Stay With Me

“I must admit, your advice to talk to my mother worked splendidly.”

My sarcasm and spitefulness was vented the millisecond my ass touched the brown couch in Nina’s office. It was neater than usual. The stack of papers and files normally left on her wooden desk was gone, leaving only a few sheets on the desk. If my tone wasn’t enough to tell her exactly how I was feeling, I was sure my heated, angry glare, thinned out aggressive lips and almost barred teeth were a red-light alarm that I was far from okay, and I swear to God, if she so much as asked “how are you?”, I’d be charged with murder in the first degree by the end of the hour. I wouldn’t even deny it. I would’ve willingly gone to jail if she so much as tried to act stupid and ignorant.

Nina sighed, defeated and annoyed.

“What happened?”

“Let’s see. I told Frank about your genius idea, which, of course, he agreed to, because you’re the shrink, so you must know what you’re talking about, right?”I let out a little bark of laughter, “I organise a dinner, which Frank was supposed to come to, for moral support. But, get this – some fuckwit of a cocksucker decided to drive intoxicated, and block up the fucking freeway-“

“Oh, I heard about that,” Nina commented.

“Block up the freeway,” I repeated, “Right when Frank was on it. So, he didn’t show. It wasn’t his fault, so I can’t be angry at him for bailing when I fucking needed him, can I? Anyway, my mother comes in. All fucking high society, designer clothes and everything you’d expect from a stuck up bitch. You know, I should give her credit – she actually asked a few nice questions before she slated my non-marital status and lowly job as a legal secretary, because what the fuck would it matter if I actually enjoy my job? Then she prattles on about her amazing life, and what an amazing person she is for squandering money which she didn’t lift a finger to earn. Eventually, she cut to the chase, asked me what I wanted. So, I told her. I told her that Nick abused me. It was so hard to do it, when I knew exactly how it was going to end. She called me a liar straight off the bat. Then, she fucking smacked me, in public. She took his side over mine, and he wasn’t even there. She just didn’t believe me, like I knew she wouldn’t. She said I should be grateful he was so good to me. So, yeah, thanks for that. Give out your wonderful advice more often. Maybe I can get a smack on the other cheek to even out my skintone.”

Nina sighed, rubbing a shaking hand over a frown-lined forehead.

“Grace, I said you should consider the possibility. I did not tell you to confront her before we could discuss a strategy. Okay, let’s take a step back. You told Frank about our discussion.”

She didn’t rise to the bait.She didn’t get defensive, or apologise, or do anything of that sort. No, she was ignoring my burst of anger, and doing one better, she was making me feel like the situation was entirely my fault. I clenched my fist, let out a deep sigh, and reminded myself that getting angry at Nina wouldn’t change anything. The damage was already done.

“Yeah,” I sighed, leaning back on the couch. I raised a leg, resting my right knee over my left leg, and folded my cupped hands.

“Do you regularly discuss our sessions with Frank?”

“I have recently. At first, I didn’t, but we had a talk a little while back, and I told him I’d be more open about what goes on in here. I don’t give him a lot of detail – barely any, really – but it makes him feel more involved, or something.”

“Do you think it’s made a difference to your relationship?”

“Yeah…I think so, I guess. Frank is more relaxed now, and he’s almost back to his old self. He’s being affectionate again, and all that stuff. I think. He appreciates the fact that I’m trying to tell him more about Nick, and other stuff. Frank doesn’t react well when he feels like people aren’t being honest with him.It puts him on edge. Now that he pretty much knows what’s going on, he’s a lot calmer, less agitated.”

“So, I take it your relationship is getting back on track, then?” Nina asked, the semblance of a genuine smile on her face.

“If you count me still having sex with Gerard as back on track, then, yeah, I suppose we are,” I muttered sadly.

Nina went back to her default neutral voice. I could see a little bit of anger and judgement flashing behind her eyes, only briefly, before she leaned back further in her chair, appraising me with her large eyes.

“You’re continuing your affair with Gerard?”

“That’s what I just said,” I snapped, hating the word ‘affair’. It made me feel dirty, like a cheap whore who couldn’t keep her panties on. Part of me wanted to tell her that I didn’t want to talk about it, but the bigger part of me needed to talk to her about it.

There was a pause, that lasted no longer than a heartbeat, but I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.

“Why?”

I swallowed, unable to maintain eye contact. My focus shifted to my skirt, and I started to pick at a few balls of fluff that had gathered on the material.

“I…”I cleared my throat, “I think that I love him.”

