“So you’re saying I stayed with her because of my parents?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, wishing he didn’t feel like the guy on the psychiatrist’s couch right now. But hell, he wanted to understand what was wrong with him. Or not wrong with him.
“That’s why it took you until a week before the wedding to call it off. Because you stayed with her, since you didn’t know the alternative. Love looked like obligation, not like some—” she paused, as if hunting for a word, “— incandescent thing.” That word hit him hard in the gut. Like a revelation. He’d called her incandescent in an email. It wasn’t a word you heard often. But it was the fitting adjective to describe the difference between how he’d felt for Aubrey, and how love was supposed to be.
“Yeah,” he said, nodding, and he felt just the tiniest bit lighter. With her insight he understood his own motivations. His worries. His fears. He hadn’t wanted to wind up like his parents, but he didn’t know any other way to be, so he did what they did. “I guess I didn’t. But I must have been doing the same thing. I never thought about it like that.”
“It’s my job to help people see things in a new light. In a light that might help them understand,” she said, and she seemed to be returning to the woman he went to Paris with, not the shrink. He wanted to reach out to her, hold her, ask her if they were going to be okay.
But he had to focus on Michelle, not on himself. “You’re not mad that I kept this from you? That I didn’t tell you right away?” he asked, the worry roaring back into him that once again he’d taken a misstep. A big one.
She shook her head. “No. I understand that it was difficult to process. That you had to tell me in your time, and in your own way.”
“And you don’t hate me for not loving her?” he asked, his shoulders feeling lighter, his heart freer again. Because of her.
“No. That was your normal. That felt normal to you. It took you a while to realize it, but you did come to that on your own. You did realize that love doesn’t have to be based on obligations. That takes a lot of guts to call off a wedding, when you realize you’re not in love.”
But, but, but. There was still that big overhang. There was still that empty ache in his chest that guilt had set up camp in. He might understand why he’d stayed with Aubrey now, but that didn’t exonerate him from the damage he’d done. He inhaled deeply, exhaled, and said the hardest thing of all.
“But it’s my fault she died,” he muttered.
She shot him a sharp look, as if his statement didn’t add up. “I’m going to be blunt with you.”
Blunt was good. He could handle blunt. He needed blunt. No more circling around the cold, hard truth. Dive in headfirst. “Please. Be blunt.”
“Get over yourself,” she said firmly, her eyes fixed on his. She was intensely serious. It was a command. It was an order, and it floored him.
“Whoa,” he said, holding up his hands, surprised by the crassness of her comment. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that it’s really narcissistic of you to think you caused her death,” she continued in the same strong voice that left no confusion about how she felt.
“How is that narcissistic?”
“Jack,” she said, as she slid back into full shrink mode again. “You took her to the mountains. You brought her to a safe place for her. You gave her bad news in the most loving way possible, given the circumstances. You did the best you could and no one the whole world over would think an Olympic skier couldn’t handle that run,” she said, giving voice to his own justifications. That is why he’d taken Aubrey to Breckenridge. He’d thought he was giving her a safe landing. Could it be that he was right? That he had? That the rest was simply—
“It’s called luck,” she continued, filling in the questions that were in his head. “It’s called a risk. You didn’t cause her death, and you need to get that out of your head right now.”
With her words, he felt the heavy weight lift. He didn’t know it until now, but he had been seeking absolution. He had wanted to be washed clean of his regret. He’d needed to hear that sometimes, terrible things happen, and you don’t cause them because of what you said fifteen minutes before. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t say the hard things.
“So we’re okay then?” he asked, the world seeming to come into focus again. The sun dared to shine through the window, the sounds of an early Paris morning floating into the room. They could have their croissants, get a coffee, go to a museum, find a secret nook . . .
She laughed once, then shook her head. “Not so fast.”
“Wait. You just said you understood,” he said, furrowing his brow. He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t bear it. She was his anchor. She was his sanity.
“I do understand. I understand as a therapist. I understand as a professional. But as a woman who loves you? It’s a lot harder. I understand in my head, but my heart wants to retreat,” she said, placing her hand on her chest, already shielding her own heart from him. From the way he could wield malice without even trying, apparently. “And not simply because of what you told me. Because I don’t want to be part of a pattern. I don’t want to be the next woman you care for, but don’t love. I know you were only doing what you learned. But I’ve been putting myself on the line for far too long. This isn’t separate for me any longer, Jack. I wish it were. I truly wish I didn’t feel all that I do for you. But it happened. I fell in love with you, and I need to really think about whether I want to keep putting myself out there when you’re not even sure if you know how to love,” she said, reaching across the table, and grasping his hands. “I have given you my whole heart, all of my body, and everything in my soul. And I have never felt so wanted. But I need to be loved.”
“But Michelle, you are. I swear,” he said, wanting desperately to convince her, but failing, judging from the way she winced, as if his words had wounded her. They sounded weak even to him. You are was not how you told a woman how you felt. “Let me rephrase that,” he said, wishing it wasn’t so damn hard just to say it.
She stood up, smoothed out her shirt, and held up a hand. “I’m going out for the day. Just to walk. To be alone.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, his heart racing with worry.