Page 6 of Goalie Lessons

I carefully straightened my hair this morning. Now it’s a wreck from the rolled down windows on the highway. At least I was blessed with a mostly traffic-free highway. An oddity in Los Angeles.

By the time I hit my floor, all I want is to strip down, fall face first into my bed, then eventually gather up the energy to order some half-decent food that will arrive cold and forty minutes later than I expect.

At first, when I open the door, I’m surprised to hear noise.

That’s when I remember I live in this apartment, not with a roommate, but a partner. When I imagined coming home, I hadn’t even thought about whether I’d be alone. Hearing the noise, a feeling of dread rolls through me. I’m dating someone, and that means I’m going to have to talk through what happened today. Explain all the reasons I feel like shit.

I might be a psychologist, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy baring my soul.

Once I have the door open, though, I realize that definitely won’t be happening.

“Oh, shit,” Roman says, mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as he pulls away from Brianna, leaving her folded against the kitchen island, and turning to look up at me like I might strangle her.

“Fuck, Astrid,” Roman says, and I grind the heels of my palms into my eyes, so I don’t getanotherglimpse of his dick, deflated and glistening as he turns to me. “I’m so—”

“Just go home,” I say, still not moving my hands, listening as he gathers up his clothes and moves toward the door, still muttering apologies. Our front door closes, then I hear the one across the hall open a second later.

Roman is home, in his own apartment, and I’m pulling my hands away from my eyes, looking at my girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend, now. Another in the long string of loose attachments to men and women I’ve had living in L.A. She’s not even the first woman to cheat on me, though she is the first to do it in my own apartment.

“Alright,” I sigh, reaching around under my shirt to unclasp my bra. “Obviously, you can’t stay here. You can tonight—on the couch—but tomorrow you need to find another place—”

“For fuck’ssake, Astrid!” Her accent—Scottish, I think—puts hard points on the end of each word, growing stronger with every word.

I stop, pausing while threading my bra out from under my shirt, and stare at her. She’s still standing against the kitchen counter, now holding her shirt to her chest, her face more flushed than it was when I walked in on her a moment ago.

She’s breathing hard, looking at me with wild eyes likeI’mthe one who cheated onher.

A moment passes in which we stare at one another. Finally, I clear my throat. “…What?”

“What?” she breathes, laughing, bringing her hand to her forehead. “Are you fucking serious? You just—you walked in on me with the neighbor!”

“I’m very aware of that,” I say, eyes drifting to the counter, realizing I’m going to have to disinfect the entire apartment. “Is that…the only place?”

“Are you seriously thinking about cleaning right now?” She hurls the words at me like an insult. I am exclusively thinking about where Roman’s naked ass has been, but I try not to let that show.

“Youare!” The words come out of her as a half-laugh, half-sob. Brianna is not my first girlfriend in L.A., but she is the first actress. Right now, I get the distinct impression that she’s not acting.

“I’m…sorry?” I try, even though that feels like a pretty fucked up thing to say, considering the fact that she just had my neighbor in here, and I’m going to have to look him in the eye until the end of my lease, having seen his less-than-impressive dick in all its glory.

My mind shifts gears, and I wonder if I should leave a note on his door, specifying that I want absolutely nothing to do with him or his penis. He is so not my type, and I don’t want him thinking Brianna and I have—had—an open relationship, or that we might be interested in threesomes.

“You don’t even care,” Brianna cries, drawing my attention back to her as tears well in her eyes. “Jesus, Astrid, we’ve been together for almost three months, and it’s like you don’t even care that it’s over now!”

“If you didn’t want us to be over, you shouldn’t have cheated on me,” I say, brow wrinkling and energy sapping out of me. I don’t understand this conversation.

Brianna rolls her eyes, looking a bit frantic as she pulls on her clothes and collects her things. “We were over long before this, Astrid. You have no…passion! You don’t have to be so clinical all the damn time. Like a zombie!”

“So, you cheated on me because I’m not emotional enough for you?”

“Yes.” She pauses in the middle of stuffing something in her duffel bag, hair sticking to her neck as she fixes her green eyes on me. “You sayemotionallike it’s a bad word—which is particularly fucked up coming from a therapist.”

“I’m not a therapist.” I’d initially thought about getting my license, pursued it, and decided against it. Maybe if I’d gone through with it, I wouldn’t be facing so much rejection now. “I’m a psychologist, Bri. I told you—”

“I don’t want to talk about yourcareer, Astrid!” Brianna stops, still heaving in breaths, and turns to me. She looks stuck somewhere between anger and grief, and I realize I might actually have done something wrong here. “I thought…I thought I could open you up. That you’d soften to me, let me in. But you’re like a brick wall. And it’s so emotionally exhausting to constantly be the one reaching out to you. Doing the work.”

“I’m sorry, Brianna.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “But I really wish you’d chosen to do that inhisapartment.”

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