Taylor: Whoa. Didn’t realize you were such a Seattle fan.
Tessa H: Don’t you know who else is in Seattle??????
Of course she’d caught it. This was what he got for befriending an Eric Thorn superfan of all people. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, considering how best to cover his tracks.
Taylor: Oh no. Don’t tell me.
Tessa H: ERIC THORN!!!!
Taylor: Huh, that’s weird. I didn’t pick up a signal yet on my douchebag detector.
Tessa H: He’s playing a stadium show tonight! I wonder if there are still tickets?
Taylor: Nope. Pretty sure I got the last one.
Tessa H: Wait. Wait. YOU HAVE TICKETS????
Taylor: Well, not exactly. More of a corporate VIP type situation.
Tessa H: OMG WHAT??? I thought you said it was a work trip!
Taylor: Mostly work, and I’m sure the concert will suck monkey balls…
Tessa H: Whatever. Do you have any idea how jealous I am right now? You know I’ve never even seen him live, right?
Eric paused, his finger hanging in the air. Really? He knew Tessa was confined to her home, but her condition had only started in June. How was it possible that she’d never come to see him play in all the years before?
Taylor: Never? I thought you were such a fangirl!
Tessa H: He never tours within five hours of my house.
Taylor: Where? What part of the country?
Tessa H: Let’s just say it’s a rural area… I can’t believe you’re seeing ERIC THORN. Will you please try to enjoy it? For my sake?
Taylor: OK. For your sake.
Tessa H: Promise? Will you sing along?
Eric broke into a playful grin. Sing along… Yes, Tessa. That much he could definitely promise.
Taylor: Every word of every song.
Tessa H: Good. And maybe try to smile at least once. Do you think you can manage that?
Taylor: Smiling right now, sweet pea. You tend to have that effect on me :)
Tessa H: Sweet pea?
Taylor: Well, you won’t even give me a hint what you look like, so I choose to envision you as small, green, and spherical.
Tessa H: LOL. Pretty close. I gotta go though. Dr. R is here.
Taylor: OK, talk to you tomorrow. Have a good session.
? ? ?
Tessa lay on the bedroom floor, doing leg lifts. She slowly counted the reps inside her head. She had to do something to combat the atrophy from all the endless hours spent indoors. Dr. Regan had suggested a free fitness app at their last session, and she didn’t seem to mind if Tessa followed along with the exercise routine while they spoke.
The therapist sat as usual in the beanbag chair, jotting notes on her yellow pad. Tessa thought she looked a little less uncomfortable than usual. It had to be the first time Tessa had ever seen Dr. Regan wear a pair of slacks.
“OK, Tessa. Let’s take a look at what you wrote in your thought journal this week. Can you walk me through this?”
Tessa shifted to her other side as her therapist thumbed through the spiral-bound notebook. More of the same, she thought to herself. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered writing anything at all.
“Tessa?” Dr. Regan prompted.
“I guess it’s mostly about Scott again,” Tessa replied, lifting her leg in the air and holding it for a ten count. “He didn’t come to see me at all last week. It kind of sucked.”
She could sense Dr. Regan’s thoughtful nod in response. “And how did that make you feel?”
It made me feel like shit, Tessa thought. What did her therapist expect her to say? Warm and fuzzy? With an effort, Tessa bit back a sarcastic reply. She’d save that for later. For Taylor. That was the nice thing about talking to her new friend. She didn’t have to dissect every passing emotion that flitted through her head like a butcher carving up a side of beef.
“I don’t know,” she said to Dr. Regan, playing for time. “It’s not Scott’s fault. He started his fall semester, so he’s busier now with school. I understand that.”
“OK, Tessa. Try to dig a little deeper for me if you can.”
“I don’t know!” Tessa snapped back. “How do you think I feel? I feel lonely and hurt and angry. And scared. I feel scared. OK? Is that deep enough?”
Dr. Regan’s blank expression didn’t change. She nodded calmly. “That’s good, Tessa. I hear you saying that Scott’s behavior frightens you. Could you tell me more about that?”
Tessa swallowed a groan. Honestly, couldn’t Dr. Regan ask a straightforward question for once in her life?
Tessa flipped onto her back and started doing crunches. She didn’t know why she found therapy so annoying lately. She should probably write about that in her thought journal. What would Dr. Regan say to that? Tessa, I hear you saying that I annoy the crap out of you. Could you tell me more about that?
“Tessa?” Dr. Regan interrupted. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry.” With a final grunt of exertion, Tessa sat up all the way and clicked the fitness app closed. She knew she had to focus. She was never going to get better if she didn’t take therapy seriously. “I guess I’m worried that Scott might be drifting away from me. Like I’m a chore on his to-do list. And I’d be really isolated if I didn’t have him. I’d be completely alone. That scares me.”
Dr. Regan made a note. “I see. Have you expressed these feelings to Scott?”
Tessa shook her head. Her pulse rate had slowed back down after the exercise, but she felt it quicken again in response to Dr. Regan’s question. How exactly would that conversation go? She could just picture Scott’s eyes glazing over at the first hint of criticism. Then he’d either change the subject—or worse, cut the visit short. “I don’t want to seem clingy. Taylor says—”
“Taylor? This is your new online friend?”
“From Twitter,” Tessa confirmed. “We’ve been chatting a lot lately.”
Dr. Regan flipped to a clean page. “That’s good, Tessa. How frequently do you and Taylor chat?”
“Every night for about a month now.” Tessa broke into a shy smile. “Sometimes Taylor messages me during the day too, but she has to work a lot.”
Dr. Regan kept her eyes fixed on her notepad, scribbling again. Tessa couldn’t help but wonder what her therapist did with all those notes. She didn’t really save them, did she? Maybe she used them for origami paper. Or no, even better: papier-maché. Maybe she made them into a gigantic pi?ata and beat it with a stick in her backyard. Probably, right? Anyone that robotic had to have some serious pent-up frustration…
“And you feel comfortable sharing your feelings about Scott with your friend Taylor?”
Tessa coughed to cover her giggle. Right. Taylor. Back to Taylor. “Sure,” she said. “We’re friends. We talk about all kinds of things.”
“Keep going, Tessa. Tell me more about your friendship.”
“We just understand each other,” Tessa said. “Taylor has a lot of anxiety too. She’s not in therapy or anything, but she probably should be. I try to tell her things you told me, to help her a little. And then we just have common interests. We talk about Eric a lot.”