by Megan Walker
Anna-Marie’s jaw sets. “You still think that telling me is the thing you did wrong, when that’s the only right thing you’ve done in this conversation.”
The floor seems to sink out from under me. “What?”
We stare at each other, and Anna-Marie ducks her head, her cheeks flushing. “I mean since we started fighting,” she says quietly.
I can feel tears forming behind my eyes, and my chest is tight, like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. I’m not sure why—there’s no reason that should have hit me so hard—
Except that I thought we were talking things out. I thought we were expressing our feelings. But if the only right thing I’ve done in this conversation was to tell her something I still don’t think it was my place to tell her to begin with—
“Okay,” I say. “Okay, fine. You win. I’ll try not to learn things, but if I do, I’ll tell you.”
Anna-Marie shakes her head. “It should be okay if you learn things! And if you’re friends with people you want to be friends with. God knows you could probably use some more, especially with Ben going through what he is.”
“I’m still going to be Ben’s friend. And you’re avoiding your friends, too.” I wring my hands. “Look, I don’t want to fight. Just tell me how to make it better.”
“Maybe you should stop trying to make it better.”
My heart sinks along with the rest of me. It’s like I’m caught in quicksand, because the harder I try to make this better, the worse it gets. I’m messing up this conversation, and I can’t fix it, and it’s spiraling out of my control, and all I want to do is make it all okay again.
“Fine,” I say quietly. “You win.”
“Are you saying that because you agree with me? Or just because you want the fight to be over?”
Shit. I really, really want the fight to be over.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I say. If everything I’m saying in this conversation is wrong, no good will come of it.
“That’s not fair. You always want me to talk to you when I’m upset. You get mad if I don’t tell you what’s going on in my head, and now you’re upset and you’re just going to shut me out?”
“I can’t talk about it right now,” I say. “I’m just messing this all up.”
“You’re not messing anything up!” Anna-Marie looks like she’s close to crying, and she’s not the only one.
“Seriously? You just said the only thing I’ve done right in this conversation is to tell you the thing that started the fight to begin with!”
She looks somewhat sheepish about that, because I’m right. “I just want to know what’s going on in your head. And you keep telling me it’s fine, and I win, and let’s not talk about it, and you’ll give up friends so you never have to have this conversation again, and I’m not even sure what it’s really about.”
I’m not, either. But my mouth finds words anyway. “I have to make things better,” I say. “If I don’t, then who am I?”
Anna-Marie stares at me. “What?”
“I make things better for you.” Tears are building behind my eyes, and any moment they’re going to slip free. “That’s my job.”
“As my agent?”
“No. I mean, yes, but as your husband. It’s what you like about me.”
“It’s what I like about you?” Anna-Marie doesn’t seem to have any idea what I’m talking about.
“I have to make things better, or what good am I to you? I can’t keep messing things up, or you might leave me.”
My own words knock the wind out of me. We just had a conversation about how the thing that would make her leave me is if I cheated on her.
So why do I feel like this is true?
“Josh,” Anna-Marie says. “I’m not going to leave you. I’m not. And I don’t need you to fix everything for me.” She reaches her hand out for mine on the counter, but I pull it away to wipe at my eyes.
“But who am I, then?” I ask. “What good am I to you?”
She gapes. “What good are you? You’re my husband, and I love you.”
I feel like I’m staring into an abyss that’s always been there, I just didn’t see. “But I’m the person who makes you happy. I like to fix things for you. I thought you loved that about me.” God, if I’m not even doing that right . . . “Sure, this conversation got away from me, but the last two years, I thought I was holding it together for you. I thought I was making everything okay.”
Anna-Marie looks mystified, like she’s not even sure what I’m talking about. “Josh,” she says. “I love that you like to help people, and I’m so grateful for everything you do for me. But I don’t want you feeling like you need to do those things out of fear.”
I feel like I’m unraveling. I’ve always thought of myself as a good person, but as tears slide down my cheeks, I see now that I’m not. I’m selfish. I make a living serving people, making sure they’re safe and protected contractually and legally and that their needs are met so they can do their jobs in comfort. I always thought I did that because I’m a good person, because I like to help people.
But no. I do that because I’m afraid if I don’t, no one will like me. I have to meet people’s needs, because it’s what makes me valuable. More than that, it’s what gives me worth.
“I can’t stop,” I say. “I don’t know how to not help out of fear. I can’t.”
Anna-Marie stands and walks over to me, but I step away. The abyss I’m staring into now is too deep, too vast. I don’t know how to talk about it. I don’t know how to bridge it.
I don’t know anything.
“Talk to me,” she pleads. “Tell me what’s happening.”
She’s not angry anymore, but is looking at me with genuine concern. But I don’t know what to say. I only know that I’ve cracked open, and now she can see everything, all my insecurities. All the things I don’t like about myself. The selfishness, and the way that I need other people to make me feel good about myself.
“I can’t talk about it right now,” I murmur.
