Page 39 of The Lessons

“Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I ask how she passed away? Was it sudden?”

I took a deep breath and eyed the tissues on the coffee table. I hadnotplanned on going into this at my sex-therapy appointment. Truth be told, that wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t ready to talk about this. After my mom had passed away, I’d had a lot of work to do. There’s a ton of paperwork and shit to do when someone dies, even if they know it’s coming. Once my mom passed, I threw myself into everything, barely pausing to grieve. I knew I’d pushed all my emotion down deep, and that someday I’d have to deal with it. I just hadn’t expected it to be today.

Dr. Lerner patiently waited for my response.

“Uh, yeah. I mean, no. Not sudden. We were expecting it—she had breast cancer. She had it once when I was in my early twenties. We thought she had it beat, but it came back. I was twenty-six when the doctors told her it was terminal. She got weak real fast, so I quit my job and moved home with her. She lasted a few more years.” I reached over and grabbed a couple of tissues off the table and dabbed under my eyes. “Sorry.” I took a deep breath. “I’m not sure why I’m crying. It was over a year ago.”

Dr. Lerner only smiled and gently shook her head at me. “Don’t be sorry. It sounds like you loved her very much. I bet she really appreciated having you there.”

I nodded and looked down at the wadded up tissue in my hands. “Thanks.”

“Did you have any support system during that time?”

“Support system?”

“Friends, relatives…healthcare workers?”

“Oh, um…not really. I don’t have a lot of friends. Just one, actually, and they were great,” I said, carefully omitting the pronoun. “And some folks from hospice at the end. They were amazing.”

“Hmm.” She put down her pen and looked over at me. “I find this all very interesting.”

I wiped my nose with the tissue and sat back, exhausted from my brief display of emotion. “How so?”

“Well, that you are able to be so disciplined and focused in some parts of your life. However, when it comes to your personal relationships, you’ve kind of put your own needs on hold. On the back burner, so to speak.”

I sighed. “I guess you could say so.”

“Natalie, I want to try something with you. I’m going to say a couple of statements. I want you to tell me how much you agree with them, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being that you fully agree.”

I pressed my lips together, unsure to what, exactly, I was agreeing. “Okay.”

She looked down at her notebook. “I’m an attractive, intelligent being.”

I swallowed, surprised by how hard it was to answer this. I mean, I didn’t think I was ugly, but I also wasn’t a supermodel. I was smart enough, I supposed. “Uh, seven?”

Lisa wrote something down and continued. “I’m a sexual being.”

I chuckled at that one. “Uh, two.”

“I am capable of loving someone.”

I frowned. Was this a trick? I wondered. But there wasn’t time to think. “Ten. No. That’s a lie. Uh, eight.”

“I believe I’m worthy of being loved.”

I felt like I’d been socked in the stomach. Worthy of being loved? Why were my eyes starting to burn? Why was she asking this?

“I don’t?I don’t know what you mean.”

“And why do you say that?”

“Being loved…isn’t that someone else’s choice?”

Lisa tilted her head ever so slightly. “Yes, but that’s not what I asked. I saidI believe I’m worthy of being loved.”

“Oh.”

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