Page 109 of My Debacle with De Lorenzo

Anger management therapy: Session #6

“So, what happened after that?” Dr. Burkman asks.

“What do you think happened?” Bella replies with a sarcastic smirk. “We broke the most important rule and fell in love.”

I smile to myself as the memories of us swirl around in my head. “We didn’t just fall. We...collapsed. Like someone strapped anvils to our ankles and flung us off a fucking cliff. We just dropped straight in. And when you fall that fast and that deep, you can’t...you can’t find your way back to the surface. You’re just stuck in it, no matter how hard you fight to get out.”

I can feel Bella’s eyes studying me intently, but I don’t even risk a sideways glance. We come here twice a week and it gets harder to look at her each time. It’s hard to keep talking about these memories and have those old feelings come to the fore. Some days, I see the girl I fell in love with. Other days, I see the girl I hate, the one who ripped my heart out. But every day that we come here, I see the woman she’s become, and I’m slowly becoming addicted to her again.

Dr. Burkman, I’ve learned, is mildly deranged but very perceptive because her focus remains solely on me. “Dylan, it sounds like you may still...be in love with Isabella.”

She says it like it’s some secret I’m trying to hide. I’m not. This is something that’s all out in the open. “Love...wildly scattered amongstmanyother things. Regardless, she knows how I feel about her. She’s always known. She just doesn’t give a shit.”

Defenses go up immediately and she scowls at me. “Are you honestly trying to turn this on me, De Lorenzo?” She waits and when I don’t engage, her eyes move back to our therapist. “Let me give you some insight as to why I don’t give a damn anymore. So, if we go back to where I left off. Dylan and I continued with ourarrangement, renewing the contract week by week, all through December. My sister started doing more sculpting projects, and she was earning good money. She told me I didn’t have to work anymore, so I quit my job at the hardware store. Dylan and I became inseparable. We were together almost every waking moment. He’s not lying when he said we fell hard. No ropes. No safety nets. Nothing. We just dove in without caring about the consequences.” A long pause ensues as she reminisces. “But I was deluding myself because you can’t build anything with someone who keeps secrets from you. Back then, I agreed to accept it. My younger self was naïve and easily fooled by all his lies.”

“What did I lie about?” I bite out.

“Omission is betrayal, Dylan! You’re always hiding things from me. You did it then. You’re doing it now. I accepted it when I was a child, but as an adult, I cannot and will not tolerate that any longer.”

Dr. Burkman’s eyes light up and she gives a dorky smile. She’s so strange. “Ooh, the congruency of it all is so intriguing. Explain to me what you mean by him doing it then and now.”

“You want congruency, Doctor?” She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest, thrumming her perfectly manicured nails against the sleeve of her blouse. “Try this one on for size. On Christmas eve in 2018, Dylan picked me up and took me to the school bonfire. Nothing exciting, just a bonfire and smores and Christmas carols. Cat and Scott were dating by then, and Peter slowly started coming around. He apologized to both Cat and I for the way he treated us. We started hanging out as a group, so it was a nice way for all of us to spend the evening together. Dylan kept saying how much he loves the joy of Christmas. He told me that the festive season wasn’t the same at his house anymore and he missed how it used to be.”

Dr. Burkman nods and continues scribbling in her notepad. “So, your family stopped celebrating Christmas after your accident in 2016?”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Disdain drips from every word, despite the smile on my face. “That asshole intentionally ran me over. And it’s not that we stopped celebrating, but in 2016, I spent Christmas in the hospital. Christmas 2017 was just...heavy, like there was an elephant in the room that nobody wanted to talk about.”

She nods again, then looks over at Bella. “Is it safe to assume that you wanted to make the Christmas of 2018 special for him? That seems like something you would do.”

“Very safe assumption, Doctor,” Bella agrees. “I wanted to give him a different association with the day, so I borrowed some money from my sister and after the bonfire, we went to a hotel, the fanciest one I could afford. We had dinner with candles, followed by a bubble bath. We made love on a king-size bed with Egyptian cotton sheets. It was amazing. My mom would never have allowed me to spend the night with a boy, so he dropped me off at home at two in the morning...and then he just disappeared.” Her voice catches on the last word, but she swiftly regains her composure with her next breath and continues. “That was technically week seven, not week eight, so I had no warning. I tried calling him at about nine o’clock on Christmas morning, but his phone was off. I tried calling him again in the evening because my sister fell down the porch stairs and hurt her arm, and I just wanted him with me at the hospital for...comfort, moral support...whatever.”

