“I’m sorry,” I say.
“For what?” Dr. Welsley asks.
Kim’s brows draw together, like she doesn’t know what I’m apologizing for either.
Even I’m not sure. I find myself picking at the beads on the decorative pillow I’m smooshed up against and manage to stop before I pull one off. “For being messed up, I guess. It affects our family, and I’m sorry.”
Kim laughs, and I turn to stare at her.
“Blake,” she says. “I’m the one with crazy obsessions that drive us both insane. I’m the one who’s messed up and hurts our family.”
“Maybe,” Dr. Welsley says, in a way that indicates he doesn’t think there’s much “maybe” about it, “you both have things to work on that have negatively affected your family and your relationship, and that’s okay, because it’s part of being human.”
Both Kim and I glare at him. She doesn’t like this prospect any more than I do.
“I guess,” Kim says, “that my main worry is that I’m too broken.That Blake won’t be able to be happy with me, because I’m too difficult to live with.”
My heart aches. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way.”
“I’d like you to consider,” Dr. Welsley says, “that perhaps she feels that way, but you didn’t make her.”
That would be nice, but it isn’t true. “I left her for having a mental illness.”
“No,” Kim says. “You didn’t know about it.”
“It doesn’t matter if I knew,” I argue. “I did it all the same.”
“Would you have left if you knew?” Dr. Welsley asks.
It’s not really a question. I’ve already told him that I wouldn’t have. “No.”
“Then I’d say it mattered quite a bit.”
Kim sucks her lips inward. “I should have been more honest with you. If I hadn’t been so afraid that you’d leave if you knew how crazy I was, then—”
“See?” I say. “I made you feel like I’d leave you for having problems, and then Idid. How can you say it wasn’t my fault?”
She sighs in frustration, and my chest tightens. I recognize that sigh. It was the beginning of a lot of fights we had, and the last thing I want is to fight with her now. I’m feeling the same fears now that she felt in the car. Does this mean that I’m not good enough for her? Have they both just realized that we can’t do this?
“It sounds to me,” Dr. Welsley says, “like you both need to work on forgiving yourselves.”
I don’t like the sound of that at all. “I don’t deserve forgiveness for what I did to my family.”
“Kim,” Dr. Welsley says. “Have you forgiven Blake for what he did to your family?”
Kim hesitates. “I don’t think Blake did anything wrong. I drove him away.”
“I left you,” I say, and it comes out sharper than I mean it to.
“That’s true,” Dr. Welsley says. “Kim, can you forgive Blake for that?”
Kim thinks about that for a long moment, and I’m afraid she’s going to say no. “I was angry about it for a long time,” she says. “That he didn’t fight for me, that he didn’t want to stay. But now that I know what really happened, yes. I think I forgave him immediately, because I don’t think it was really his fault.”
Dr. Welsley nods. “And Blake, do you forgive Kim for pushing you away?”
“She was sick. It wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault she was so miserable with me.”
“I wasn’t miserable with you,” Kim says. “I was miserable because I was sick.”
