[Private Entry]
I called Molly. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was impulse or maybe it was something to do with the sheer familiarity of her voice, the way that no matter what she could calm me. And I’m not calm inside. There’s a ball of ice that’s slowly melting and settling around my stomach. I feel like everything’s a step away from falling apart and there’s nothing I can do about it.
And I hate that. I hate not having the control, not being able to pick up the pieces and slot them back in where they should go. The worst part of it is that I don’t know whether the problem truly is mine or whether it’s George’s. Or maybe it’s neither. And that makes the ice in my stomach even colder because … what if Jack is right? What if me and George were never meant to be in the first place? My world’s crumbling and all I can do is yell at the pieces of it, as they fall around my ears.
And I told Molly all of that. Josh was in the background again, playing with the dogs and as soon as the phone rang he asked if it was me. I lied, through Molly, got her to tell him it was just a friend and to go back out to play. That made some corner of me unbearably sad and so very guilty, pretending to be someone else like that because my own life is so bad that I can’t even speak to my own son. And it scares me sometimes because I realise that he’s getting that little bit older and there are seconds I’m missing that I could have but that I’m avoiding because I want to fix myself.
“You need to speak to him, Will,” and it was the way she said my name. It was like being back in the house, sitting downstairs. Watching the beach on Sugarloaf Key and drinking martinis while Josh played in the waves and brought Molly a seashell, giving me a hug as a substitute because he thought he was getting a bit big to be giving his Dad little trinkets like that. It was like nothing had changed for a second and I could pretend to myself that everything was normal and all right … when it really wasn’t, it would never be like that again.
“I know I do but I don’t know how.” She was in disbelief when I said that though. I don’t think she could really comprehend what I was telling her. Which was that I didn’t think that I was enough for him, that I thought he wanted someone else, or maybe he just needed a woman and I had been right when I said that maybe he wasn’t ready to do the coming out thing and settle down with me. She told me I was an idiot for handing over half the house to him but I don’t think she really minded all that much in the long run.
“Yes, you do. You’re just scared,” she told me.
“I’m a criminal psychologist, Molly. You’ve seen my diploma. I should be able to at least open a conversation.” There were some moments when she paused and I was back to feeling completely inadequate. The way I felt at the end when me and her had been together. I broke up with her because I wasn’t what she needed, couldn’t give her what she wanted. And now it looks like I’m breaking up with George over the same thing. It can’t be him, or her, or even Jack anymore because that’s too many … it has to be me. There has to be something wrong with me. Something that drives people away … something that makes it so they can’t love me. Not like they love other people, or sex, or being set in their own ways in their own world. Tainted goods, I’ve always known I was.
“You mended a crack in the ceiling with your diploma, I saw that.” She made me smile because those exact same sentences had been used when we were together and happy, when I was fixing boat motors and Jack had come to call me back to duty. Maybe that was where the beginning of the end started.
“If I lose him it’ll kill me.” The smile didn’t last for long because the icy feeling was turning into black dread. I felt sick. He was late and I didn’t know where he was and I felt sick. The kind of physical sickness that makes you shake. The kind only Lecter had been able to inspire in me before.
“You won’t lose him. You have to talk to him.”
After I hung up the phone I sat in the dark for a while until the front door opened and he walked in. It didn’t give me the sense of washing relief I always felt before, when he stepped close, it just made me feel like I was going to sink to the carpet. Beg him not to go. I went to bed early telling him that I was tired, blaming it on Jack and he didn’t question, not even when I asked him not to tuck me in.
It’s broken. Or I am. What we had … I want it back. The blind innocence of romance that you have right at the beginning. I feel sick all the time now, not just when I’m waiting like I was then. Because I’m sitting biting my nails for the time when he says, “It’s over.” I don’t know whether the stinging behind my eyes is tears or fatigue anymore. I’m worrying myself to the point where I have to drink coffee every free second of the day to steady my hands. I don’t want that feeling.
I just want George. In love, happy.
With me.
… she’s right. I’m scared.
Of myself.
And I hate that. I hate not having the control, not being able to pick up the pieces and slot them back in where they should go. The worst part of it is that I don’t know whether the problem truly is mine or whether it’s George’s. Or maybe it’s neither. And that makes the ice in my stomach even colder because … what if Jack is right? What if me and George were never meant to be in the first place? My world’s crumbling and all I can do is yell at the pieces of it, as they fall around my ears.
And I told Molly all of that. Josh was in the background again, playing with the dogs and as soon as the phone rang he asked if it was me. I lied, through Molly, got her to tell him it was just a friend and to go back out to play. That made some corner of me unbearably sad and so very guilty, pretending to be someone else like that because my own life is so bad that I can’t even speak to my own son. And it scares me sometimes because I realise that he’s getting that little bit older and there are seconds I’m missing that I could have but that I’m avoiding because I want to fix myself.
“You need to speak to him, Will,” and it was the way she said my name. It was like being back in the house, sitting downstairs. Watching the beach on Sugarloaf Key and drinking martinis while Josh played in the waves and brought Molly a seashell, giving me a hug as a substitute because he thought he was getting a bit big to be giving his Dad little trinkets like that. It was like nothing had changed for a second and I could pretend to myself that everything was normal and all right … when it really wasn’t, it would never be like that again.
“I know I do but I don’t know how.” She was in disbelief when I said that though. I don’t think she could really comprehend what I was telling her. Which was that I didn’t think that I was enough for him, that I thought he wanted someone else, or maybe he just needed a woman and I had been right when I said that maybe he wasn’t ready to do the coming out thing and settle down with me. She told me I was an idiot for handing over half the house to him but I don’t think she really minded all that much in the long run.
“Yes, you do. You’re just scared,” she told me.
“I’m a criminal psychologist, Molly. You’ve seen my diploma. I should be able to at least open a conversation.” There were some moments when she paused and I was back to feeling completely inadequate. The way I felt at the end when me and her had been together. I broke up with her because I wasn’t what she needed, couldn’t give her what she wanted. And now it looks like I’m breaking up with George over the same thing. It can’t be him, or her, or even Jack anymore because that’s too many … it has to be me. There has to be something wrong with me. Something that drives people away … something that makes it so they can’t love me. Not like they love other people, or sex, or being set in their own ways in their own world. Tainted goods, I’ve always known I was.
“You mended a crack in the ceiling with your diploma, I saw that.” She made me smile because those exact same sentences had been used when we were together and happy, when I was fixing boat motors and Jack had come to call me back to duty. Maybe that was where the beginning of the end started.
“If I lose him it’ll kill me.” The smile didn’t last for long because the icy feeling was turning into black dread. I felt sick. He was late and I didn’t know where he was and I felt sick. The kind of physical sickness that makes you shake. The kind only Lecter had been able to inspire in me before.
“You won’t lose him. You have to talk to him.”
After I hung up the phone I sat in the dark for a while until the front door opened and he walked in. It didn’t give me the sense of washing relief I always felt before, when he stepped close, it just made me feel like I was going to sink to the carpet. Beg him not to go. I went to bed early telling him that I was tired, blaming it on Jack and he didn’t question, not even when I asked him not to tuck me in.
It’s broken. Or I am. What we had … I want it back. The blind innocence of romance that you have right at the beginning. I feel sick all the time now, not just when I’m waiting like I was then. Because I’m sitting biting my nails for the time when he says, “It’s over.” I don’t know whether the stinging behind my eyes is tears or fatigue anymore. I’m worrying myself to the point where I have to drink coffee every free second of the day to steady my hands. I don’t want that feeling.
I just want George. In love, happy.
With me.
… she’s right. I’m scared.
Of myself.