AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She squints. “Are you wondering if I have feelings of countertransference for Elaine?”
“Do you?”
“No,” she says without a trace of defensiveness.
“Then, no. I’m not. You’re experienced enough to recognize if you did.”
“What would you do if this happened with one of your clients?”
Aaron is tempted to tell her that it wouldn’t have happened with his patients. That he would never have toyed with psychedelics in the first place. But instead, he says, “I suspect that with a little time and reflection, she’ll want to come back to your care. But in the meantime, there’s only one thing you can do.”
“Which is?”
“Protect yourself.”
Holly’s face falls. “You think she might launch a complaint?”
“Or go public in some other way.”
“Jesus…”
“Hopefully not, but you have to do everything you can to prevent that.”
“And how do I do that?”
He reaches across the table and places his hand over hers, relieved that she doesn’t pull away. “Talk to her, Holly. Make her see the light.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“She’ll come around,” he says, though he’s more focused on the feeling of her warm knuckles in his hand.
They sit quietly for a while, as the briny scent of calamari wafts to them from a nearby table. Finally, Holly smiles and says, “Thank you.” She pats the back of his wrist with her other hand and then gently slips free of his grip.
He hides his frustration behind a smile. “Don’t you miss this?”
“Of course, I do,” she says. “And I appreciate how you’re always there for me.”
“Not enough to come home though?”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Please, Aaron. Not now. It’s not the time.”
“Graham’s doing better,” he says. “He really is. Especially since we started him on the new combination of mood stabilizers.”
“We? You mean you prescribed medication for your own son?”
“Someone had to.”
She sighs. “This isn’t about Graham.”
But Aaron believes otherwise.
His sons, Nate and Graham, were twelve when Aaron and Holly married. She tried to bond with both of her new stepsons, but the fraternal twins responded entirely differently. One welcomed her, the other resented her. Holly and Nate have always been close. But everything comes easy to Nate: sports, academics, and relationships. A first-year med student on scholarship at Columbia, Nate is on track to follow his father’s career path. Graham, on the other hand, takes more after his mother, an expert in self-sabotage who finds conflict where it doesn’t exist. When Graham was eighteen, another psychiatrist diagnosed him with a borderline personality disorder. But Aaron disagreed with his colleague, believing Graham was too functional in his life and his relationships to fit the criteria. While Aaron appreciates that Graham is still adrift, to his mind it’s because his son is a deeply sensitive soul who needs a lot more support than his twin brother.
But even Aaron can’t ignore the damage Graham’s volatility has inflicted on his marriage. And Holly sometimes mistakes Aaron’s protectiveness over his flawed, vulnerable son for siding with him against her. Especially since that online trolling incident.
