Alternate History 6
You come screaming out of the bedroom.
“Where is it? Where the hell did you fucking put it Andrew? Just fucking give it to me ok? It doesn’t fucking matter. Give it back to me.”
I barely lift my head and mutter “I don’t know what your’e talking about.” I stare at the vitiligo at my hands, while my mind races. Are you going to check my backpack for the knife sharpner? Please don’t cut yourself today.
You collapse and sob. I walk over. “Please tell me what’s wrong. Please, i really want to listen.”
You look up, eyes red, and yell “It doesn’t fucking matter. You dont fucking care about me. Let me take care of it myself.”
I’m sobbing now. Begging you to take a breath and talk it out.
“Listen, our lease ends next year. We have a hard deadline. Let’s go in one more time. We’ll treat this as our disease. We’ll go in together as partners. And if it doesn’t work out we’ll move on, but we should try one more time. I need you to commit to seeing a therapist and I’ll commit to making time every day to talk to you. To regain your trust.”
You nod. We embrace. We commit to each other. We try again.
Three months in, you stop seeing a therapist. “it’s too expensive and they’re not very good.” you complain. You refuse to see a psychologist.
I schedule time for us to talk everyday, but you get bored. You still don’t think I’m a very good listener. Fair. You still feel alone.
I’m so preoccupied with trying to bring you back to a base level of stability that I forget that my own needs have never been met.
Our lease ends. I still have hope. You leave me.
