Boss Me

by Claire Adams

  My face was in the face cradle, so I just managed the slightest of nods. I didn’t want to be crying, but the whole thing just seemed so sad. I had been in love, and it didn’t work out—but who knew that it would feel like this? Who knew that another person could cause someone so much pain?

  The thing was, I couldn’t even be mad at Cole. It wasn’t like he had done something—he hadn’t cheated on me, he hadn’t lied to me, he hadn’t abused me in any way, shape, or form. But his absence felt like an injury I would never recover from. Even as the masseuse gently kneaded my muscles, trying to release the stress and apparently whatever emotional traumas I had been storing, even with all of that happening, I just had the feeling I would never be the same again.

  After we were finished at the spa, my mother wanted to go to a café, so we went and got coffee. I already felt jittery, so I ordered an iced decaf latte instead, and I sipped on it slowly while we sat at an outside table, under the awning.

  “Now, didn’t we have a nice day out?” my mother asked.

  “Yes,” I said, wanting to be careful not to make it sound like I was being ungrateful. I tried to smile. “The massage was nice.”

  “Oh, tell me about it.” She rolled her shoulders back and leaned her head to one side, then the other. “I just feel so limber now. It really just melts the stress away.”

  My shoulders did feel slightly less tense.

  “So, are you planning to stay over tonight? We could go to this nice little trattoria for dinner...”

  “I should probably drive back soon,” I said. “I think I’ll probably leave in a little while.”

  “I’m glad we were able to get out of the house then today. I would’ve hated it if the whole time you were here, you just stayed in bed.”

  “And I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. I just feel like the whole thing isn’t fair,” I said. “I know that sounds immature and that I should just get over it, but what was the point in waiting this long to lose my virginity if the guy I lose it to is just going to dump me not long after that?”

  My mother sighed. “It’s noble that you waited as long as you did,” she said. “Romantic, even. But you can’t let it mean something more than it does. Most girls your age have had sex by now. Very few people only sleep with one person. Meaning, for the majority of us, we sleep with a whole bunch of people before we finally find the right person to settle down with.”

  “I know that,” I said. “But it still feels shitty.”

  “It won’t forever; I can promise you that. Sometimes that’s the only thing that you have to hold onto—the knowledge that it’s not always going to feel this way forever. Even if it seems that way.”

  When we were done with our coffees, we went back to the house so I could get my stuff. My mother walked me out to the car and gave me a long hug.

  “At least text me when you get back so I know that you made it home safely,” my mother said.

  “I will. And thank you for letting me come down here.”

  “Of course! Whenever you feel like you need to get away for a little while, just give me a call, okay? I mean that.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I gave her one last hug and then got into my car.

  As I drove, though, I didn’t feel much better than I had when I’d been driving down there. It had been silly to think that just having some distance between us would somehow make things better, would make it hurt less, because that simply wasn’t the case at all. And suddenly, the idea of living in a small town didn’t seem so great. Even if I were to move out of my current house, chances were good I’d run into him around town. Declan only had another month at the Learning Center, and then he’d be moving on to kindergarten, so I wasn’t too worried about seeing him at work, but if I stayed in Chapin, it seemed inevitable that we would see each other.

  But it seemed sad to think of leaving both the house and the town that I’d actually become quite fond of.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I turned down the road and saw that Cole’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

  That relief was short-lived, though, because as I was getting my bag out of the back seat, his car turned down the road, and there was no way I was going to be able to avoid seeing him.

  I took a deep breath even though it felt like my insides were quaking. Just be normal. This repeated over and over in my head as I extracted my bag from the car, slung it over my shoulder, and walked toward the front door. Too late did I realize that I’d left my purse in the car, with my keys, and the front door was locked. I raised a hand to wave, trying to seem nonchalant. I wasn’t actually looking at Cole, more in the general direction of the car, so I wasn’t totally sure if and when he had waved back or not. But the window in the back seat was down, and I could hear Declan yelling my name.

  Cole turned into his driveway and parked the car, and Declan was scrambling out probably before he even had the keys out of the ignition. I had started to walk back to my own car to retrieve the keys.

  “Miss Allie!” Declan said, and he ran over to my driveway. “Where have you been? I was wondering where you were, and I kept asking my dad, but he didn’t know!”

  He stood there, hands on hips, looking at me expectantly. “I’m sorry,” I said, all the while aware that Cole had gotten out of the car but hadn’t come over. I could tell that he wasn’t sure whether he should or not, and he was kind of lingering by the car, glancing our direction. “I went down to see my mom,” I said. “I stayed down there for a little while.”

  “Oh,” Declan said. “Did you go to LEGOLAND?”

  “No...we wouldn’t have gone without you.”

  “Well, when are we going to go?”

  Cole must’ve been able to hear some of what we were saying because he walked over, a slightly pained expression on his face.

  “Hey, Allie,” he said. He put his hand on Declan’s shoulder. “Come on, bud, let’s give Allie some space, okay? She just got back and probably wants to get inside and unpack and everything.”