Even now, I still feel the regret of not being there when she needed me, but other things had to take priority. “I told you I was sorry for that.”

“I know, and I don’t hold a grudge against you.” Her amber eyes lock on mine and even though she means it, I can see the disappointment as if it happened yesterday. “But you still left without a word, and I didn’t hear from you for the next week.” She sighs, then looks at Dr. Burkman again. “Then last year, we end up at a Christmas party at a fancy hotel. Things get heated. We make love on a king-size bed. I wake up the next morning and. He. Is.Gone.” She blinks a few times, trying to keep tears at bay, but I can hear the hurt in her voice. “He doesn’t wake me up to say goodbye. He doesn’t leave a note and guess what? His phone was off when I tried to call. How’s that for congruency?”

This one I regret more. I don’t like to argue with her when she’s upset like this because the fight gets out of hand, but I need to say something. “I was going to come back, so...I know it sounds similar, but it was different.”

“You’re right.” She flashes a smile, but it’s just a mechanism to hide her increasing disappointment. “As teenagers, you at least cared about me enough to treat me with some level of respect. There was none of that this time. You had sex with me...and then you went back to Fran. You couldn’t get out of that hotel room fast enough, could you? I’m sure you had a lot of explaining to do after you didn’t go home that night.”

“What are you talking about? Fran doesn’t know anything because I didn’t tell her about us. Why would I do that?”

Her face drains of color and her physical reaction would be the same if I had just delivered a punch straight to the stomach. “I’m glad to know I’m not the only one you keep secrets from. And I am but a dirty little secret. You screwed me like some cheap hooker, then just left me there so no one would find out. If you wanted to hurt me for what I did to you, you achieved that. You paid me back inspades.”

The anguished pitch in her voice, the pain etched on her forehead – it fucking guts me. And what makes it worse is knowing I’m the cause of that pain, but what she’s saying is nowhere near the truth. She does this. She strings things together when they have nothing to do with each other, and I don’t know how to untangle the strings without admitting the truth. “Bella, that’s...that’s not what happened.”

“Then what happened?”

“I just...” That’s as far as I can get in my explanation before I drop my head, pinching the bridge of my nose to relieve the pressure pounding in my head.

She waits. And she waits. And when I still say nothing, she lets out a deflated sigh. “You’re still doing it. Nine years later, and you’re still keeping me in the dark.” She isn’t the type to cry in public, so when I see tears escape her eyes and roll down her cheeks, I fully understand the depth to which I’ve hurt her. She quickly wipes her face and stands up. “Today’s session is over, Dr. Burkman.”

She gives me one last look, silently begging me to reconsider my answer. I can only stare back at her, begging her to understand that I just can’t tell her, especially because it’s not my story to tell. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s just habitual now, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I know what happens when people know the truth. They start treating me differently, as if I’m fragile and need to be handled with kid gloves. It happened with all my teachers at school, my aunts and uncles, even Fran used to tiptoe around certain discussions all the time.

I also have to deal with them looking at me with pity in their eyes, them asking incessant questions every time they see me.How are you doing, dear? How are things at home now? Heard your sister got violent with you again. Oh, my sweet boy, you go through so much. You know, your uncle Fred and I are just a phone call away if you need anything.

What I needed was for all of them to stop treating me like I was made of glass. What I needed was for them to stop calling me constantly during emotional hangover week to ask if I was okay. That’s the reason why I started switching my phone off in the first place. What I needed was for everyone to leave me the hell alone. I had to listen to shit like that on repeat and it just kept me trapped in all the turmoil.

Isabella has always been the sweetest form of escape from all that garbage. She knew something was wrong, yet that never changed how she treated me. She fought with me, argued with me, called me out if I was a jerk. That’s what I needed. For someone to be real with me instead of trying to protect my feelings all the damn time. Even now, that’s still what I need, and I don’t want to lose it. I don’t know what we are to each other at this point, but I’m so scared I might taint whatever remains between us by telling her the truth, ruin it by letting the water into this safe little air pocket. I was selfish then, and I’m still selfish now because I’m not ready to give up the closest thing to anormalrelationship that I’ve had since Dana went off the rails.

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