“So how did journaling go?” Maple asks, hardly letting her dress-clad form rest in the seat of my SUV before the words topple out of her.
I hide a grimace in a smile. “Let me get in, and then I’ll tell you.”
Sheepish, she nods, then graciously allows me to round the vehicle and settle into the driver’s seat before she asks again. “Journaling?”
My smile turns jovial. “It went great!” I declare.
Her eyes widen, and she straightens. A warm, soft hand lands on my forearm as I shift gears and pull us out onto the street. “Really?” she asks, all breathy hope and belief in me.
“Sure,” I agree. “If you consider making thirty pages of a journal very pretty with doodles and stickers to be great progress. If, instead, you require the writing of thoughts and feelings to consider it great…” I sigh. “Then you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
Maple plops back in her seat, and her hand falls from my skin. “Oh.”
I frown, but resist the urge to place her palm against me once more. “I did try,” I tell her. “I tried really, really hard. I bought all the supplies I could possibly need, took them home, and I set them up at the table in the formal dining room because my desk wasn’t quite big enough.” Read: My desk was nowhere near big enough for the haul that I brought home. The table for eight almost didn’t fit it all, either, and Birch all but had anapoplexy when I suggested I might have to move to the much longer kitchen counter. “Then I picked a journal, and I opened it. There’s that page in the beginning, you know, the contact page? Where you put your name and information for how someone can get hold of you if you lose your most private thoughts somewhere someone else could find them?”
“I know about that page,” she confirms dryly. “I like that page.”
I nod. “Right. I remembered that you always make yours look so pretty, so I figured I would have a go at it, too, and I had enough stickers that it came out halfway decent. If Birch says otherwise, ignore him.” Birch doesnotunderstand my artistic vision.
Maple sighs, exasperated and amused. “As if I’d ever trust anythingBirchsays. He’s a brat.”
“Exactly,” I concur. “Which is why I kicked him out of the dining room while I moved on to write, but when I turned the page it just looked soblank. I was looking at it, and it was looking at me, and we were both thinking the same thing—who is the plain white loser? ExceptIhave a snake sticker embedded in my skin, and I think that gave me a leg up. I didn’t want the leg, though, so I found a snake sticker and slapped it on the page, but then it looked stupid all by itself—on the journal, not on me—so I added some more stickers, but then there wasn’t really any space to write…”
Maple laughs when I trail off, waving my hand to indicate that the rest of my journaling journey was much of the same. Decorate a page, have no room, turn to the next one, wow blank!, decorate, no room, turn, blank, decor… And on and on until eventually I had to admit that I was not making progress by any measure, and I should give it up for the time being and pursue another avenue to help me. I’ve heard great things about metal yoga, for instance.
“So maybe journaling wasn’t for you,” Maple says after her mirth dies down. “That’s okay, there are still some other things you can do.” Her hand rejoins my forearm, squeezing encouragingly. I move quickly, letting go of the steering wheel to clasp our hands together before she can steal away my comfort again.
“What other things do you suggest?” I ask. “Your last recommendation didn’t pan out, but an internet blog run by an insane blonde woman would have me doing hot yoga to screeching music, so I think you’re still my best bet when it comes to resources.” We hit a stoplight, so I turn my attention from the road to rest it on her, giving her my best puppy dog eyes. “Please, Maple, I am at your mercy. Tell me how to heal myself.”
She blushes—so pretty, so rosy—and wrinkles her nose. “Running?” she proposes slowly, uncertainly. “I can’t personally attest to it, but some people say they get a lot of thinking done when they run.”
“Ew,” I reply instantly. “Eugh.”
She laughs again, and I’m enamored by the way the light twinkles against her crinkled eyes. Her nose squishes up in her joy, and I want nothing more than to kiss it.
A car horn blares behind me.
I face the road and hit the gas.
“I hate cardio,” I say. “Does it have to be cardio?”
Her laughter peters to giggles. “I think so,” she answers. “I’ve never heard anyone say they get their best thinking done while lugging barbells around.”
“You don’t lug barbells,” I reply sourly. “You lift them, then you set them down. It’s the weights you move around.”
“I’m sorry, Ivy. I really am,” she lies, the little minx. She’s not sorry at all. She loves to see me suffer. “But I think you’re going to have to try running.”
“You’re enjoying this,” I accuse. “This isn’t about answering your question. This is just you torturing me for the love of the game.”
She sobers, and her fingers tighten around mine. “You’re wrong,” she says softly. “I wouldn’t waste either of our time for the sake of amusement right now, Ivy. What’s torture for you is torture for me, too.” She huffs wryly. “After all, isn’t that what marriage is? Oneness? What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine?”
My throat constricts. “Yeah,” I agree. “That is what that means.”
“I love you,” she says, just right out there, even though she can clearly see I am on the verge of crying already. “I want to be with you. I want us to be together. I know I’ve been angry with you, but… I don’t know. I’m not angry anymore. I just really, really,reallywant you to figure this out. I want you to heal a little bit so that we can know the relationship webothwant will be healthy and full, not just of love, but of every good thing a marriage needs to thrive.”
“I know,” I reply. “And I’m with you. I’ll do anything. Just… do we really thinkanythingincludesrunning?”
“Don’t pout,” she orders, her soft voice low and hypnotic. The better to lull me into running, I bet. “You only have to try it once, and then if it doesn’t work, I’ll never ask you to exercise your respiratory system again.”