  “Can you come over and eat dinner with us?” Declan asked.

  “Buddy,” Cole said. “Tonight’s not a good night.”

  I felt relieved that he was answering, because I didn’t know what to say. Just being this close to Cole was difficult; I wanted to jump into his arms and give him a huge kiss, I wanted to feel his hands on my body, I just wanted to be near him. And knowing that I couldn’t be, knowing that that wasn’t allowed anymore, was basically akin to torture.

  “I’ve got a lot of unpacking to do,” I told Declan.

  He eyed my bag, which wasn’t that big, but he didn’t say anything. I could feel Cole’s eyes on me, and I was afraid that if I looked up and met his gaze, I would burst into tears. And I was not going to cry in front of him.

  “I better get going,” I finally managed to say. “You two have a good night.”

  “We will,” Cole said softly. “You, too.”

  I knew he was watching me as I walked away, and I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and not turn around, not look over my shoulder, not do anything except get my purse out of the car, find my keys, and let myself into the house.

  Inside, the house felt stale, unlived in, like I’d been gone a lot longer than a few days. There was a glass and a cereal bowl still sitting in the sink, a magazine that I’d tried to read when I’d been eating breakfast sitting there, open, on the kitchen table. I left my bag and purse in the hallway and went around, opening windows, trying to let some fresh air in. But now with the windows open, I could hear Cole and Declan from the backyard; it sounded like they were playing whiffle ball.

  “Good hit!” I distinctly heard Cole yell.

  I went into the bathroom and took a long shower. So long that I did not get out until the hot water turned icy cold. At least by then I figured they’d be inside; it was dark, and Declan would probably be going to bed soon. And if it was quiet and I didn’t overhear them playing outside, I could at least try to pretend that they weren’t
there.

  Chapter Thirty

  Cole

  A part of me felt relieved now that Allie was back, like I found comfort in knowing she was just next door, only part of me, though; the other part was telling me that I was a fool for thinking about her in the first place since we weren’t together anymore. I wasn’t the only one thinking about her, either. That night, when I put Declan to bed, he wanted to know when we were going to see Miss Allie.

  “We just saw her tonight,” I said. “We saw her getting home.”

  He yawned. “No, but I mean when are we going to get to do something with her?”

  I hesitated, not quite sure what to say. I didn’t want to string him along, tell him that maybe tomorrow, or maybe next week, or Miss Allie must just be busy; that’s why we weren’t able to hang out with her. For the briefest of seconds, I entertained the idea that maybe after a little time had passed we could hang out, except it would be a platonic thing; people did that, didn’t they? Some people were able to remain friends with an ex. I knew, though, that wouldn’t work. It was a nice thought, but there was no way.

  “I don’t know if we’re going to be hanging out with Miss Allie anytime soon,” I said finally. “Maybe not ever again.”

  “Why? Did you guys have a fight?”

  “Um... something like that.”

  “You can make up. That’s what friends are supposed to do when they have fights. That’s what they tell us in school.”

  “I know, bud. And it’s good to make up with someone after you fight. This wasn’t really a fight though.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “It was more...it was more like a decision. It’ll make sense to you when you get older, but sometimes people become friends, and then... and then they become more than friends... but sometimes it doesn’t work out, so they decide not to be friends anymore...” I let my voice trail off. I was not explaining this very well.

  “How can you be more than friends?”

  I sighed. “Listen, Declan, it’s late, okay? This isn’t a conversation to be having right now; maybe we can talk about it some other time. But I just want you to know that I don’t think we’re going to be hanging out with Miss Allie anytime soon, okay? I just don’t want you to be expecting that.”

  He frowned and yanked the sheet up to his chin. “That’s dumb,” he said. He rolled over onto his side, his back facing me, and I knew that, unless I told him we could go over and see Miss Allie tomorrow, that the conversation was over.

  “Goodnight, bud,” I said, leaning over to give him a kiss. I gave his shoulder a squeeze, but he didn’t bother to turn and give me a kiss on the cheek back, like he usually did.

  As a doctor, I understood the connection between mind and body, and I firmly believed that an unsound or unsettled mind could and often did manifest as a physical ailment. It could be as disease, could be as weakness; either way, I didn’t want to get sick and I didn’t want to get injured, and it was with that in mind that I forced myself to call a therapist.

  Which was how I found myself sitting here on a Thursday evening. Ben had left work early to hang out with Declan so I could drive over to Gardner for this appointment. Lisa Farrell was someone whose name I knew, though the two of us had never met, which was good. I didn’t want to go see someone I already knew.

  She was an older woman, probably somewhere around my mother’s age, and she sat in the wingback chair opposite me with a notepad poised on her lap.

  “No one is forcing me to be here,” I said, “though with that said, I’m not sure that I should be here to begin with.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, though I was pretty sure she’d probably heard some variation of that line hundreds of times.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you decided to call,” she said. “Just tell me that without consideration over whether or not you should be here or not.”

