Chapter 16

I STARE AT my plate as things happen around me. At some point, Ben told everyone about their new baby. I was aware enough to smile and pretend I didn’t spoil it beforehand. Plates are coming and going across the table. My dad’s thrill comes in the form of childhood stories and Artie is excited about a third aunt and the gifts that could come from her.

Ben and I have been cordial with each other, mostly because of my numb state. I can’t shake the event from hours ago. I turned off my phone; the last thing I need is to be flooded by text messages and phone calls. Not when I’m with my family. Even if I’m barely here.

The things he said, the intentions he had… I’m not sure what to do with them. Molly’s mom in my waiting room. Did he call her? Did she appear? Was all this to hurt me again? But why am I hurt? Why the fuck am I hurt? Why does it feel like the time I almost drowned myself in sorrow? I don’t want it. I don’t want to feel or think about it.

“Yoo-hoo! Are you there?” Josephine kisses my cheek and pulls me down to earth. “You’re all over the place tonight.”

“Yeah, what’s eating you?” Ben doesn’t look at me. He throws his question in the air, expecting me to catch it. His way to leave our argument behind.

“Nothing.” I chuckle. “I had a lot of patients today. My brain’s rotten right now.”

“Oh, well, nothing new. See, Jo?” Ben raises his glass to my fiancée. She laughs but kisses me when she catches my death stare.

“Well. I’m bringing dessert.” Jo’s singing voice makes Artie cheer. “Of course, our sponsor, Amanda Lamb, brought the new addition to her store. Strawberry scones.”

I give a complicit look to my sister-in-law. She always looks like a picture, especially when she’s blushing and telling us to stop. Josephine gets up to leave the dining room when the atmosphere changes.

The bell rings.

There are moments when time freezes. It’s always before a big event. Something that could be either thrilling or devastating. You feel it in your core and know there’s nothing that could stop it from happening. That’s when the bell rings again.

Confused faces look at each other. Searching for answers in each other’s eyes. Even I do it for a second. Jo leaves the dining room as I weigh up a possibility.

No… It couldn’t be, could it?

I get up and walk out of the dining room, following Jo’s steps. My heart jumps to my throat when I find a man a head taller than my wife standing at the front door. He’s smiling at her.

“Oh, there she is,” Jo says when she looks back and finds me under the threshold of the dining room. “Baby, this gentleman is looking for you.”

“Oh, wow, gentleman.” Theo strokes his chest as though proud of himself. “Thank you.”

Jo smiles back at him and I want to throw up my brother’s dinner. My chest feels tight again.

“Hi, Dr Lamb.” He waves. “Can we talk?”

“Hi, I’m sorry.” I compose myself and try to find my voice. “I’m not working right now. I’m spending time with my family.”

Josephine’s eyes widen as if I insulted her. “Ya Rab…” she says in a whisper. “Honey, it’s fine, we are about to finish. It could be important.” Her eyes find me and, even when there’s confusion on her face, I can tell she wants me to do this.

“I don’t think it is.” My voice sounds way harsher than I intended. “This gentleman had an appointment with me he didn’t care to finish. I think he’s perfectly fine.” I hope and pray Theodore Eullie doesn’t call me out in front of my fiancée.

“Yes.” He talks to Josephine, angering me more. I don’t want him to talk to her. “Yes, Dr Lamb’s right. I stormed out of the session. I wanted to apologise.”

I take every second Jo’s not looking at me as an opportunity to give him my death stare. I hate the show he’s putting on. I hate that he felt entitled to come and introduce himself to the best part of my life. Jo looks at me and asks me to talk with her in private.

“Why don’t you wait in the living room for a moment?” Josephine offers. “Just give us a second. We’ll be right back.”

Josephine drags me to our room. Theodore stays in the living room and our family is back in the dining room. They’ll notice our absence and, soon, they’ll find a stranger sitting on our couch.

“What’s happening?” She closes the door behind her.

This.

This is the moment to tell her everything. I can tell her about Theodore Eullie. Why he upsets me. Why I can’t stand him being in our house. Tell her who he was to me. Explain to her why I never did. Why I never wanted to talk about someone I thought I’d never see again.

I know I should.

“Listen. I don’t like to bring work home.” I try to calm myself. “He’s a very difficult patient to work with. He stormed out of the session because he felt attacked by some remarks I made.”

