He falters. He hasn’t reallyhadany past relationships. Not serious ones, anyway. “Emily is my first long-term girlfriend,” he says carefully.
“And why is that?” Monroe asks. “Did you never meet anyone you were interested in committing to before her?”
“It’s not really that,” he says. “I dated people, but mostly I got rejected a lot.”
“Ah,” Monroe says. “Speak to that.”
He looks like he wants to do anything but. He holds the dinosaur like he’s considering punting it to me.
“I can’t help you if you won’t share, Jason,” Monroe says, and I don’t think I’m imagining the threat in her voice. Answer the question, or she tells Rich we’re not cooperating.
Jason sighs. “I don’t know. I guess I was interested in people who weren’t as interested in me. People who just wanted someone to party with, not a real relationship.”
“And do you think your concern about Connor stems from this fear of rejection?”
I blink at Monroe.That’s an astute connection, actually, even if I feel bad for Jason that she’s calling him out. I want to save him, but he gets there first.
“Fear of rejection?” he asks. “That’s what we’re calling it now?”
“Are you afraid that Emily will reject you?” Monroe asks.
Jason opens his mouth, and I expect him to say that he wasn’t afraid of that before last night, when I suggested I’d break up with him. “Yes,” he says quietly.
“How long have you been afraid of that?” Monroe asks.
Here it is. We were going to have to talk about that part of the conversation eventually—
“I think I’ve always felt that way,” Jason says.
I stare at him. “What?”
He tosses the dinosaur to me like he’s thrilled to be rid of it.
“You’ve felt that way the entire time we’ve been together?” I ask.
He nods slowly, not meeting my eyes. In fact, he’s looking down at the dinosaur like he’s terrified I’m going to give it back to him. I hold onto it. I respect that he doesn’t want to talk about this on camera, but damn, if my boyfriend of two years has spent theentiretime feeling like I’m going to reject him, what does that say about me? What does it say aboutus?
I think I’m starting to understand how Jason felt when I told him I’d been unhappy, and he had no idea.
“All right,” Monroe says. “I think that’s a great start. But before we wrap up our first session—”
I cringe.That’s right.This is only the first of several daily sessions. We’re going to have to do this again.
“—I think we need to talk about your anger management issues.”
“We don’t have—” I start, but Monroe gives me a stern look, and I shut my mouth.
Then she pulls the lava lamp out of her bag. Jason and I both stare at it. It’s about a foot tall, with red goop inside.There’s no cord attached, but it glows when she turns it on, so it must be battery-operated.
Is this really part of her usual “therapy” bag of tricks, or did Rich find crap to make this even more ridiculous?
“This,” Monroe says, “is the Lamp of Anger. You need to carry it with you everywhere you go.”
Jason stares as the goop inside begins to rise to the top. “I’m going to be climbing with this thing?”
“Whenever you’retogether,” she says. “And when one of you starts to get angry, you turn on the lamp.To signal the anger.”
“I think we’re both pretty good atsignalingouranger,” he says, and Monroe gives him a look of disapproval.
