Page 40 of The Next Of Us
I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice Nadine’s sex drive died.
These past two weeks went a long way to getting us back on track.I felt more like myself than I had in a long while.And we felt like us.
The us that supported me through school while Nadine worked and looked after Thalia.
The us that packed up and went to France for Nadine’s cooking internship, Thalia in tow, as soon as I graduated.
The us that thought long and hard about what kind of life we wanted before I took Max up on his offer and came home to settle in Sage Ridge.
The us that struggled through Brandon’s stays in the ICU for croup every spring.No matter how we tried to prevent it, our baby ended up in the intensive care unit.Twice we nearly lost him.
The us that supported Thalia when she pushed herself too far and needed to take a year off from school.
The us that went to Portugal for our twentieth anniversary, making love on a public beach in the middle of the night, showering twice to get the sand out of cracks we never knew we had.I smiled and shook my head minutely.I still couldn’t believe we did that.
The us that laughed and played, worked hard and worked through shit, the us that hung the fuck on no matter what.
That was us.
That I couldn’t lose.
I no longer knew who I was without us, and I didn’t want to find out.
I nuzzled my nose into the curve of her neck.
She mumbled incoherently, a soft snore signaling her return to sleep.
I grinned.She could sleep through absolutely anything but the sound of a baby’s cry.When one of the kids cried, her feet hit the floor before her eyes opened.She’d missed the doorway and run into the wall more than once when they were small.
As much as I tried to distract my brain, tomorrow morning loomed large on the horizon.
I ran through a mental list of patients in my head.
Kids, so many kids, struggling to fit in.The ready availability of the internet and social media provided our kids with endless opportunities to compare themselves to others.The magic of social media ensured they came up short every time.
At that age, they could barely tell the difference between real and make-believe.They didn’t stand a hope with social media.
And parents couldn’t keep them off it.
Even the schools demanded iPads in classrooms.The cell phones were a nightmare and thus far they hadn’t figured out how to effectively ban them.
Security on the routers only went so far.Most parents didn’t possess half the tech knowledge their kids employed.Apps to get around internet security, apps to hide apps, the list of offenders was endless.
Another patient, a young woman who escaped a toxic upbringing only to fall into an abusive relationship was also booked to come in.She was safe in our women’s shelter, but it had taken months to gain her trust.I couldn’t just hand her off to someone else.Especially a man she didn’t know.
The young couple who had just had a baby hit a little too close to my own story for me to walk away.
I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I was the only one who could help them, or even the best one, but wait lists were long and it took time and courage for people to open up.It wasn’t fair to start something I couldn’t finish.
And yet, despite my desire and commitment, my head was a fucking mess.I always took fifteen minutes between appointments to take notes.Now, I spent hours after work poring over those same notes ensuring I hadn’t missed anything.
And those were the days I didn’t look at the other file.Their file.Those nights were lost to me.
Objectively, I’d done well.I helped a lot of people, people who still took the time to stop by my office, shook my hand when they saw me on the street, wrapping both of their hands around mine.The smiles filled with gratitude and victory kept me going when my doubt and anxiety kicked up.
But there were no number of visits, handshakes, or smiles that could pull me out of this funk.
The very time I’d started to consider stepping back just happened to coincide with my greatest professional failure.It wasn’t the first time I hadn’t been able to help someone.Therapy is a duet, not a solo.People have to be ready to change, ready to take on the work before they can heal.
