Page 88 of Under Pressure

“I got the sense Mia seems to be the more pressing issue for you.”

I nod again. “I, um, I’ve always been pretty closed off.” Yeah, that’s an understatement. “But we started getting closer. And I kind of... sabotaged it.”

I fidget in my seat when she doesn’t say anything in response, waiting for me to continue. “Then I got drunk the other night. Which is not a regular occurrence, trust me,” I add, before she starts questioning me about alcohol abuse. “I called her and told her all this stuff. Things I’d never say otherwise.”

Her brow creases. “Bad things?”

“No, good things. Things I’ve hardly admitted to myself before. I—” I close my eyes and wipe my palms on my jeans, my heart racing. “I think I love her.”

Silence fills the room, and when I finally open my eyes, there’s a small smile playing around her lips.

“What?”

“It seemed obvious from the first time you mentioned her yesterday that you love her.”

“It was?”

She nods, her face filled with kind understanding. “How did she respond to these things you said to her?”

My brain is still fuzzy. Apparently, the revelation of these feelings is only news to me. “She said none of what I said counts. It only means anything if I say it when I’m sober.”

“And do you think that’s fair?”

I wipe my palms on my jeans again. Does she have the heat cranked on in here or something? “Don’t I get credit for saying it at all?”

She tilts her head. “What do you think?”

“No,” I mutter.

She smiles, asking, “So what’s changed between then and now to make you want to repair things?”

The knots in my stomach as Mia had fled down the stairs in the psych building, her voice controlled as she had corrected me that Iwouldn’tchange, not couldn’t.

Seeing the cautious hope in her eyes as I’d told her those drunken things, even as there had been wariness. She was right to be wary around me.

Sleeping next to her, having her up close, breathing in her sweetness. I want that again. Even if it costs me something I wasn’t willing to give before.

“Would it help if we had this discussion with Mia present?” she asks when my silence continues.

I break out in a cold sweat. “You want her to come here?”

She sighs. “I think the larger issue is the relationship you have with your parents, but you kept turning the topic back to Mia yesterday.” She rests her chin on her hand, looking at me. “Why did you reach out to me?”

I stay silent, a heavy weight pressing down on my chest.

She looks back through her notes.

“You spoke about a fight you had with Mia. Where she said you only wanted to be alone,” she reads off her paper. “Was that your driving force for making the appointment? The realization that you didn’t want to be alone?”

I nod warily.

“But you need to feel you’re her equal first? Equal in what way?”

“I—” My instinct is to clam up. To tell her it doesn’t matter. But why am I here if I’m not going to do the work? I close my eyes, finding it easier to admit it if she’s not looking. “I’m scared of emotional intimacy. Being close to someone. Letting them in so they can hurt me.”

“Do you think Mia would hurt you?”

“No. She’s too nice for her own good. I feel so… regretful of the way I treated her. She didn’t deserve that. And I don’t deserve her.”

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