“Mm, hmm,” Annica says. “But then you didn't list the car, you didn't look for a new job, and you still haven't looked for a place in Virginia Beach."
"That's because I don't trust myself to make a good choice, Annica!”
That sentence seems to bounce around the inside of the car for a very long time. It’s a game of dodgeball—my words are the ball and I’m the target and if it hits me just right, I’m out.
I gulp, wishing Annica would hurry and say something, but she doesn’t. Just makes me sit as the ball hits its mark at last.
I don’t trust myself.
I don’t trust myself.
The statement triggers something new. Something that hovers, elusive in my brain, but potent enough to send chills up my arms and a shock of cold up my back.
I test it out by saying it aloud. “What if I feel nervous about being with someone like Liam…because he refuses to tell me what to do?”
Yes, I must be onto something because the goose bumps are growing goose bumps of their own. “He wants me to make my own decisions. Hemakesme trust myself, and that’s scary.”
“Scary, why?” Annica challenges.
“Because something bad could happen.”
“Something bad couldalwayshappen,” she persists.
“Yeah, but if it happens and someone else is calling the shots, then it’s just what it is. I don’t want to be the one to take all the blame.” The tears must have restored themselves because they’re flowing freely now.
Annica slows the car down, flicks on her blinker, and pulls off the side of the road at an overlook. “Sis,” she says softly. “Where is this coming from?”
The rain starts to fall as I relive the incident with Baby Thomas. I tell her how my mindset shifted, I think, from that point on.
When I’m through, Annica nods as she takes it all in. “So, you picked someone like Ross…onpurpose?”
I laugh at the insanity of it all. “Imusthave! And even after Liam wrote me that letter, giving me every reason under the sun to pick him instead, it terrified me. The way it did when he showed up to my bachelorette party. Ross was safe. And I guess a part of me still believes that Liam isn’t.”
I smear a hand over my face, exhausted and somewhat elated, honestly, because I think I’ve just experienced the biggest breakthrough of my life.
I consider how it triggered my first breakup with Liam all those years ago. “I lied to myself,” I say. “I told myself that Liam was trying to control me when he asked if I wanted to date other people. Maybe that was my way of forcing him into making the choice for us, in a roundabout way, I guess.Okay,I was saying,if that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll get. But it’ll be on you, not me.Nothing could be on me.”
Annica squeezes me tight and lets me cry some more. When my breaths calm, and I’m wiping my face with a tissue I don’t remember her handing me, Annica speaks up again.
“I’m proud of you,” she says. “You know, I bet we’ve accomplished two-point-three years’ worth of therapy just now. Not bad. I’ll send you my bill later.”
“I’d gladly pay it,” I say, thinking—or at least hoping—that she might just be right.
We talk for another hour on the drive home. Then, I sneak into the quiet condo and climb onto the futon in the moonlight’s glow. There, I’m left with the metaphorical dodgeball in my hands: I don’t trust myself, and I’ve got to figure out how to change that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ashley
Annica scores me an appointment with one of her recent brides, a renowned psychologist who fits me in the very next day.
The session is for a tele-visit, meaning it takes place through a Zoom call instead of in person. Normally, I would welcome that, but since I’m stuffed into a crowded condo with my parents, my kids, and a geriatric villain, I take the call in my car, which Dad lets me pull into the garage to avoid distractions.
While I wait for the call to start, I consider how I can work this into a makeup speech for Liam, but I know it’s too soon. Sure, I sort of know what my problem is, but that doesn’t mean it’s fixed.
Dr. Susan Nury, PhD, pops onto the call, and, after a bit of small talk, she dives right in. “Tell me why you made this appointment.”
I feel a sense of confirmation as I explain the conclusion I came to in Annica’s car. I give her the background next as she probes for it and tell her how the memory with Thomas came to me toward the end of the campout.