I don’t know if I expected the world to stop, or to explode, or for some other catastrophe to happen. The admission out loud, vocalised and out there for another person to hear, seemed like such a dramatic thing. It was a big deal, but nothing happened. Nina’s eyes just widened, her expression softened a little, but otherwise nothing had changed.

“That’s an interesting development. How long have you felt this way?”

I shrugged, still not looking at her.

“A long while, I think. I just haven’t let myself think about it.”

“How does this fit around your feelings for Frank?”

I was starting to shake. I felt nervous, judged, under the spotlight, and on the stand.

“I don’t know.”

Nina was still looking at me when I didn’t elaborate. I could feel her gaze, and I knew that she wasn’t going to let this topic die, not yet.

“When I’m with Frank,” I began, my voice wavering with emotion, “I don’t think about Gerard. I’m happy with him. I feel safe.Loved. Then, I’m with Gerard…and I don’t think about Frank. I feel like two different people sometimes. With Frank, I’m this better version of myself. I know I went through a tough time recently, but now I feel like I’m moving past that, and I’m back to the girl I was before. Frank is like…he’s like my foundation. He keeps me grounded, and he makes me feel like I can achieve some sort of normalcy. Even after everything, he’s still sticking by my side, and he’s trying so hard to make things better, even though none of this is his fault.”

“He sounds like a good man,” Nina commented.

“He is.”

“But there’s obviously some need that he’s not fulfilling. What is it that Gerard gives you?”

“I feel like I can just be me. He’s there for me. I can fall apart in front of him, and I don’t have to worry about how he feels about it. He knows it’s not personal, he knows that sometimes I just need to break down and let it out, and all I need is for him to be there, that my emotions are not a problem that needs to be fixed. He understands how I felt back then with Nick, and I don’t have to tell him the gory details for him to get it, like I do with Frank. He knows me better than I know myself sometimes. There was this one day, when we were talking over coffee, I told him about how I used to take my father’s camera and take pictures.”I smiled sadly, remembering the conversation, “I used to love it, and my father would always act like every picture I took was this magnificent piece of art. I stopped when he died – my mother got rid of his camera, and the pictures I took, and it lost its meaning when he left. Anyway, I told Gerard about this, and then the fucker goes and buys me a camera. Not just a cheap digital camera either.It’s a professional camera that I’m still learning to use. He takes me out once a week with the camera now, and he’s teaching me a bit about photography. He had to take a photography class in college, and I think he enjoys showing me something new. I was a little angry, at first. I mean, taking photos felt like something that had been special between me and my dad, but it’s like he knew I needed to do it. It had been an outlet for me when I was a child.It made me feel like I was special, and it made me feel like I had control over something. Now, I have that little bit of control back, and that’s because of Gerard. We go out, and it’s like I’m in a different world. I feel like we’re equals.”

Nina was silent. Her shrewd eyes hadn’t left my face the entire time I talked. She appraised me, listened to me, and now that I had said my piece, I felt strangely hollow. I didn’t know what she was thinking, as she leaned back on her couch with an ease that didn’t make me feel comfortable. There was something calculated in her manner, and I could tell she was thinking and judging, but I had no idea what it was that was going on in her mind. It was putting me on edge, and I was unconsciously biting my fingernails when the seconds turned into a minute as I waited for a response.

“Do you plan on keeping both men?”

And there it was, the judgement I’d been dreading. Her tone didn’t give it away. It was the way her eyes were a little narrowed, a little bit colder than normal. Her crow's feet were standing out under her makeup. She was trying to hide it behind a wall of apathy, but it was impossible not to feel it radiate off her in waves that seemed to span the whole room. I couldn’t even blame her, or tell her she was wrong. She was right to judge me, and think the worst of me, and tell me that I’m a horrible person. I deserved to be told that. I deserved every minute of this.

“No. I know it’s wrong, and I know I’m hurting both of them.”

I paused, biting my lip, before divulging the real reason I was so angry when I came in.

