Page 22 of Alarm Fatigue

She nods for me to continue.

“He says my name in this way, like melted butter on a stack of pancakes, do you know what I mean?”

“I think I have an idea.”

“Then he asked if I will follow him and we went out to this patio with fairy lights.”

“Mmm. Romantic. You have always been a sucker for string lights.”

Rolling my eyes at this, I pause for a sip of my coffee. “We were alone and he and I were just talking. Then he said he had had some drinks and he heard I had a boyfriend—which I assume is referring to Seth—and he asked if it was serious. It was as if I was under some spell where I talked before I could think, because I said it couldn’t be serious with Seth, because I cannot be myself with him—which I am not sure I really knew until Mark asked—and then he said he had to go but I grabbed his jacket collar. When I grabbed it I had not thought it through, but he then he asked if this meant he could kiss me. So I said yes and he kissed me. He kissed me like he had just walked a year in the desert and my kiss was all the hydration he could get. And then he left.” As this information pours out of me, I am not ashamed of it, but I start to feel shy about sharing this, even with her, and by the time I am done I am looking at the table rather than at Amalie.

“Wow.”

“I guess it wasn’t my imagination after all. I mean him being interested in me.”

“No shit.”

My cheeks are literally on fire with blushing as I peek up at my eldest friend through my eyelashes.

She clears her throat and smiles.

“Rachel, do not be angry with me but I need to tell you, I am not surprised. Actually, I have wondered why this did not happen years ago.”

“Years ago? How? I mean, I am shocked. And what about Seth? He is so kind and lovely and everything I would have thought I wanted. He even has a damn sailboat. But now I am so confused. Feeling this muddled is part of everything I wanted to avoid. This is why I was not dating. All this drama is a mess and I have to work with Mark! How am I supposed to function in the same room as him now? My only hope is that he was so intoxicated he does not remember any of it.”

I have put my head in my hands. I could literally melt a glacier with the heat radiating from my face.

Through my hands I hear Amalie laugh kindly.

“Rachel, you may be good at fooling yourself, but you don’t fool me for one second. I know you love to try to control every aspect of your life, particularly your emotional life.”

I start to interrupt and she raises a hand up to stop me.

“Look, he said this has been on his mind for years. And I accidentally set you up on a date with him?”

At my glare she puts up both hands.

“Yes, that was a total accident but remember, there are no accidents, my friend. The real question is, why are you fighting this?”

She looks at me thoughtfully and then at her watch.

“Shit, I have to head over to the office for an overseas call. Listen—I am going to cut to the core of it.” She takes a breath and then takes both my hands in hers and I brace myself for some potentially brutal honesty.

“If you want to just have fun and not really be entangled in anything more serious than that, then Seth is a safe choice. There is something there. But if what your heart really wants is an actual relationship, based on honesty, where you can be your authentic self? If that is what you want, the first thing is you need to do is be honest with Seth before this relationship goes any further. And as far as Mark Levy is concerned—he knows you, probably better than you realize. You are right, you have to see him at work and so there is your forced proximity. I do not see how you get out of this one unless you make all of your eldest daughter’s dreams come true and finally retire.”

With that she stands and then reaches back to squeeze my hand and leans forward for a closing argument impact.

“Whatever you decide, I love you and I get it. And I am happy for you, that you discovered your libido is still alive outside of whatever safe fantasy life you had constructed for yourself.”

With that she gives me a peck on the cheek and runs out the door.

I need some time to sort through this.

All I know right now is that I cannot go backward; that is one truth about all of this that I can see clearly.

I think about the safe and careful world I had worked so diligently to maintain, but now I can see what my children and Amalie saw. I was selling my own happiness to myself, hard. I was making believe that my content and comfortable, low-risk, low-stakes life was enough. When truly, I was keeping myself too safe to live fully. I think about alarm fatigue, the phenomenon that happens to healthcare workers when they become too desensitized to hear warning alarms going off around them. That was me. I had been in danger of not seeing the signs of continuing choices that could have left me full of regret at not having thoroughly lived.

Now, it is as if the sound of the alarms has changed, and I can hear them warning me that I can no longer go back to my life as it was. Amalie is right, the real question is where do I really want to go from here.

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