Stay With Me

I was back in the waiting room the following Monday, anxiety still coursing through my veins but this time I could deal with it. I knew now that it was better to face the fear instead of hiding away under the pain and anger I had lived with for so long. I had come a few minutes early, for a reason I barely wanted to admit to myself.

I wanted to see him. Gerard had become a source of fascination for me when I had more time to dissect what had happened. Curiosity was setting in, maybe as a coping mechanism to deflect from the stalemate that was infecting my home. I had taken the whole week off work, under duress from Frank. I had never had any sick days so work was surprisingly okay with it. I think Frank wanted to make sure I had time to think about what I did, and how badly it had affected him. I wanted to scream at him that I needed the distraction, but he had glared at me with that look that informed me I wasn’t getting my way this time. So, I had stayed at home like a good little invalid. Frank was waiting for me to open up and let him in on whatever it was I was bottling up, and I was refusing to give in. He may be stubborn, but nobody could outmatch me when I was determined.

I heard footsteps, and butterflies erupted in the pit of my stomach. I shouldn’t be this happy at seeing him, but I couldn’t help my natural reaction. He looked as good as he had last week, making me smile while I enjoyed the sight of him. His eyes met mine immediately and he offered me a shy smile. He wore the same black jacket from last week, and his hair was even messier but it made him look more ravishing. It took every ounce of will power within me to not blush at the way his eyes roamed over me. I wanted to tell him to stop but in order to do that I would be admitting that I was watching him with equal intensity. I was saved by Nina, who opened her office door just in time.

‘C’mon in Grace’ she greeted with the same smile she had plastered on last week. This time I only felt a slight twinge of anxiousness going in. It didn’t seem so scary or frightening, more that it now gave me a mild thrill of anxiety knowing that she would expect me to talk about things I may not be ready for. She didn’t force me to say anything, but somehow that seemed to be the key for me. When people, namely Frank, pushed and dug around to try and get me to open up I automatically froze up. They cared about me, and anybody who got close enough for me to care about them was somebody I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, lose. Nina wasn’t somebody who truly cared me. She cared about the difference I made to her bank balance. I knew her motive. I knew that no matter what I said to her it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to her feelings towards me. So, it strangely meant that she the person I could trust the most with my thoughts and my past.


I walked in the room with lighter steps, only taking a quick glance around the room before sitting down. The room was the same as last week, with the same filing cabinet that probably held a paper file with my name on it. The couches were the same, and her desk still had a bunch of files on top of it like it had last week. I wondered if I had even truly left last week.

‘So Grace, how have you been doing the last week?’ Nina asked once we were both settled on our respective couches.

The question stumped me. It was a relatively simple question you’d think but the truth is I didn’t know the answer to it. How I’d been doing was a point on conjecture really. If you asked my colleagues in work I was fine. I had gone back to work and my usual self, getting all my tasks done in a timely, professional manner as always. I smiled the same way I did before my absence. I had lunch with everyone in the canteen as per usual and laughed just the same at Mark’s stupid jokes. To them, nothing was wrong with me. I was absolutely fine. If you asked Frank, well I’m sure you’d get a different answer. He didn’t look at me the way he use to. He always looked at me with his big, hazel eyes and I use to feel like I was perfect to him. They would shine with happiness and it made me think that I mattered to at least one person in this God forsaken world were people became increasingly self involved and narcissistic. My own mother didn’t care about me, but Frank did. He would give me his smile, and no matter how mad or upset I was, it would calm me down. Now, he barely looked at me at all, and when it did there was a sadness there that I’d never seen before. The comfort I wanted from him was being denied to me, all because I couldn’t show him the person I truly was. The hugs that use to be a daily part of my routine had stopped, and at night instead of the cuddles that use to make me feel safe there was a space between us in the bed, emphasising the emotional distance that had settled between us. We were in some sort of stalemate, where he was refusing to give in until I told him what my ‘problem’ was and I was refusing to buckle under the emotional blackmailing.

I suppose the only person whose opinion mattered on how I was doing was sitting right here on the old, worn couch and they didn’t even know where to begin. How was I doing? What is the right way to answer that? Do I tell her how I’m doing now? Do I tell her how I was doing when Fiona at work smiled at me like nothing had happened and all I wanted to do was to scream all my ugly secrets at her just to wipe it off her perfect face? Do I tell her how I was doing when Frank didn’t even say goodbye before he left the apartment this morning? Or do I tell her how I was doing when Gerard walked into the waiting room and how it made me feel something other than hurt and pain?

‘I don’t know’ I answered truthfully, unable to meet her eyes.

‘It’s been a rough week I take it?’

I tried to put a few thoughts together before answer. Was it such a ‘rough’ week? Was it terrible? I mean, looking at the events that had happen, nothing ‘bad’ happened. Everything that made me feel down, that made me angry, they were all things that could be entirely innocent but in my screwed up brain I had warped them into something twisted and negative because I wanted another reason to explain the way I was feeling. I needed something else to take the blame for how I was feeling other that the incident with Nick. If it was all just down to that, it was giving him even more control over me. He was winning yet again, and I couldn’t bear for him to win yet again. He had taken too much already; he wasn’t going to get credit for destroying my relationship. That was going to be down to me.

‘It’s been…strange.’

‘How come?’

‘Things have been a little off between Frank and I. We’re barely on speaking terms.’

‘Did you argue?’

I shook my head.

‘No, he’s just mad that I won’t talk to him about what caused my ‘breakdown’ quote unquote. He won’t even use the words suicide attempt.’

Nina nodded as though she understood the situation. Which she didn’t, I mean how could she know? She doesn’t know Frank, she doesn’t know us . I wouldn’t tell her that though.