“Okay,” Anna-Marie says slowly. I know she’s upset about this, and she’s right about the double standard. I’d make her talk to me if the situation was reversed. I’d beg her to. Because I’d have to know what was wrong, so that I could fix it, so that I could be sure I mattered to her. So I could be sure she’d want to keep me.
Shit.
“We can talk later?” she asks. Her eyes are shiny, and there’s fear in them, and I hate myself for that, too.
“Yeah,” I say. “Later.”
I’m shaking, and I just want to take a hot shower and try to calm down and figure out what the hell just happened. I can’t remember feeling so shaken, not in a long while. Definitely not in the two years we’ve been married.
I leave the kitchen and go to our bedroom, shutting the door behind me.
I lean against the door and try to breathe. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I don’t know how to be okay, having opened up the mess of what’s going on in my head.
But I know what I’m not doing. I’m not doing any more talking to Felix Mays.
Clearly, no good has come from that.
Eight
Josh
I get about an hour into my morning at work, reading and annotating a new set of contracts before sending my clients the rundown of what I think needs to change and asking for their input, when I get a text from Felix Mays.
Hey, it says. Could you do lunch today? I talked to Jenna last night and I need someone to talk to about it.
I stare at this text. If he had asked me literally anything else, my quick answer would have been no.
He needs someone to talk to. God, he’s got to have other people to call, right? I know he and Gabby are close. Can’t he talk to her?
Wouldn’t you rather talk to Gabby? I respo
nd.
I’m just getting back to the contract at hand when he answers. Gabby’s great, but I don’t think she’ll understand this one.
I sigh. I’m not sure I want to understand anything Felix has to say. But if he needs someone to talk to, I also don’t want to leave him high and dry. But that compulsion of mine—it’s a bad thing, isn’t it? I like helping people, but if I’m doing it out of fear, then my motives aren’t as pure as I’d like them to be.
On the other hand, I don’t feel particularly afraid right now. I don’t give a damn if I’m important in the life of Felix Mays, except to kind of hope that I’m not.
And I could use someone to talk to, too. Heaven knows Anna-Marie and I aren’t talking about it, which is my fault, but I really don’t know what to say to fix it.
She told me to stop trying to make it better, and I’m at a total loss of what that means, or what to do now.
Okay, I say. What time?
By the time I get to the sandwich place—the same movie-postered deli on the studio lot where we had lunch yesterday—Felix is already there. He’s ordered a sandwich and chips again, but it’s sitting on the table in front of him, still in its wrapper, and he’s got his head in his hands.
“Hey,” I say, and he looks up at me.
“Hey.”
“I’ll get a sandwich and be right with you.” I try not to wince at the wording. It’s the kind of thing I would say to a client or a business associate. Felix is that, thanks to him talking me into repping Axel Dane, but I suppose he’s also a friend. Which also leaves me at a total loss, both because I don’t want to be friends with someone who puts me in the position I was in last night with Anna-Marie, and because I’m realizing I don’t have any friends I talk about the intricacies of my life with who aren’t Ben or Wyatt or Anna-Marie. Everyone else is someone I might talk shop with, or text back and forth about miniatures with, but not someone who would ask to talk to me about their marital issues.
I have absolutely no idea how this new-friend thing is supposed to work, and I have a strong suspicion that, at least in this point in my life, it doesn’t.
“Hey,” Felix says again when I join him with my own plate of food. “Thanks for meeting me. How was your talk with Anna-Marie?”
I sigh.
“That good?” he asks.
“Pretty much a disaster.”
Felix nods. “Yeah, mine stopped just short of that. Jenna was really defensive, and decided I was saying she was a bad mom, and then when she finally did talk . . .” He frowns. “How much do you know about her past?”
I shrug. “I know what’s in the music. Anna-Marie plays your stuff a lot.”
Felix smiles. “Really? I knew she was an AJ fan, but I didn’t know she came with us when we revamped the sound.”
“Yeah, she did. So I’m very familiar with your music.”
“But not a fan yourself.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” This is more the level of conversation I’m comfortable with, and I let myself relax, and unwrap my sandwich. “I’m more into anything with a strong dance beat. But I don’t hate your stuff.”
“You like EDM.”
“Mostly. Before Anna-Marie, most of my exposure to music was at parties and clubs. In the car, I’ve always been more of an audio book person.”
“Makes sense. So, you know that Jenna used to party a lot, and she’s got some trauma from the stuff guys did to her.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And I remember when that ex-boyfriend of hers stabbed you. That was scary.” And in the entertainment news nonstop for weeks. I would have heard about that even if he wasn’t Gabby’s brother.
Felix nods, rubbing his forehead. “Yeah, Grant. It wasn’t nearly as scary as it would have been if he’d gotten to Jenna instead of me. He had restraints and other weapons in his car.”
I remember hearing that. “That’s terrifying.”
