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My irritation pulls me forward until I’m sitting on my tailbone, body leaning inward with my arms over my knees.
“Yes! I do! Don’t you understand that? Ihaveto be okay.”
The Doc keeps her face bland, which makes me want to pull my hair out. I hate it when she placates me.
“Why don’t you explain it to me,” she prompts, and that pushes my last button. I push up from the chair again, shoving both hands through my hair.
“Ican’tbe angry at Remi. What sort of person would that make me? He’s trying to protect himself, and his family, and the thousands of people that depend on them for their livelihood.” I stomp over to her window, pointing out into the busy New York skyline. “He’stryingto be honorable, and dependable, and a—a—” A pain in my fucking ass. “A fucking martyr! What’s happening to us right now isn’t his fault. He didn’t have a choice.”
Doc Miller leans back in her chair, tap-tap-tapping on that stupid fucking case.
“But…?” she encourages me quietly.
But…
My hands make fists into my hair, and I bend my knees and scream with my lips closed.
“But heabso-fucking-lutelyhad a choice. He had a fucking choice, Doc, and he chose to rip our family to shreds. Hechoseto break my wife’s heart, and he keeps choosing it over and over and over again every day he lets this go on. In his world, it’s black or white, all or nothing, and that fuckface choseNOTHING!”
I walk five feet to where her trash can sits and kick it with all of my might. The plastic goes skittering over the floor, the old paper coffee cup and few odds and ends of trash scattering in a dozen different directions.
“Which was the wrong fucking choice!” I scream. “I understand he didn’t want to be on the down-low anymore. I get it. But to cut us off at the knees like he did? It’s BULLSHIT, Doc. Complete and utter bullshit!”
My face is red, my chest is pounding, and Doc Miller doesn’t even flinch.
“Then,” I say, pointing in her direction like it’s her fucking fault. “He didn’t even give me back my fucking ring! He’s walking around New York—Dating! By the way, in case I didn’t tell you that—and still, the asshole has my ring on his finger! He took my wife bent over the back of a fucking couch, left her sitting on the floor in tears,all while wearing my ring!
“So what if I were to tell you that I hate him? I fucking hate him for what he’s done to us. For what he’s done to my wife. What good would come from me telling you that? That I fantasize of breaking his fucking nose and letting him bleed all over me. That’s not information you need to know.
“I HATE HIM,” I scream, then choke on the next words. I swallow thickly, and when I talk again, it comes out in a hoarse whisper. I rub at the ache in my chest, but it’s a pain that no modern medicine can cure. “I hate him because Ican’thate him. I want to. I want to despise him for what he’s done to us. He’s earned that and so much more. But I can’t hate him. Because at the end of the day, when I’m sitting in my bed with my wife, who is still sleeping twelve hours a day. Who I haven’t made love with since Remi was in that bed with us. When I’m lying awake at night thinking about him, I’m thinking about how much I love him, and I miss him, and how fucking worried I am that he’s going to do something stupid without me there to talk some sense into him.”
I collapse in a puddle back onto the couch, my body no longer containing enough energy to keep me upright.
“That’s the fucked-up truth, isn’t it? I hate him because I can’t hate him. And I hate myself because it’s my job to protect them. It’smyjob to protect Julia, and I let this heartache happen to her, and it’s my job to protect Remi, if only from himself, and I think we can all agree I did a lousy fucking job with that. The only thing I’ve ever wanted in my life was to keep them safe and to make them happy, and I’ve failed on all counts.”
“You can’t take care of everyone, Justin. Remi is a big boy. He’s capable of taking care of himself. So is Julia, for that matter. Their happiness is not your responsibility. You need to learn to accept that. What happened, it wasn’t your fault.”
Yeah, okay.
I can’t contain my scoff. This entire fucking situation is absolutely my fault.
“But it was. They wouldn’t be hurting the way they are right now if I hadn’t forced them into it.”
It’s the doc’s turn to scoff, loudly, as she waves her hand like she’s swatting a fly.
“Hogwash. You didn’t force anyone. And until you understand that and accept it, you aren’t going to begin processing how to move on from it. Julia and Remi are adults, and they both made their own choices. From that very first night. Remi knew what he was doing when he wandered into your bedroom. Heknew, Justin. How long had you all been friends up till that point? He knew, when he walked into a married couple’s room in the middle of the night, what he was liable to find. He could have walked away then. Instead, he walked further in.”
I didn’t want him to walk away.
“Julia could have put a stop to it right then,” she continues. “Most women would panic at being caught in the throes of passion. You yell, you cover yourself, and you hide until the person who caught you runs away in shame. What did Julia do?”
I think back to that first time.
“She invited him in.”
“She invited him in,” the Doc repeats. “All three of you were willing participants in this relationship. They are both adults, Justin. They made their choices. It sucks for all three of you that this is where you’ve ended up. But Julia and Remi each made their own decisions to get here.”
She leans forward in her chair, searching out my face.
