Page 96 of Harrison's Wedding

I’m beginning to travel down this devastating train of thought when Brendan calls us into his office. Heather stands, and I follow her inside, where we sit on a sofa together. These sessions are basically the closest contact that I get with Heather now. Over the last month, we’ve barely talked outside of these sessions, and I haven’t touched her.

“How are you doing today?” Brendan asks with a polite smile.

“Fine,” Heather says.

“As good as can be expected.” I shrug.

“What do you mean by that, Harrison?”

It’s such a standard answer that I stop to consider what I really mean by it before answering. “I guess that everything is wrong with the world, but I woke up and I’m breathing, so I suppose I should be grateful for that much.”

“Interesting,” Brendan says before writing something down on a pad of paper in front of him.

“Oh, I got the results of my STD test, and I’m clean, so I guess that’s another thing I should be grateful for,” I add.

“Were you concerned that you might not be? Did you use protection that night?” Brendan asks.

Memories flood my mind, and I want to vomit. It’s too much, and I push them away before they become too pervasive. Heather is looking at me with narrow eyes, and I’m cold all over.

“I’m not sure,” I say in a dull voice that I don’t even recognize as my own, and I’m sure that I’ve convinced nobody of this.

I swallow heavily, hating myself for what I did as Brendan finishes writing. He looks back up at us, and I’m grateful when he directs his next question to Heather, dropping the topic of the condom issue.

The conversation continues, and about twenty minutes into our session, Brendan brings the topic of conversation around to the night I cheated.

“So, you were drugged when it happened. Do you feel like it would have happened if you weren’t drugged?” Brendan asks.

I consider a world where I wasn’t drugged that night, and I fight against the pain, because it’s the alternate reality I crave.

“No,” I manage to answer.

“You mean, of course, that he was drugged when he fucked someone that wasn’t me, maybe without a condom. Who would know? Because, apparently, he doesn’t fucking remember anything even though everyone else does.” Heather says in a cool tone as she raises an eyebrow at him.

A slicing pain cuts through me at the bitterness of her words. The memories of Maddy hit me, and I feel sick. Combining that with the knowledge that I have lied to Heather repeatedly about this, and she knows it, is causing an intense pain in my chest.

“That’s quite an aggressive way of phrasing it,” Brendan looks at her over the top of his glasses, “why do you choose to say it that way?”

“Because it’s what happened.” She shrugs.

I can’t take my eyes off her, and I want to cry because I’ve hurt her so badly. Everything about what she’s saying is telling me that. It feels as though she’s pushing me away, and I’m allowing it because I know that I don’t deserve her after what I did.

“Yes, but did you see Harrison’s reaction to what you said?” Brendan asks her.

Heather glances over at me, and her beautiful face is full of sadness before she looks away and says, “Well, yeah. I did.”

“How did it make you feel when Heather phrased it that way, Harrison?” Brendan turns to me to ask this.

I sigh and tell him honestly, “Hurt. It feels like Heather is purposely saying things to hurt me a lot, lately.”

“Hang on, so Harrison fucks Madeline,”— the memories of Maddy in bed with me hit me, and nausea washes over me —“and I’m trying to hurt him by pointing that out?” Heather frowns at Brendan.

“Are you trying to hurt him, Heather?” Brendan tilts his head to the side as he asks this question.

She pauses, then blows out a deep breath before answering, “Yes.”

“Why is that?”

I hate the tears in her eyes, because Heather is one of the strongest women I know. It feels like I only ever see her crying lately, and I know that I’ve done this to her. I’ve broken her.

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