“Yes, so I heard. But before you yell, you will turn on the lamp, to signal your anger in a different way.”
Jason looks dubious, and I’m right there with him. “When do we turn the lamp off?”
“When the anger is defused.” Monroe pushes the button on and off. “Express. Defuse. Express. Defuse. Do you understand?”
“I guess,” Jason says, and she passes the lamp to him.
If we’re wrapping up this session, we should get our alone time.Though we’re probably going to have to use it for talking, because apparently we have even more to talk about than I thought.
“All right,” Monroe says. “Emily, I will take back Dinokins—”
“So we don’t have to use the talking dinosaur all the time?” Jason asks.
“Of course not,” Monroe says, as I give her Dinokins. “He isTiberius’s special friend.”
Tiberius lets out a whine, and Jason looks as stricken as I am with the idea that we’ve been holding her dog’s humping buddy.
“No,Tiberius,” Monroe says, as the dog snaps toward the dinosaur. “You’ll have special time later.”
“Okay!” Jason jumps to his feet so fast I nearly fall over from the cushion shift. “So, are we done?”
“Yes,” Monroe says. “We will now leave the safety of the bubble.”
“Thank god,” Jason says, and I couldn’t agree with him more.
Eight
Emily
Of all the things I expected when we first started this week, being forced to carry a battery-powered therapy lava lamp on a hike with my boyfriend was not one of them.Then again, there are lots of things I didn’t expect to happen, and this is by far the least stressful of them. And at least we’re not being followed by cameras.
We don’t talk much as we walk, and I think Jason is also trying to process all the stuff that came up in that session. I know I’m not fully appreciating the gorgeous tan and red rock formations all around us or the picture-perfect blue sky dotted with pure white cotton-candy clouds, and I don’t think he is, either.
“I can take that if you want,” he says, gesturing at the lava lamp.
“Nah, I’ve got it.”
He gives a short nod, and there’s another long stretch of quiet between us, just the sound of our shoes in the dirt.
At the base of a tall, lumpy hoodoo, there’s a shaded area, and without really saying anything about it, we both naturally drift there and settle on the ground.This, at least, seems to be something we’re still in sync about. We’ve gone on so many hikes together over the years that we both know when we’re ready to sit and chill.
We also reflexively sit the way we usually do—close enough that my knee is touching his. Close enough that he could put his arm around me.
This time he doesn’t, which scrapes deeper into that hollow in my chest.There’s a chasm between us and I’m scared to fall in.
Again.
But our knees are touching, and that feels like a little bridge, more so when I think about the pictures we drew in our therapy session (not counting the one Jason drew to express his feelings about Connor.)
He loves me and I love him. We both want to fix this.That’s the most important thing, isn’t it?
“You really felt scared this whole time that I would reject you,” I say quietly, even though I already said that in the therapy session. I still don’t know what to do with this—I’m so sad for him and also hurt that he never told me. Hypocritical, I know, given that I just went the last several months not talking to him about my fears. Buttwo years. Our whole relationship.
“Yeah,” he says, equally quietly. Which is its own feat for Jason and makes my heart crack.
I bite my lower lip. “I guess it makes sense that you felt that way.”
He looks over at me, wary and somehow resigned all at once. “Why?” But he says it like he knows the answer, and I curse inwardly at the way I phrased it—probably he’s thinking I meant thatof courseI would reject him. Which is the farthest thing from the truth.
