“Maybe in time. Why don’t we begin by getting to know each other first?”
I nod. Oh my God. I even do therapy wrong…I can’t do anythingright.
“I went to Yale for my PhD, and I’ve focused primarily on addiction, especially sex addiction. Now, tell me a little about yourself. It doesn’t have to be related to sex.”
This should be the easiest question she’ll ask, but my tongue feels heavy in my mouth. “Can I have some water?”
“Of course.” She stands and goes to her mini-fridge that sits beneath a Vincent van Gogh painting. When she returns with a bottle of water, I take a long minute to spin off the cap and sip.
“I…um, I grew up in a suburb outside of Philadelphia. I have three other sisters.” My eyes flicker nervously to her. “You’ve met one.”
Dr. Banning smiles encouragingly. “And your other sisters—are you as close to them as you are to Rose?”
“Not really,” I say. “Poppy is married, and she has a little girl. She’s much older than me, so I didn’t really grow up with her. And Daisy’s a lot younger, and when I entered high school, I kind of went my own way.”
“What were you like in high school?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I was the quiet girl. No one bothered me unless I was pulled into Lo’s fights. Normally, noone ever really acknowledged me, except when there was a group project. I was kind of…just there.”
“Did you have any friends?”
“Yeah, Loren…my boyfriend. He, um, is in rehab.” I scratch my neck.
“It’s okay, Lily,” she says easily. “Rose explained your situation. We’re going to talk about him in time.”
I’m suddenly afraid she’s going to say that he’s the root of all of my problems. What if she tells me to never see him again? What ifthat’sthe solution? My chest thrums with rapid anxiety that I end up blurting out, “I know that I have an unhealthy relationship with him, but there has to be a way that we can be together and work through our problems. Right?”Please say yes. Please don’t end this for me.
Dr. Banning inspects me for a long moment and tucks a piece of her bob behind her ear, but it pops back out, so thick and so much volume that it won’t stay in place. “For now, I want to concentrate on your addiction, Lily, and then we’ll talk about how your boyfriend plays into it. You don’t need to worry, okay? We’re going to try to work through this together to find the answers you want.”
I relax only a little and slide further back on the cushions to refrain from bolting out of the office. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she nods and glances at her notebook. “Let’s go back a little in time. I want you to tell me about your relationship with your parents. How did they fit into your life? And how do they fit into your life now?”
I squint, processing these relationships that I desperately tried not to quantify for the longest time. “When I was younger, my father was always busy. He still is. I’ve never hated him for it. His success has given me a lot of opportunities.” Hell, I wouldn’t have been accepted to Princeton or the University of Pennsylvania without my family’s prestige.
“You’ve never been upset that he couldn’t spend more time with you?”
I shrug. “Maybe when I was little and didn’t understand how his hard work paid for our house and our nice things. But now, I only wish he’d retire so he could have more time to himself.”
“And your mother? She doesn’t have a job, does she?”
“No,” I say. “My relationship with her is…” My brows furrow, trying to put to words how my mother used to treat me compared to the other girls. “…I’m not sure how it was. But now, she leaves me alone. We talk briefly here and there, but that’s about it. It’s probably mostly my fault. I just haven’t been around much.”
“Why is that?”
I take a moment to process her question. When I got to college, I started going to less and less of the weekly family luncheons. Then I just kind of stopped all together. It was really the only scheduled “family time” and I always found a way to bail. For sex.
I take a shallow breath before saying, “I didn’t find them all that important. Not compared to my own stuff, I guess.”
“Your own stuff being sex,” Dr. Banning clarifies for me, her tone clinical.
I nod once. “It sounds awful, doesn’t it?” I mutter, the shame slithering in like a virus.
“It sounds like you have a problem, and you’re seeking help for it. That’s a monumental step.”
“I just want it to stop,” I confess.
“Be more specific. What exactly do you want to stop? The sex?”