“Babe.” She begins with clasped hands as though she’s praying. “I’d totally understand if you were an accountant. But you’re not. It sounds like he’s having a hard time. You could be the help he needs right now.”

I want to kiss her. I want to hold her face and plaster my lips onto hers. And I want to kick myself for doing this to her kind heart. Guilt has never been this heavy. “We were having a moment.” I blink, dispersing the tears that want to form in my eyes. “It was a precious moment with you and our family. We’re building this with my brother. It’s hard for me, it’s hard for him, and that’s why it’s important.”

I don’t know how to feel about Jo not knowing what’s really going on. I’ve never met someone as selfless as her. She doesn’t even know Theo. She didn’t know me and still doesn’t know some parts of my life. Still, she has always grabbed my hand and pulled me to the unknown. Making me feel as if I don’t need anything else.

She grabs my face. “Baby, I don’t think your brother will stop coming to have dinner with us just because you had a job emergency.” She hugs me and I hug her back tightly, trying to amend all my mistakes.

Back in the living room, Theo’s being held hostage by a four-year-old. Apparently everyone left minutes after Theo’s arrival.

Jo explains the situation to Ben and Amanda while they’re taking all the dishes back to the kitchen. The last thing I saw was Theo talking to Artie as I walked past them to the guest bathroom. Now, I’m washing my face and looking in the mirror. Getting ready to give a piece of my mind to Theodore Eullie.

“How dare you?” My first words come in a whisper full of anger as I enter the living room again. Everyone is gone. I’m able to look at him with all the spite I can gather. “How dare you come to my house and introduce yourself into my life like that?”

“I needed to talk with you.” His voice is calm. I hate it. I hate his energy not matching mine.

“You should’ve called or texted.”

“I did. You weren’t answering. It went straight to voicemail.”

“Well, there was a goddamn reason for that.”

He gets up from the sofa and walks to the kitchen. His movements are firm and nonchalant. Hands in his pockets, he looks crestfallen as he sits on a stool at the kitchen island.

“I don’t want our arrangement to end. Not yet.”

“Well. I want it to, Theo. You are not making things easy. I can live with my unanswered questions and words I’ve never said. Just like I did for almost a decade.”

“Emma…”

“Don’t…” I want to ask him, beg him, to not say my name like that.

I’m still standing at the bathroom door. Watching him watch me. Measuring me. He raises his eyebrows at me, asking me to get close. I have to because if Jo comes out of the room and finds this, I won’t be able to explain it.

“I’m willing to commit. I’ll become as neutral in your life as I can.”

I sit at the opposite end of the kitchen island. Of course he has been doing this on purpose. He needed to insert himself in my life again. “Why are you doing this? Why are you sabotaging me?” Now, I realise I was too afraid to ask before. I’m afraid of the answer too. “Why are you still doing it after all these years?”

“Because things are happening, Emma.”

Time stands still. I’m looking into my kitchen from outside the window. My arms crossed over my chest, shielding myself from his words. His heavy stare on, me ready for war.

I try to make sense of those words but there’s no use. I’m spinning into madness.

“I feel things and I’m jealous. I’ve been jealous ever since I saw you again.”

I don’t care. That’s what I want to say. I want to tell him how little mind I pay to his feelings. But my mouth is dry, words dying on my tongue. I don’t care but I want to know.

“You were so different. So put together. So over us.”

“That doesn’t make any fucking sense,” I spit. “You make me feel insane.”

I look insane, I’m sure.

There’s silence. I close my eyes as I try to cool down. I’m exhausted. He knows I am. I hear him get up from the stool. And when I open my eyes, he’s walking in my direction, grabbing a glass on his way. He pours tap water in the glass just so he can place it in front of me.

“An offer of peace?” I sigh, trying to regain control, to not let this ruin me again.

“Please?”

My anger drops a little every time he bumps my arm with the glass. I grab it so he leaves me alone.

“Thank you.” My voice is still rough. I place the glass back on the island when he grabs my hand. I’m paralysed when he takes it between his and looks me right in the eye.

“I know I repeat it too much. But I’m sorry. I really am. I’m trying to be better. To be different from who I was.”

