If you could change one moment in your past, what would it be?
It’s a condition of this transfer, speaking to a psychologist. And it’s not so bad in the large scheme of things, except that every time she asks me a question, I’m second guessing her. Knowing what she’s thinking and in my head repeating like a mantra, ‘You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong …”
But she asked me something that I’ve been mulling over and over and over in my head. Something that’s playing on my mind. Something that’s hit on a raw nerve I think.
“If you had the opportunity to go back in time …which aspect of your life would you change? Or rather which specific moment in time would you alter?”
And I just sat there with my mouth opening and closing like a damned fish. Naturally I told her that it would have been ever hurting Molly. If there was a possible way in which we could have … separated without the heartache that I caused by sleeping with Jack. But she knew I was lying, I think. That’s part of my problem, she told me, the way that I could self-analyse. That maybe, just maybe, if I learned not to rerun things in my head I wouldn’t have been sitting on such a time bomb.
Maybe she’s right.
But I walked out of there and drove him feeling detached. My body was sitting in that car waiting for the lights to change but my mind? My mind was doing just what she’d warned me not to do. I was replaying events from years ago. From before I moved to England, before Jack and me slept together, before Molly and me split.
“You’re tense, Will,” he’d said. I can remember the light in his eyes, reflecting from the stage. Hamlet. Fitting really. Now. At the time it was just another play. “I can see it. Right here … between your shoulder blades.” And then there was his hands on me again.
“It’s nothing. I’m just - -” and there was that look again. The look that, then, was used to comfort me and, now, raises the hairs on the back of my neck. The one where he looked right through me. Touching places no one else was ever supposed to go. “All right. I’m thinking.”
“About work?” and his tone had been that of a parent scolding a child. A teacher chastising a pupil. An older lover educating a younger one.
“Yes but it’s right there I can feel it!” So, so very close. I had this inkling, every time I was near him, this urge to know and understand and solve. This feeling that I knew. A hunch, a gut reaction. Something kicking me deep down and telling me that if I only changed my thinking, just a touch, that I would get it.
“Will, you’re exhausted. Give yourself one night of relaxation. One night’s reprieve from all of this. Even I can’t force my mind to work when my body is beyond help.” So convincing. That voice could have lead you blissfully to the gates of hell. I went to his bed and I called Molly. I told her I was staying at Jack’s. That we were close, that I couldn’t let this lead die on me. And she believed it and told me she would kiss Josh goodnight.
Sitting there, in the car, I felt sick. My own words echoing back to me, comforting words I’d used to soothe Reba McClane after she realised that the man she’d been dating liked to murder families thrust glass into their eyes. “You didn’t draw a freak. You drew a man with a freak on his back.”
What’s that old saying? It’s easy to give advice but hard to take it? Beautiful lies.
If I could change one thing, it wouldn’t be hurting Molly because in the end, that hurt helped her to move on from what had happened. What I’d done to her. Whatever my reasons were. If I could change one thing, it would have been my reaction to an overfriendly smile and a charming older man who was willing to not only tutor but pretend to love as well. If I could change just one thing … it would have been the second that I trusted. That I loved. It would have never been meeting Doctor Hannibal Lecter.
But she asked me something that I’ve been mulling over and over and over in my head. Something that’s playing on my mind. Something that’s hit on a raw nerve I think.
“If you had the opportunity to go back in time …which aspect of your life would you change? Or rather which specific moment in time would you alter?”
And I just sat there with my mouth opening and closing like a damned fish. Naturally I told her that it would have been ever hurting Molly. If there was a possible way in which we could have … separated without the heartache that I caused by sleeping with Jack. But she knew I was lying, I think. That’s part of my problem, she told me, the way that I could self-analyse. That maybe, just maybe, if I learned not to rerun things in my head I wouldn’t have been sitting on such a time bomb.
Maybe she’s right.
But I walked out of there and drove him feeling detached. My body was sitting in that car waiting for the lights to change but my mind? My mind was doing just what she’d warned me not to do. I was replaying events from years ago. From before I moved to England, before Jack and me slept together, before Molly and me split.
“You’re tense, Will,” he’d said. I can remember the light in his eyes, reflecting from the stage. Hamlet. Fitting really. Now. At the time it was just another play. “I can see it. Right here … between your shoulder blades.” And then there was his hands on me again.
“It’s nothing. I’m just - -” and there was that look again. The look that, then, was used to comfort me and, now, raises the hairs on the back of my neck. The one where he looked right through me. Touching places no one else was ever supposed to go. “All right. I’m thinking.”
“About work?” and his tone had been that of a parent scolding a child. A teacher chastising a pupil. An older lover educating a younger one.
“Yes but it’s right there I can feel it!” So, so very close. I had this inkling, every time I was near him, this urge to know and understand and solve. This feeling that I knew. A hunch, a gut reaction. Something kicking me deep down and telling me that if I only changed my thinking, just a touch, that I would get it.
“Will, you’re exhausted. Give yourself one night of relaxation. One night’s reprieve from all of this. Even I can’t force my mind to work when my body is beyond help.” So convincing. That voice could have lead you blissfully to the gates of hell. I went to his bed and I called Molly. I told her I was staying at Jack’s. That we were close, that I couldn’t let this lead die on me. And she believed it and told me she would kiss Josh goodnight.
Sitting there, in the car, I felt sick. My own words echoing back to me, comforting words I’d used to soothe Reba McClane after she realised that the man she’d been dating liked to murder families thrust glass into their eyes. “You didn’t draw a freak. You drew a man with a freak on his back.”
What’s that old saying? It’s easy to give advice but hard to take it? Beautiful lies.
If I could change one thing, it wouldn’t be hurting Molly because in the end, that hurt helped her to move on from what had happened. What I’d done to her. Whatever my reasons were. If I could change one thing, it would have been my reaction to an overfriendly smile and a charming older man who was willing to not only tutor but pretend to love as well. If I could change just one thing … it would have been the second that I trusted. That I loved. It would have never been meeting Doctor Hannibal Lecter.