Chapter Thirty-Two
Cole
“You keep coming back to that point,” I said to Lisa. It was therapy appointment number two, and as I sat there, I was thinking that it would probably be my last, that it had been a mistake to even make a second appointment. This wasn’t actually helping at all.
Especially because Lisa seemed to be harping on the fact that I had broken up with someone who I had been in love with.
“Well, we both keep coming back to it,” she said. “And that’s why you’re here to begin with, isn’t it?”
“I’m here because... because I thought I might need some help sorting out some of my feelings. You know, have a neutral party to talk to, not someone who’s personally involved.”
“And I’m also not here to give you a directive either way,” Lisa said. “I’m not trying to tell you to do something, or to not do something. Any conclusions that you might be drawing are really all on your own.”
“It just seems as though you keep trying to emphasize the point that I’m still in love with Allie.”
“Does it seem that way to you?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
Was she trying to be coy? Was she trying to get me to make some sort of obvious connection that she had made and I had not?
“Listen,” I said, “I think it’s clear from everything that’s been said so far that you think I made a mistake.”
“It doesn’t actually matter what I think.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? You’re the professional here; I’d think it should matter a whole heck of a lot what you think.”
“In some instances, it might. But in this particular situation, not so much. What really matters is what you think, and whether or not the decisions you have made are the ones that you can live with.”
“Well, you kind of have to live with the decisions you make, don’t you?”
“Of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do things to try to change them if you feel like you made the wrong choices.”
“Which you think I did.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“But you’re implying it.”
She didn’t say anything; neither did I. We both sat there, at something of an impasse. I wasn’t sure what I had been hoping would come of going to a therapy appointment, but I sure as hell did not like sitting here feeling like this lady I didn’t even know was judging me.
After I left my appointment, I texted Ben and asked how they were doing. He said that he and Declan were having a good time riding bikes around, so I decided to take a little walk. I parked at Moose Lake and took the walking trail around the lake. I wouldn’t go the whole way around because that would take me half the evening, but I walked far enough in that I was surrounded by woods on one side with a nice lake view on the other. I tried to imagine that Allie was there with me because that’s all I really wanted.
And if she was there with me right then, I let it play out how it would go if I were to tell her about Declan, about Marissa, about all of that. Why I felt like I needed to break up with her to begin with. Allie, I made a promise when Declan was a baby that I would do right by him because it was partially my responsibility for why this was happening in the first place.
We didn’t know that Marissa was pregnant; my mother certainly had no idea when she had come to me that night and asked me if I would try to get the message through to Sam in another way, one that might leave a more lasting impression. Maybe if that hadn’t happened, they would have agreed to stop using, they’d do it together for their baby, and they’d be raising Declan instead of me. Declan would be with his two real parents, and my mother would eventually get over her dislike for Sam; she would have had to because he was her daughter’s husband, her grandson’s father.
Branches slapped at my arms and face as I walked the trail; it had gotten overgrown as the summer had gone on. There were so many possibilities for the way things might have gone, but this was the way they had turned out.
I would talk to Allie. If she didn’t want to take me back, I would understand that, I would deserve it. I hated the idea that I was going to come across as indecisive, but if it meant that she and I might be able to get back together, then it was worth it.
I did not tell Ben my plan; after I got back, we hung out for a little while, I put Declan to bed, and then he took off. Not long after Ben left, though, there was a knock at the door. I went to answer it, surprised to see that it was Allie.
“Hi,” she said, an uncertain note in her voice. “Is Declan asleep?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He is. Come on in.” I stepped back so she could come in. “I was just having a beer on the deck. Would you care to join me?”