I see a sincerity behind his glasses. One I was able to capture a few times. I don’t know if I can trust him, not after today. He brought back insecurities and pain that were long gone. I hated being his second option, a player in his games of deceit, his dirty little secret.

“Why was I never enough for you?”

There it is. The question in the air. The one I didn’t know I still had in the back of my mind. He’s taken aback but he doesn’t let go of my hand. This time, I’m the one who grabs him back.

“Theo, I’ve lived my life as if you’d died. I don’t think you understand. You expect me to open up to you and have you back as if nothing happened?”

“You’re the one who disappeared.” He huffs, offended. “Don’t act as if I didn’t have a missing piece in my life too.”

It’s me now who huffs, annoyed. He tries to pull away but I tighten my grip. I need him to see me when I ask him this. “Do you know why I left? Did you know I almost died?” His eyes are glued on me, his hand—or mine—starting to sweat. “Let’s go far back then. Do you know why I did drugs? Why I dropped twenty pounds in the span of three months?”

“I’ve never asked you to do those things, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“No, of course not. But those were the kind of girls you were after. Always flirting with, always touching them the way you used to touch me. At least, before you made me believe I was special.”

His demeanour changes. It only takes one misstep for him to find the end of the thread to tie me up in his little game. His grip changes; now, it bites back.

“And when was it, Emma? Why don’t you continue with the last memory we talked about? What happened the day you went to my house?”

“This is inappropriate…” My voice comes out in a whisper. I try to get my hand free.

“What happened, Dr Lamb? Does sex scandalise you?” His brow arches, his voice soft.

“No. Intimacy with you makes me uncomfortable.” I catch the contradiction between my statement and my composure. At some point, he got so close, and now his breath, tinged with coffee, reaches me easily.

“It shouldn’t. Because it happened and it was beautiful.”

“Sure.”

“It was. When I looked into your eyes, when you were aroused to the point your cheeks were pink.”

“Stop it.”

“I carried you that night, and many nights. I kissed every inch of your body, caressed your skin as if I couldn’t get enough. I got lost in your breasts and sex so many times I lost count. Your hair stained my white sheets with all the colours of the rainbow during many nights while you grabbed my face between these hands.”

“If you keep going, I’ll drag you out of my house. I don’t mind causing a scene.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

He lets my hand go and I put as much distance as I can between us. My body reacts while listening to him talk about that night; the way he described me and how much he wanted me has disturbed my breathing. My heart beats so hard I think he can hear it. I didn’t want to know this because sex is just sex. I didn’t ask for this. I wanted to know something else and he avoided it.

“You give me hell talking about how much I meant to you but you can barely talk about it.” I shake my head.

“What?”

He can’t be serious.

“Don’t you understand? Yes. We had sex. Many, many times but the thing is, I didn’t care about sex. I cared about you. I liked it, yes, but I liked us more. I liked the way we used to talk about exams. I liked our hugs, your praise, your gaze on me as if I was out of this world. I liked how you saw me as capable as any other doctor in that fucking hospital. And things would’ve been so different if we would’ve stayed that way. I did. You didn’t.” I emphasise each word, pointing to my chest, where it hurts. “After that night, you changed. And the man I met never came back. It fucked me up. It would’ve fucked you up too.”

A pause.

I keep my arms around myself. If I don’t hold on, I might faint.

He shakes his head as he presses the heel of his hands to his eyes. “Is this going to end the way it does every time we talk?”

I ask myself the same question too. I’ve made my boundaries clear but he doesn’t seem to understand them.

“I’m not the one appearing at your house when you are spending time with your family. Or bringing my fiancée to your practice unannounced.”

As if all the fog has cleared, he suppresses a smile, realisation on his face. I don’t want him here right now. I can’t keep up with his mood swings.

“So, that’s what it’s all about.” He rubs his face.

I know what he’s thinking. He thinks I’m jealous. He thinks I want him back or something but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

But are you jealous?

The question appears inside my head and it frightens me when I can’t answer right away. “Please…” I beg. I walk to the door. “I can’t do this right now.”

Theo observes me from the kitchen. Weighing the situation, measuring the options I didn’t give. Finally, he grabs his parka and puts it on before walking to the door.

He stands in front of me.

“I think our sessions—”

His hand finds my shoulder. “Please, just… Don’t give up on me just yet.”

And just as soon as he appeared in my house, he’s gone.