Page 135 of Made Better Together

“You need to leave early, right?” He touches my shoulder on the way to the fridge. “Do you even have time to talk?”

I look at my phone. My goal was to leave in ten minutes. But whatever he wants to speak about seems important.

“I’ll make time. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks, I mean we could wait...”

I shake my head, my concern making the rejection of that offer easy.

With my affirmation, he sits down and cracks open his drink. After a couple sips, he sets it down on the table.

“So where to start…” He gives a little half laugh. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone about this.”

Okay, this sounds truly serious. “I—take your time. I’m here.”

“My…you probably have picked up some of this, but my mom is a…difficult person.” He runs his hand over his face. “No, let me be more specific. She’s a narcissist.”

A breath escapes my mouth.

“Not diagnosed officially. But…”

“You just know.”

“As someone who lived with her alone for two years, I fucking know.”

“I—I’m sorry.” I wrack my brain for everything I learned in Abnormal Psychology class about Narcissistic Personality Disorder sophomore year.

“It’s…done. I thought I had it handled anyway.” He bites his thumbnail. I’ve never seen him do that before? “You know what EMDR is?”

I nod. We touched on it briefly in class. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy—a mental health treatment that uses eye movements and guided instructions to help a patient reprocess traumatic memories.

He gives a slight smile. “Helps to have an almost-doctor around in moments like this.”

“My Abnormal Psych class was two years ago, so I don’t remember a lot, but yes, I know the basics.”

“My girlfriend in college, she’s the only one who knows about everything. Before I got any treatment, I was a mess during my sleep. Among other nervous habits.”

I click through Connor’s behaviors, and I can’t think of many that would set off alarm bells from me, other than the two wake-ups.

“Worse than now?”

He bobs his head. “Much. To her credit, she persisted until I agreed to go see a counselor at the Princeton clinic, which led me to get EMDR treatment.”

“It worked?”

His eyes look off at a blank spot on the wall. “The first time I had it done changed my life. I don’t know if it works that fast for everyone. The relentless anxiety that had rooted in my chest, it was almost fully gone. It felt like…before I could only use 80 percent of my lungs, and EMDR let me breathe at full capacity.”

“Wow.” Reading about the treatment is one thing, but hearing his testimony brings a different level of understanding. “I’m glad you found it.”

“Yeah. It’s helped that I’ve been in Princeton or Orlando most of the time since, not in Alabama. Away from…her. But I think…it’s sort of glitching a little lately.”

“Is that normal?”

“Not really. The reprocessing benefits don’t wear off from what I’ve read. But, apparently, you can need more EMDR if you’ve missed some layers of long-term trauma. And of course, I had one giant exposure event in July that could’ve triggered some unaddressed memories.”

A realization hits me. “The wedding.”

“Yup. Lovely, isn’t it?” Sarcasm coats his voice. “The most special event for my sister, my whole family, really. Yet, somehow, exposure to my mother triggered a revival of her malignancy in my messed-up brain.”