  “I’m here... well, there’s probably a lot of reasons I could give, and they’d all be valid. But the real impetus for the call was because I recently broke up with a girl who I was very much in love with. More than anyone I’ve ever been with before, in fact. And I’m having a hard time getting past that. And my son is having a hard time with it, too. He’s confused, and he wants to see her. It’s just been pretty difficult because she also still happens to live right next door to us.”

  “And you’re still in love with her?”

  “Yes,” I said, without hesitation.

  “Why did you break up with her if you’re still in love with her?”

  “Because something happened, and it made me realize how dangerous being in love could be. I guess it’s been so long since the last time that I kind of forgot. And honestly—I’ve never felt this strongly about someone before.”

  “That’s interesting, then, wouldn’t you say? That you’ve found someone and you feel these intense feelings for her, yet you’ve decided to end it anyway. Tell me about that.”

  “What is there to tell? My son Declan—he’s 4—we took him down to Boston for the day, to see Allie’s parents. Well, her mom and stepfather, which was kind of a big thing for me to begin with because it was like meeting her parents and all, even though I’d technically already met them. But this just seemed like a bigger deal, because here we all were, taking a road trip together, going down to hang out with her parents for the day. But that’s kind of beside the point. I guess I only bring it up to illustrate the fact that things were definitely getting more serious between the two of us. So, we were all looking forward to the day, and then Declan, he ended up getting lost. Not for that long, and he was totally fine, but he was still lost, and for those 15 minutes, it was like my entire world just stopped. And not in a good way. I had never felt so scared, so powerless, in my entire life.” I shuddered just thinking about it. “And it was my own fault. We had just come out of the museum and I stopped and gave Allie a kiss. I wasn’t paying attention to Declan because all I wanted to do in that moment was give Allie a kiss.”

  “And that’s why you broke up with her?”

  There seemed to be a note of surprise in Lisa’s voice, which in turn, I found surprising. Surely, she had heard worse. Surely, people had confessed much crazier things to her.

  “Yes,” I said. I knew how ridiculous it sounded just saying it like this. But she hadn’t been there; she didn’t know the feelings that accompanied it. How I would never be able to even look at myself in the mirror again if something had happened. “You weren’t there,” I said. “You didn’t see what happened.”

  Even I could hear how defensive I sounded, but who the hell was she to judge me? I had made this decision not for her, not for me, not for anyone but Declan. “This wasn’t what I wanted to do,” I said. “Do you think I wanted to break up with someone that I felt this strongly about? That I still have these feelings for? Do you think this is easy? Because I can tell you that it’s not. But I’m putting someone else ahead of my own wants and desires, which isn’t a bad thing, is it?”

  “It depends on the situation.”

  I stared at her. “So are you saying you think I did the wrong thing?”

  “I’m not saying either way. All I’m saying is that sometimes, we also need to pay attention to our own wants and needs, as well. There’s a balance. Tipping it too far one way or the other is not good.”

  “I know that. But in the case of raising a child, I think it’d be better to err on the side of caution. A relationship can take up a lot of time, and kids certainly take up a lot of time, and I’m a doctor, so my patients take up a lot of time...”

  “So it sounds like you don’t actually have that much time for yourself. In fact, it sounds to me like you dedicate quite a lot of your time to caring for other people. Which is admirable, but if you don’t allow time for yourself to recharge and do things that you enjoy doing, you’re going to burn out.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I said. “And it’s not like I don’t have time to myself. My parents take Declan out every Sunday. Not every pa
rent has that opportunity.”

  “No, they don’t. And you’re very fortunate that your parents are willing to do that.”

  “They feel like—well, never mind. Yes, I know.”

  “And what kind of things do you like to do?

  “I usually go for a bike ride. Sometimes I’ll do things around the yard or do errands that are just easier to get done without having Declan, and on the very rare occasion, I’ll just hang out at the house and do... nothing.” Though I couldn’t remember the last time that I had done that. “I do have time for myself,” I said again.

  Lisa nodded. “But what I’m hearing is that most of the activities you do are by yourself.”

  I knew what she was getting at, but I decided to play dumb. “Isn’t that what the whole point of it is? Time to myself? I do have friends, too. Well, friend is more like it, but that’s really all I can fit in my life right now, if you want to know the truth.”

  Our conversation went back and forth like that for the rest of the session. When it was over, Lisa asked me if I wanted to book another session.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” I told her.

  I wasn’t sure how I was expecting to feel after my first therapy appointment, but I didn’t feel healed, that much I knew. I felt frustrated, which probably wasn’t a good sign of me having any success with these appointments, though I should probably go back at least once more before throwing the towel in.

  When I got back home, Ben hung out while I put Declan to bed, and then he and I had a much deserved beer out on the deck.

  “Should I clear my calendar for next Thursday, too?” Ben asked.

  From where I was sitting, I could see into Allie’s yard and see part of her house. There was a light on, in what I thought was the living room, though the curtain was partially closed, so I couldn’t really see in. What was she doing in there?

  I tried to push the thought from my mind, though. I could sit there all night wondering that, and that was no way to start to move on from someone.