Page 2 of Breakup Games

“Hey, Emily,” I start. “How are you?”

“Well, I was okay,” she replies, voice on the edge of breaking. “Until Aaron blew up at me again last night. I just…I don’t know how to cope with this, so I’m hoping you can give me some new coping skills because I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around him.”

Aaron came in and tried to do a session with Emily about two months ago, when she first became my client. It was like a PTSD flashback to my relationship with Cory. Aaron accused herof faking her anxiety for attention and that she “was good at it because she took a few psych classes in college”.

The guy is a grade-A asshole and he has her stuck in a cycle of emotional abuse.

“Have you thought about what life would be like without him?” I question bluntly.

“You mean like…break up with him?”

“Yes. Have you thought about what it would be like not to have to deal with someone who has outbursts? Last week, he threw away two very expensive pairs of your shoes and dropped off a bag of your clothes at Goodwill without your permission just because you didn’t immediately fold your laundry after taking it out of the dryer.”

“Well, it must have been annoying to deal with my clean clothes on the bed.”

“Okay, let’s say it was. He essentially destroyed your property. A sweater your grandmother made you was in there,” I say, not to bring it up and make her sad all over again, but to hope that she’ll finally see Aaron for what he is. “You’re a bright girl with a lot of friends and a promising future as a creative writing professor. You don’t need anyone, especially someone who treats you like that.”

“I mean…I would like…it would be nice…I want a romance like I read about.”

“Exactly. And that’s what you deserve. I think you should break up with him.”

A few seconds of silence fill the air. “Aren’t you supposed to like, just help me get through my current emotions?”

“Some therapists would do that, but not me. I don’t want to sit back and watch you waste your life, Em. He’s not going to change and you are going to let your best years go to waste waiting for him.”

“Y-you’re right.”

“I know I am. Now I just need to get you to take action.”

“Okay,if that’s how you look after a six hour flight and then nearly two hours of traffic, I give up.” Zara narrows her eyes before laughing, dropping her keys, riding gloves, water bottle, and phone on the table.

“Those heatless curlers work,” I reply, dramatically tossing my hair back. “Though it’s going to get all smashed under my helmet.”

“They do,” Kathryn agrees. “I’ve been wearing them on flights even before I got that brand deal.”

“Brand deals…trips to Ireland…you both live such exciting lives.” Elsie’s blue eyes light up and she smiles. “I’m kinda jealous but I’m just so happy you get to do what you love.”

“Well, I haven’t told my client that her husband wasn’t on a work trip,” I say with a grimace, leaning over to zip up my tall boots. I came straight from the airport to the barn, where my big white thoroughbred, Thor, lives.

“Not surprised,” Kathryn—or Kat as the four of us call her—sighs. “But at least you got a free trip out of it.”

“Right?” I zip up my other boot, so happy to be here with my three best friends. Kat and I met three years ago in a support group and became instant best friends once we realized we’d gone through a lot of similar trauma…and both had retired racehorses. Throw in the fact that her horse is named Loki and mine is Thor and we decided it was fate.

“Who am I riding today?” Zara asks Elsie, who has two horses here at the barn.

“I rode George pretty hard yesterday, so he’ll appreciate an easy ride,” she says with no hesitation and we all laugh. Sheswats Kat, who’s sitting next to her, and then laughs, too. “Okay, I totally handed you that one.”

“So,” Zara asks after we’re all ready to go get our horses from the pasture. “How do you break the news to your client?”

“I’ll tell her in our session this afternoon,” I explain. “Most of the time, when you get to the point of needing someone to spy on your partner, you already know.”

“Yeah, how sad.” Elsie, the forever hopeless romantic, shakes her head. “But at least she’ll know and can move on to finding someone who deserves her.”

“Yeah,” I say, dreading having to tell her already. As a therapist, I know what to say and how to react. But as a woman, it kills me a little bit more inside each and every time I have to deliver news like this. Which is probably why being a therapist by day and an amateur PI by night isn’t typically recommended. It’s mixing professional ethics in a sense, but it’s a hill I will die on.

Because Ididalmost die and it’s only by the grace of God I got out alive.

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