“Some people need a little more time to get there, Steven. We have to give her that.”
“I’m not shutting down,” Emma says weakly. Unconvincing.
“You’re not saying anything,” I argue.
The softness of her jaw tenses into a rigid hard line. Her knees tremble, and her forearms are taut as she squeezes her hands tightly together.
I inhale a slow breath and try to speak softer. “Emma, please talk to me.”
“I don’t have anything to say,” she whispers.
My nostrils flare as red-hot frustration ripples up my spine. “Emma…you need to talk to me. This is never going to get better if you don’t tell me anything. You can yell, scream, if you have to. Fight with me. Just say something.”
“Steven, stop.” Her lips shake.
“No. I can’t,” my voice cracks under the pressure building in my chest. “I can’t be the only one fighting. We have been through so much, and we haven’t talked about any of it. We need to talk.”
“Oh, really?” She straightens with a new fire in her eyes, and I instinctively brace myself. “You want to talk? Why don’t we talk about how you’ve been avoiding your family? Or the fact that your mom fell last week, and you didn’t tell me? Let’s talk about how you’re working so much because you don’t want to address anything unless it’s here”—she waves her hands around wildly—“in this controlled environment. You can’t demand I talk when you won’t even figure out your stuff on your own.”
“I don’t know how!” I shout. “At least here someone can guide us. Someone can help me figure out how to fix all of this.”
“What if she can’t?!” Emma shouts back.
“ThenIwill. You just need to tell me what you’re thinking. What you need.”
Her breath goes shallow and unsteady. She rubs a hand across her chest, the other hand firmly atop her belly, tapping a finger like she’s trying toregulate herself. Through pursed lips, I hear the rhythmic breathing she does for anxiety.
“Emma,” I plead quietly. “Please talk to me.”
“I can’t,” her voice wobbles.
“Youcan,” I push harder, sounding so desperate I don’t know how to reel myself in. “Can you just try?”
“I said I can’t!” she yells, her voice cracking loud enough that both Dr. Belo and I jerk.
“Why?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
“Because I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.”
The words twist around my ribs, and my breath hitches, as if a hole has been poked in my lungs, and all the air is slowly leaking out of my body.
“What do you mean?” I ask shakily.
Her eyes finally meet mine as terror and heartbreak swim in the tears that cling to her lashes.
“I don’t know how long I can keep pretending I’m okay,” she cries, a tear cascading down her cheek. “I can’t keep this up. I feel like a ticking time bomb. It’s just a matter of time before I explode and disrupt everything. I don’t know how to hold it all together, and I’m just so tired.”
“What’re you saying?” I force the words out as pressure builds behind my eyes.
“I’m saying…” She squeezes hers shut, letting more tears drift down her cheeks. “What if it’s too late? What if we can’t fix this?”
Everything inside me stops. My heart, my lungs, the nerves that would usually spark and send me into fight mode. All of it…stops.
“Is that what you want?” Dr. Belo asks her.
“I’m not sure. I mean, it’s not my—”
She gasps then freezes.Then everything changes.