“Yeah,” Felix says. “So, the real story is that Jenna started going to frat parties when she was fourteen. She would go and take pills and get drunk and then whatever guys happened to be there would do whatever they wanted to her. Besides it all being statutory rape, which is bad enough, she was also unconscious for a lot of it and unable to consent. And then when she was a little older—like eighteen and nineteen—she had some boyfriends who were abusive to her. Physically, sexually, verbally, you name it.”
Felix says this all matter-of-factly, like he’s just filling me in. But I can see in his face how much this wears on him. And I can imagine why. Anna-Marie and I have struggled enough to get past her tendency to think of all guys as serial cheaters, and she doesn’t have this kind of trauma in her past. I can only imagine what experiences like that must do to a person, to a marriage.
“Is that an issue for you guys?” I ask.
“Not for me,” Felix says quickly. “I’ve known about it since the very beginning. For a long time Jenna blamed herself, like her being at those parties was license for guys to do all those things to her. But she can admit now that she was raped. She’s come a long way.” He takes a deep breath. “But she’s having flashbacks again, since Rachel was born. Something about having a daughter is making her worry about being able to protect her from those things happening. Which I get, believe me, I’ve had some of those same thoughts. But I think mine center more around what it’ll be like when Rachel is fourteen, and Jenna’s worried about someone kidnapping her now. I think it’s really tearing her up.”
I could see that. Given everything she’s been through, it’s a wonder Jenna is as functional as she is. “Has she been to a therapist?”
He sighs. “That’s the thing. I’ve tried to get her to go, but she always has an excuse. The timing’s not right. She’s overwhelmed as it is.”
“Therapy is a really good thing. I bet Anna-Marie would talk to her if she wants to discuss it with someone who’s been through it.”
“Maybe,” Felix says. “But I’ve been in therapy for years for my recovery, and I’ve told her about it. She’s gone with me a couple of times, but that was always talking about me, not her stuff.”
“Are you guys okay?” I don’t know if I’m feeling anxiety over the state of their marriage because I care, or because I’m paranoid. It’s probably the second one.
“Yeah,” he says. “I mean, okay enough. But Jenna’s shutting down and won’t talk to me about it.”
“That kills me. When Anna-Marie does that, I mean.” Not that I have any right to point fingers right now.
“It sucks, right? All I want is to be there for her, but she won’t let me. And maybe it’s because of other stuff that hasn’t been going well lately . . .”
“Other stuff?”
He looks down at his still-unwrapped sandwich. “This may be TMI. You want to hear it?”
I’m sitting here listening to Felix pour his heart out in a studio lot deli. I’m not sure TMI is really an issue at this point. “If you want to talk about it.”
He slumps back in his chair. “So I’ve been tapering down off my Suboxone. You know what that is?”
I squint, thinking. “Like Methadone?”
“Like Methadone, but with Naloxone in it, which is the drug they use to reverse overdoses. You get the chemical benefit of the Methadone, but it doesn’t get you high.”
“Okay, right. And you were on that for a while, but now you’re getting off?”
Felix cracks a smile. “Yeah, getting off is a good way to put it. It has a side effect of giving me a hair trigger.”
Oh. “So it’s killing your sex life.”
“Correct.” Felix rolls his eyes. “I mean, Jenna just had a baby, so our sex life is kind of non-existent at the moment, but before that was not great. And it would be killing my sex life a lot less if it didn’t make me self-conscious. But it does. And since sex is one of the ways we really connect—”
“Yeah, I get that,” I say. “The infertility stuff has been hell on our sex life, too. Not so much the side effects of the actual treatment, but because it’s saddled now with all of this baggage about not getting pregnant. And it makes Anna-Marie pissed at her body, which doesn’t help.”
Felix looks almost relieved. “Yeah? That sucks, but I get it.”
It actually seems like he does. I’ve spent the last long while feeling like such an idiot for letting this bother me. I mean, it’s not like we don’t have sex any more, and it’s not like it isn’t good.
“I can see why that would be hurting the emotional side of your relationship,” I say. “That seems like really bad timing.”
“Yeah,” Felix says. “The tapering is really slow, so I’m not sure there was a good time for it. And I was ready, and haven’t been having nearly as many cravings as I expected to have. But what it’s doing to us isn’t helping Jenna any, and it makes me feel like shit.”
“You want to be able to fix the problem.”
He closes his eyes. “I want to not be the one causing the problem. I mean, I know her trauma isn’t my fault, but I’m just so damn sick of my addiction causing her pain.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Which is more or less what she said about her dealing with all this trauma last night. She doesn’t want to talk about it anymore because she feels like she’s burdened me enough—even though I keep telling her it’s not a burden. But I get why she feels that way, because I feel the same.” He shakes his head at some fixed point across the room, like he can spot the source of all his problems in the To Catch a Thief promo poster.
“I’m sorry, man,” I say. “That sounds really tough.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “And you don’t think it’s stupid for me to be attaching all these emotions to my sex life?”
Despite the weight of this conversation, I laugh. “Um, no. I am not one to judge you for that. I’m not much for toxic masculinity. My best friend is a gay dude, and of the two of us, I’m the sensitive one.”