“And you left.”
“I left. And I know why I haven’t gotten seriously involved with another woman since. Part of me never wants to hurt like that again. But God, this hurts even when I’m alone.” He glanced around but there was nothing to throw.
“It’s your heart,” Diane said, getting up herself and retrieving the tissue box. “Your heart is breaking.”
“It’s breaking now? I can’t do this again.”
“That would be a fair statement except you never did it the first time.” She set the box in his lap. “You can throw it again, just aim over my head.”
“I didn’t do it the first time?”
“Did you? Did you feel it at the time? You lost the love of your life. Did you take the time to feel all that grief and pain? Loss is trauma, same as a shooting incident or any act of violence. It’s emotional violence. You don’t forget. You simply suppress. And while you suppress, the grief gathers strength to come back at a later time. With more power to kill you. You may want to trust me on this one, Erik, because I see it a lot.”
He sighed, spinning the tissue box in his hands. “You think I have trust issues?”
“I think a Tibetan monk would have trust issues after your experiences. Who do you trust now, Erik?”
He gave up his most charming smile. “I trust you.”
“And I’m glad to hear it. But outside this office, who are the people closest to you? How many people do you let into your heart?”
“Not. Many.”
“I’m not surprised. You were eight and trusting in the world, and your father left. You were twenty-one and trusting in the world, and James came into the theater with a gun. Then you were trusting in your relationship with Daisy, and she slept with your friend. We have a lot going on here,” she said
Erik glared, thinking she sounding a little too pleased, as if he were a project. “I just want to stop hurting. I want to stop waking up in the morning and feeling like the day is already out to get me. Stop fucking crying all the time. Jesus, it’s like I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
“I don’t know if it will ever cease to be a painful subject, Erik. Possibly this is always going to matter to you. The goal now is to learn to open your heart and trust. Not so much trust in love or trust in people, but trust in yourself. So if you do get hurt—and that’s probably a when not an if—you will be able to survive. Because you have survived.”
“But I’m a wreck. I’m on meds, I’m in therapy. This fucking woman ruined my life.”
“You’re alive. You’re here in this office taking it on. This is it, Erik, this is surviving. It’s not one event, it’s a process. And it’s not a linear process. You don’t start at point A and just get to point B and you’re fine again. It’s a matrix. It’s a three-dimensional scaffold you build around your life. You’ll find it’s cyclical. And seasonal. April might always be a tough month for you, it might be your haunted time of year. Or it might not. The point is you can lean into your weak moments the same way you can lean into joy. Pain makes joy sweeter. And joy helps you survive pain. You can’t have one without the other. If you open yourself to both, you are, by default, surviving.”
Erik nodded, his eyes far away, but his entire being listening to her.
“Do you feel all right about leaving it here, are you safe?”
“I think so.”
“If you get home and you’re not, you call me.”
“All right.”
“Call me. We’ll come back as many times as it takes.”
He paused for a moment, feeling out the professional line between them. “I like we,” he said.
“You won’t do this alone,” she said. “I’m on your team.”
“Thanks, doc.”
“I’ll see you next week, if not before.”
Part Five: Melanie
Adjunct Asshole