‘It’s obviously a hard time for him too. Did he have any idea that you were depressed?’

‘I wasn’t, and am not, depressed.’

‘So what are you then Grace?’

I let out an offended scoff. What am I paying her for, exactly?

‘I don’t know, you’re the shrink. You tell me!’

Nina raised an eyebrow at me, revealing an emotion other than false nicety. It was a strange sight, one I wasn’t sure I liked. It was condescending, and I wasn’t here to pay for someone to look down on me. If I wanted that I would just go and visit my mother.

‘Grace, you suffered very traumatic sexual abuse at an age when most adolescents are beginning to explore their sexuality. Your father died at an early age and your mother subsequently remarried, irrevocably damaging the only parental relationship you had left to the point where by your own admission you rarely speak. You’ve yet to tell your boyfriend about the abuse you suffered, and your reaction to meeting your abuser is to attempt suicide. So tell me Grace, if you don’t suffer from depression like most people would, how would you describe your mental state?’

My breath was coming out in large, sharp gasps of air. I had been clenching my fists to the point where they were now beginning to tingle from the lack of blood circulating to them I was filled with rage at that moment, pure rage that I wanted to vent. No, scratch that, I needed to vent.

‘Fuck. You. You’ve known me for little over an hour, and you think you know me and what I feel?’

‘Of course I don’t Grace. I only know what you tell me. So far you’ve done well considering you internalize your emotions instead of finding a healthy outlet for them. You don’t acknowledge your own feelings, not even to yourself. In doing so, you let everything build up. Think of your breaking point like a percentage scale. You had a happy enough childhood before your father’s death I presume, so you were at a zero. Your father dies, something that affected you deeply and say you go up to twenty per cent. Your mother remarries before you’re ready to move on, so maybe you go up to forty. Do you get where I’m going with this Grace? For every action, there’s a reaction and you refused to react. Eventually you’re tipping to the point where your mind can’t block it out anymore and the result is a dramatic reaction.’

I was livid with her. Not because I didn’t believe what she was saying, but because she was right. I had dealt with everything by not dealing with it. I had put it all into a box, where no one could see what was happening inside my head. I never wanted to acknowledge what I was inside. I was an angry, resentful human being who longed to vent out but I refused to give anybody the satisfaction of seeing how deeply they hurt me.

‘So, what am I suppose to do now? I can’t change my past. I can’t change how I dealt with it then.’

‘No you can’t but you can start to deal with it now. By talking about it and being honest with yourself. It’s not a weakness to acknowledge that you’re hurting, or depressed.’

‘I’m not depressed. I don’t feel despair or sadness. I just feel anger, and numbness. With Frank I was even happy.’

‘Until he let you down.’

‘He didn’t let me down’ I responded quickly.

‘You felt safe with him Grace, why else would you go to a party where you knew there was a chance of meeting your stepbrother. Frank was a safety net for you, a crutch if you will. When his back was turned you were accosted and assaulted. While it wasn’t his fault in any way, are you sure you don’t feel any anger that when you needed saving he wasn’t there?’

I bit my lip at the question posed to me. Was I angry at him? No, how could I be, it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know, and it was my fault he didn’t. If he’d have known about Nick and believed me there’s no way he would have let me go to the party, let alone wander to the bathroom by myself. Yet, in a small, irrational way, I was angry. I had counted on him too much, I expected too much from him. I had believed he could protect me from an evil he had no idea existed and he had failed.

‘It wasn’t his fault’ I muttered, my eyes wandering to my now laced fingers that were resting on my lap.

‘No, it wasn’t. But you wanted him to protect you, and he didn’t. Do you think perhaps the reason you won’t tell him now is to punish him?’

I creased my brow, my mind trying to figure out if she was right. The strain in our home right now wasn’t just down to him; it was my doing too. All he wanted was an explanation, a reason for why I had tried to end my life and I refused to give it to him. Did I want him to feel some form of guilt? Did I want him to hurt just as much as I did? The real answer was that yes, I did. I wanted him to pay for letting me down, for failing me. He didn’t even know, but some part of me blamed him for it.

‘Jesus Christ’ I sobbed, resting my elbows on my thighs as I put my face in my hands.

‘Grace it’s okay to be angry. Just let yourself be angry at someone other than yourself. It’s healthy to feel angry sometimes.’
My hands found their way to my hair, where they clutched at the mousy brown strands in anguish. I needed to let the anger out physically, I needed to feel the pain that was writhing underneath my skin.

The session had ended shortly after my revelation, but this week instead of feeling better for it I felt like shit. I didn’t want to go home and see Frank there, with his big eyes and concerned expression that was just waiting for me to crack. My hair was a mess when I walked out, which I tried to pat down with shaking hands as I shut the door behind me. I stalled when I saw Gerard standing in the waiting room, searching his pockets for something. His gaze was directed at me when the door closed with a click, showing concern at my obvious less than perfect state.

‘Are you okay?’ he cut straight to the chase. It didn’t bother me, I’d rather he was blunt and honest instead of asking subtle questions to find out what’s wrong with me.
I just shook my head, seeing no use in lying to him. It was obvious I wasn’t okay. His face showed an internal battle for a second before he spoke again.

‘Do you need to talk? I’m free so we could go for a coffee or something if you want.’

I opened my mouth to say no, when I realised I had no real reason to say no. He knew I had a boyfriend so he wouldn’t have any expectations. He was offering me a shoulder to lean on, and right now I desperately needed that.

‘Coffee would be good.’

Notes

Early update, cos I get to see the wonderful, amazing sexy Jared Leto in concert tomorrow.

Yes, I'm gloating. And I don't care. :)