“I spent last Friday at Gerard’s place. We didn’t have sex, though. I was upset after everything with my mother, and Frank wasn’t there, and it really fucking hurt. Gerard just held me, and it was so nice to be there with him, without it leading to anything, because it always leads to sex. There’s just so much chemistry between us, so it’s kinda hard for it to not lead to more when we’re together. The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast, and it was like a vision into the future. It was so normal, so domestic. Everything is always so intense with Gerard, and for that little while, it wasn’t. It was like we were a normal couple, just getting some breakfast on a Saturday morning. Then Frank called me, and reality set it. I could just see the look on Gerard’s face, and I think it really hit me for the first time that I couldn’t keep doing it. I always knew it was wrong, and I always knew it hurt Gerard, but…it just came crashing down on me then. I went home, and Frank was all apologetic for not being at dinner, even though it wasn’t even his fault. Then he suddenly wanted to go away for the weekend, like we used to do when we were in college. We used to just get in the car and drive. Sometimes we’d stay in a cheap motel, if we had the money, but mostly we’d camp out. We didn’t care where we went, we’d just drive for days on end, going to new places. We had so many adventures in his car, met so many people and saw so many things. I was so excited to do that again, to just get on the road and leave the shitiness behind for a little while. We ended up driving for half the day before we stopped. We went to an aquarium, stayed in some generic hotel for the night before we went back home.”

“Did you have fun?”

I nodded, a small smile tugging at my lips.

“We did. We saw a penguin march, which was pretty cool. They, like, let the penguins walk out for half an hour. They don’t force them out, or anything; they just open the enclosure, and whoever wants to wander out, just walks out. He bought me a dolphin necklace at the gift shop, it’s silver with a blue gem. He said it was a memento of our trip together. I think it meant a lot to him, for us to go away, and just be us again.”

I broke off again, taking in a low breath.

“I was thinking about Gerard, when I was with Frank, for the first time,” I continued. “I was thinking about how I had left him to go away with Frank, when we were supposed to spend the day together. I had told him that I’d be back, but I had to text him and tell him that I couldn’t meet him. I thought about how angry Gerard probably was, how hurt he must have been. And I thought about how suspicious Frank was when I came home, and for the first time I considered the possibility that Frank might find out. The whole time I was away with Frank, it was, like, one minute, I would be in the moment with Frank, and then, the next, I’d picture Gerard’s face, or I’d picture what would happen if Frank saw the messages on my phone, and I felt this flash of panic.”

“What do you believe would happen if Frank found out?”

I didn’t need to think about the answer to Nina’s question. The answer was obvious, and the truth scared me more than anything else.

“He’d leave me. We’d be over. He’d never forgive me for it.”

Nina sat forward on her couch, and I instantly straightened up. I recognised this as a sign that Nina was about to say, or ask me, something that I needed to think about, something that would be painful.

“Is Gerard worth the risk to your relationship, Grace? I’m not asking for an answer now, but you’re reaching a point where the two relationships are going to collide. If Frank is becoming suspicious, and you continue on this path with Gerard, it’s only a matter of time before Frank will try to find out if his suspicions are correct. Do you want him to find out, maybe? Is your relationship with Gerard a mechanism to destroy a relationship you’re too afraid to end yourself?”

“Of course not!” I snapped.

Nina sighed, but she didn’t waver.

“Grace, it’s important that you decide what it is you’re looking for from this scenario. Juggling two relationships is not going to work, so you need to decide which one works best for you. Is Gerard giving you what you need,something Frank isn’t? You say you love him, but is it a love that’s based on a genuine connection that can form the basis of a long lasting relationship, or is it a matter of Gerard being what you need right now, and when the intensity goes, so will your feelings? You have to consider which relationship is the healthiest for you, long term. Every relationship has its rough patches, and some relationships just run its course. I’ve already told you before that I think you need a break from both men. Currently, you’re not in a position to make the best decision. Even a few days away would be of benefit. You’re overwhelmed, and that won’t cease until you find a place where you can rationalise what’s happening.”

I nodded, but, in my mind, I couldn’t help but focus on the most important question she’d asked.

Was Gerard worth it?

I would lose Frank, my apartment, the life I had built, if I were to get caught, or if I left. Nina was right, it would only be a matter of time before Frank found out, if things stayed the same. There are few people in this world that could inhabit two separate worlds, and I knew I wasn’t one of them. Something would give, sooner or later. I would slip up, or become careless, over time. Either way, the truth would out itself eventually, and the real question was, who was I willing to lose? There was a moment of bright clarity, my ears ringing, while Nina continued to talk, uninterrupted, unaware that I was no longer listening. I felt light-headed, my stomach turned to lead, but before I walked out of the office that day, I knew what it was I had to do.

Notes

I'm so so sorry for the delay in writing this. I ended up having a busy 2 weeks, that included a holiday in London and a bunch of interviews. I also know that leaving you with this cliffhanger isn't much of an apology, but the next chapter should not take so long to post. So, what do you wonderful readers think Grace will do next chapter? Who has she chosen? I really wanna know what direction you guys think this is going to head in. I hope you guys enjoyed this offering, and please leave a bit of feedback if possible.

Lyra xxx