28

 

 

Tatum

 

 

“(Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind” by Powderfinger

 

“Tell me how he makes you feel when you’re together.”

I looked at my therapist and contemplated her question. We’d been working together for weeks now and I’d finally brought Nitro up with her. I’d resisted doing that but after seeing him last week, I’d cracked. I was fairly sure I was spiralling into a chaotic mess of despair and defeat. Rock bottom would be one way to describe it. So, in my hopelessness, I decided to lay everything on the table with her. I decided to finally give her every piece of my soul and prayed that we could fix me.

“I hated him at first. Hated that he saved me when all I wanted was to be dead. Dead with Christopher. And he was so mean that I hated him even more. But then he saved me again and started showing me another side of him.” I wrapped my arms around my body and stared at her, remembering the night I slept next to him the first time. “He makes me feel safe. Which sounds ludicrous even to me, but it’s the truth.”

“Tatum, we can’t make ourselves feel something that’s not there, just like we can’t alter the way people make us feel. It’s not ludicrous to say that he makes you feel safe. But what you have to do now is decide what you want to do with that feeling. Do you want to spend more time with him? Get to know him better?”

“I don’t know.”

She watched me closely. The way she saw me, really saw me, made me feel uncomfortable. I wanted to turn away from her gaze. I didn’t want her to see me. But I knew I had to let her. If I had any hope of fixing myself, I had to allow her to help me.

“I think you do know,” she said simply, guiding me. She never told me what to do. That didn’t seem to be how she worked. I’d never spent time with a therapist before so I had no idea how they worked, but I’d expected more help making decisions.

I unwrapped my arms from around my body and curled my legs under me on the couch. God, why was this shit so hard? Blowing out a long breath, I said, “I want to sleep with him. But I don’t know if I want more than that. And besides, he doesn’t want more. Hell, he doesn’t even want sex with me.”

“Tell me, why do you have to know everything all at once? Do you think decisions through all the way from beginning to resolution for everything you do in your life?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It’s the way I’m wired. I can’t help it.”

She leant forward. “You’re a survivor, Tatum. You’re strong and capable. You can help anything you want in your life.”

Fuck, she was pissing me off today. “Maybe I don’t want to fucking help it. I like the way I live my life.”

“If you like the way you live your life, you wouldn’t be here. I challenge you to think some more about that this week. Consider the possibilities of not thinking everything through and discarding ideas because you think you know how it will end.”

I shoved my fingers through my hair, feeling all kinds of agitated. My body was a bundle of nervous, angry energy and I didn’t even know why. In desperation, I blurted out the thought I hadn’t been able to let go of for weeks. “Why am I not getting better? I’ve been coming here for weeks and I feel worse than I did at the beginning. I just want to be fixed and it’s not happening!”

She watched me for a moment. Again. Always silently watching. And then—“We’ve been digging deep. You’ve been dredging up memories, hurts, and deeply rooted pain, Tatum. We’re challenging everything you’ve ever thought, and examining if your thought patterns are useful, whether they serve you or hurt you. This is a process and unfortunately you can’t escape it. What you do need to do is trust it. Move through it rather than against it. And know that slowly it will lead you out of all this pain and uncertainty you’re feeling. The other thing? Don’t try to fight your feelings as they come up. After years of avoiding them, you have to learn to live with them.”

I left the session just as confused as when I’d entered it. But for the first time, I considered the possibility that maybe it was okay to be confused. Maybe she was right and I didn’t need all the answers right away.

 

* * *

 

“You’re watching TV?” Monroe’s shock vibrated through the phone that night when I told her I was going to watch Game of Thrones.

I laughed as I held the phone to my ear while making myself a Milo at the kitchen counter. “Yeah, and it starts in fifteen minutes so I have to get off the phone soon.”

“You never watch television. What the hell has gotten into you?”

“I’ve decided to try new things.”

She remained silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had softened. “I love that, babe.”

I inhaled deeply, letting the love I heard from her settle into my bones. “I love you, Monroe. I don’t tell you that often enough.”

“Oh, geez, you really are trying new things, aren’t you?”

I smiled. “That was where you were supposed to tell me that you love me, too.”

“Pffft, I tell you that all the time.” She spoke the truth. Monroe’s side of the family inherited the touchy-feely genes while mine didn’t.

“Yeah, well you can tell me again. I won’t hold it against you.”

“Fuck me, Tatum, this shrink you’re seeing is worth her weight in gold. And for the record, I love you, too.”

I stirred my drink. “Okay, now that’s out of the way, tell me how you’re going with your search for a pierced cock.”

“Ugh. Let’s not go there.”

Laughing, I said, “You know what we need?”

“What?”

“A girls’ night out. You can look for Mr. Pierced and I can look for Mr. Not Closed Off.”

She turned silent again.

When she didn’t speak, I said, “You still there, Roe?”

“Yeah,” she said softly, her voice cracking. “This is nice.”

“What?”

“Us, talking girls’ nights outs and men and dating. It’s been too long since we’ve done this.”