois.”Ben puts a hand on his husband’s arm.“Made for each other and inseparable since the first day they met.”
