To say she was frustrated with me would be an understatement. Not that she showed it, or anything –outwardly, she appeared as calm and collected as always. But the storm of emotion raging behind her eyes gave her away.
So, to appease her, I told her everything.
“I found the trigger,” I said as soon as I sat down in her office.
“Pardon me?”
“The trigger. It was Finn.” I swallowed. “He’s the boy of my dreams.”
“Finn is thelittle boy from your dreams?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?” I asked, growing frustrated.
“No, you said, ‘he’s the boy of my dreams,’ which has an entirely different connotation.”
“So help me god, doc, if you eventhinkthe words ‘Freudian Slip’ I will leave this office and never come back,” I grumbled.
Dr. Angelini hid a smile behind her coffee mug before taking a sip.
“So Finn is the trigger,” she prompted, gesturing at me to continue.
I told her everything, then – about the dreams I’d had, the memories I’d uncovered on the Ferris wheel, andour breakup afterwards. I glossed over my activities of last week, apologized for skipping our sessions, and prepared to leave. When I stood, Dr. Angelini stopped me.
“So that’s it?” she asked, as close to incredulous as I’d ever seen her.
“What’s what?” I was confused.
“You’re just going to give up on Finn? On all the progress you’ve made? On yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“Four months ago, if you had a problem, you’d bury your head in the sand like an ostrich, and either wait for it to go away on its own, or run like hell until it was a tiny speck in your rearview,” Dr. Angelini said. “Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing now?”
“Did you seriously just equate me to an ostrich?” I asked.
“Look, I’m probably overstepping my bounds as your therapisthere, but I can’t help but feel that you are going to regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t deal with this. That moment people look back on when they’re lying in their deathbeds, wishing they’d chosen differently?Thisis that moment.”
“He lied to me!” Ipointed out defensively.
“I know that, Brooklyn,” Dr. Angelini said quietly. “But aren’t there things you’ve kept from him as well?”
Of course there were, but I wasn’t about to own up to it.
“Humans are flawed creatures – selfish and cowardly most of the time. We lie, cheat, and steal better than we do almost anything else. We hurt each other with words, actions, and omissions,” Dr. Angelini sighed. “There is a one hundred percent guarantee that the people we love most will let us down. That’s the risk you take, when you open up your heart.” Dr. Angelini paused for a moment and leaned across the coffee table to look at me intently.
“But at some point, you have to decide which ones matter more than the pain, and forgive them for their mistakes.” She placed one hand on mine. “So, if you love him, I guess the only real question you have to ask yourself, the only question that matters is, at the end of the day, is he worth the suffering?”
***
For the rest of the day, I wandered in a daze, thinking over Dr. Angelini’s words. I drove out to the lookout point Finn had taken me to in August, sad to see that it had been overtaken by winter. Frost clung to the fronds and grasses near the riverbed, and the stream was flowing sluggishly under a thin sheet of ice. There were no fireflies; there was no life at all, here – not anymore. It was difficult to believe the hard, frozen ground would ever bring forth new flowers; that the trees would blossom again; that the animals would return to this barren place.
I wasn’t sure what I’d been looking for when I decided to come here – answers, I guess – but I definitely hadn’t found it.
I’d turned to go, depressed by the much-changed landscape, when a cardinal – red and majestic, defying the wintery chill in the air as it soared between deadened trees – burst from a nearby bush, startling me. Clutching a hand to my chest, my eyes tracked the bird’s flight and a genuine smile bloomed on my face. It felt odd, unnatural on my lips after weeks of frowning, and probably looked more akin to a grimace than an actual grin – but at least it was there.
There was life out here after all.
Even in the most desolate place, when it appeared nothing would ever be the same – there was hope.