Page 39 of Julian's Curse

The water from a fountain circulated in the background as she asked me about my trip to her office. I’d had some struggles in the past with getting to her on time due to journalists, so Will had to ask the building manager for permission to park in the courtyard loading area. It had worked to get me back my anonymity.

“It went pretty smoothly,” I reassured her. I was now eager to dive into our conversation, knowing that the 50 minutes always flew by too quickly. I adjusted myself comfortably on her sofa, enjoying the fact that I was in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

“What would you like to talk about today, Lucie?” Mrs. Followay asked, her gaze steady as if she sensed today was going to be particularly serious. Maybe the dark circles under my eyes had tipped her off. Or perhaps, like everyone else, she’d seen the media coverage about Bradley.

“I only found out a few days ago, Mrs. Followay,” I murmured, my voice low, as if I feared she might judge me no matter what I said. “Julian’s been using cocaine.”

I watched the muscles in her neck tighten as she swallowed. She knew this was serious, that my once fairy tale story was now crumbling, unraveling in ways that felt eerily familiar to my past.Her eyes flashed with a protectiveness that I sometimes saw in Amanda too. “Are you safe right now, Lucie? I have to ask,” she said, her brow furrowing with concern.

I nodded, my voice small. “He’s really sorry for hiding it, and has already checked himself into a rehab in Palm Springs.”

She put away her notes as if this was not a conversation she wanted to record. “How does all of this make you feel, in relation to your memories with James?” she brought up the inevitable. James had used cocaine at the very end of our relationship, something we’d talked about often with her.

I exhaled sharply. “The reason I fell in love with Julian was because he was so different. He built a huge business through sheer hard work and willpower. So, it’s a disappointment that I can no longer put him on a pedestal. It’s bringing up old hurts for sure,” I shared with her. “I know I don’t to be with an addict, it’s against my values,” I added, my voice steady but heavy.

“But?” Mrs. Followay prompted, encouraging me to keep going.

“Even though I can’t even wear my ring yet, we’re engaged,” I’d told her about this before. “I’ve found my home with him. I can’t quite describe how powerful our connection can be. I cherish our conversations and our experiences together. Walking away seems…” I trailed off, struggling to find the right words. It felt like a weight in my chest, something more profound. I wanted to say it felt like death. She knew better than to let me finish the sentence.

“How did you feel when you found out?”

I paused to think. There was a lot here to unload. “Angry, betrayed, and scared. Mostly angry, though. Almost as if I wasn’t entitled to happiness. As if the universe played games, always washing ashore the same pain.”

She nodded. “I want you to go back to the days you described with your dad.” She circled back to my relationship with him.“When he came home drunk, did you feel the same emotions you’ve just described?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Except there was also hate. I don’t feel hate toward Julian. I feel sadness thinking about what led him to addictions in the first place. I know it’s his mental challenges. As you know, Mrs. Followay, his mom died of an overdose on his birthday. That’s heavy, you know. He feels connected when he gets high. I’ve gathered that he feels like he can understand his mom.”

“Do you believe it’s a natural thought?”

“Well, I fully understand it. We want to be accepted by our parents. Julian may feel like he’s closer to her when he deals with his issues the same way.”

“But you, yourself, disassociate yourself from your father.” She reminded me. “You’re wiser?”

“You’re right. I want to be the opposite of my father.”

“So, what do you think led Julian to use? The relationship with his mother?”

I exhaled sharply. “No, he said it was our separation. When he thought he lost me. He was trying to cope with pain.”

“So, you have a common ground. You both struggle with dark feelings often. And you also lost your mother to something you couldn’t control at a young age.” She summarized. “You find emotional depth with him that not many people share with him.”

She hit the nail on the head. I felt so close to him because I knew there was suffering we couldn’t overcome, so we just had to carry it like a burden. He was jaded, even sarcastic like me. “Yes Mrs. Falloway, I never felt like I belonged next to happy people. For a large part of my college days, I struggled with self-confidence, enough to sabotage my life.” In fact, when Mom died, I abused my body with starvation because it was theone thing I could control. “I was anorexic, only to release my emotions later on with binge eating with the flip of a switch.”

“Would you approach it all differently today? With what you know?”

“I’d probably get out there more. Have more fun. And I’d definitely enjoy food, not battle with it.” I was reminiscent of my eating disorder. “I’d grown more mature, and I can reason with my feelings.”

“It was a coping mechanism, Lucie. Unhealthy, but you processed emotions that way.” She smiled. “How can you process emotions now?” She looked at me, really looked at me.

“Writing, it’s the one time when I don’t feel like the world has me by my throat. You can take abuse, turn it into a poem, and the disgust, fear, pain, whatever awful emotions, come out in a way that’s not destructive.”

“Do you journal, or write for yourself, aside from work?” She queried with genuine interest.

“No, I haven’t written that way in years. Looking back at some of my old writings, they remind me about how much time I wasted in dark emotions instead of enjoying life.” The truth was, everyone had something to deal with, and we all went through hard experiences. I wasn’t special in that way.

Still, my life had mostly been a turmoil. Some people had the kind of love where their parents supported and cheered them on. They went on to date, maybe even marry, a relatively “normal” guy—someone with a steady job who could offer the stability they needed. They set boundaries, so they never ended up with an addict or an abuser. And I couldn’t always relate to those lives. I always seemed to have something heavy going on, and I knew how to attract it.

Mrs. Followay handed me a pen and a paper.

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