Lenore blinked once, the tiniest indication that Beth had successfully surprised her. That was a first.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Beth repeated.
“It’s not uncommon.”
“I figured… It just still feels strange.”
“In what way?”
Beth let out a breath. She knew she needed to talk about this. “It feels like I’m being pulled in two different directions. My brain is saying yes, it’s ready, but my body doesn’t believe it has permission to feel pleasure anymore.” She looked down at her hands. “And trust me, I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to make it happen. But nothing works because every time I start to feel good, the guilt follows. And then I think, would it be easier if I went out there and had a one-night stand? You know, rip off the Band-Aid with someone I’ll never see again? But no, I can’t even enjoy that because that’s literally how Jamie and I met, and look how that turned out.”
Lenore put her pen down, adjusting her posture in her chair. “You and Jamie had a strong physical connection. All of this makes sense.”
Shifting against the leather cushions, Beth suddenly found herself missing the pressure and weight of another body pressed against hers. She tried to fight the way her mind thrust all the memories of her and Jamie to the forefront of her thoughts as she untucked her legs, trying to hide her restlessness.
“Sometimes I miss her touch more than her voice. I miss the way her hand fit in mine and how she knew exactly how to hold me. I hate that my skin still remembers the exact feeling of hers against mine,” she admitted in a single breath.
“You lost someone who knew your body, your heart, your mind, and your soul. Sometimes it can take a little while for those pieces to all reconnect.” Lenore glanced at the clock on the desk. They had two minutes left in their session.
“I think that’s part of it,” Beth said quietly, “but I can’t tell if I miss Jamie, or just being known by someone, and there is also a part of me that feels terrified of feeling good without her. I don’t know if that makes sense. I’ve been trying to figure out why I’m feeling like…” She glanced at the clock, her words drifting off as she toed the chunky fibers of the rug. Time was up. “Same time next month?” She laughed, hoping to end the conversation there. She was already regretting bringing it up.
Lenore smiled at her. “Unless you feel like you need to come in sooner. I thought we had talked about going back to appointments every two weeks?”
Beth considered that, then gave a small shake of her head. “Not yet. Maybe after trials, depending on how everything goes.”
Lenore nodded, writing a small note in the top corner of her page before closing the notebook. “Beth, I’m going to do something rare for me and give you some homework.”
Beth raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Homework?”
“You’ve been holding on to what intimacy used to look like with Jamie, and your brain needs a little help rewiring that path. I want you to try something new. Something unfamiliar. Find a different kind of spark.”
“What exactly are you telling me to do?” Beth asked, still skeptical.
“I’m suggesting,” Lenore said evenly, “that you might benefit from exploring a little bit. A new toy. A new space. A spicy book. Something that lets you reconnect with yourself without attaching the memory of Jamie to it.”
“Okay, yeah…that is definitely a suggestion.”
“You don’t have to take it,” Lenore added, standing to signal that their session had come to an end.
Beth stood too, slipping her bag onto her shoulder as she moved towards the door. “So that’s my homework? Go vibrator shopping and watch porn?”
Lenore didn’t even crack a smile. “No, your homework is to let your body surprise you. I’ll see you next month, Beth.” She pulled the door open. “I hope Lily does well at trials.”
The following day, Beth hurriedly pushed through the door of the Grumpy Goat café, breezing past the small line of people leading to the register.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said apologetically to Pat as she rushed past, tossing her bag on the hook behind the counter before grabbing an apron and tying it around her waist. “It’s been a day.”
“You’re all good, Dyl just left. Here, take over the register and I’ll make drinks.” Pat flashed a warm grin, giving her arm a gentle squeeze as they swapped places.
She couldn’t help the slight twinge of guilt that flared in her chest, but she pushed it aside and instead put on her smile to take the order of the customer standing in front of her.
When Jamie died, grief had filled every space in Beth’s life in the form of endless phone calls with condolences, people checking in on her and on Lily, and piles of casseroles and premade meals she had eaten out of the freezer for weeks. But then life moved on, and when it did, time seemed to slow down to an excruciatingly stagnant pace, leaving her with far too much time alone to dwell in her thoughts.
It was Sean, her best friend and art manager, who refused to let her disappear into her grief. He and his fiancée, Pat, would stop by with groceries, claiming to have overbought, or dinner they coincidentally happened to have too much of. They always did it under the pretense of it being casual, never pushing her too hard. On weekends, Sean would coax her out of the house, claiming he needed company downtown or help with a fake errand, just to get her moving again. He never tried to talk her out of her grief; he stayed beside her in it.
And when she finally admitted that she hadn’t touched a canvas in months, Sean didn’t offer advice or pep talks. He simply told her to show up at the Grumpy Goat on Sunday. “You’re going to learn how to make a rosetta,” he’d said, handing her an apron. And when she successfully made her first one, he said, “There, you made some art. That’s all you need to do for now. Oh, and show up on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. We’re short-staffed.”
