Unethical Love

I’m in love with my therapist. And I know it’s wrong, but it feels so right. She listens to me more intently than anyone in my life ever has. She helps me understand myself better. I feel like a totally different person from before I started to see her to now. She helped me get over my ex-girlfriend completely. She’s so beautiful. She’s helped me cut myself off from the toxic people in my life. She’s mysterious. She’s helped me restructure all my relationships. She’s so good for me. I’m in love with her.

I waited in the lounge before my appointment with Savannah, she was four minutes over with her other patient. Five. Finally, he walked out of the room, smiling, his fat wet lips still glistening in the dim lighting. This guy’s a total wreck. The hum of the air conditioner made me stir in my seat. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about before and that drove me crazy. I wondered if they were hugging goodbye behind the closed door. She’s not allowed to do that.

I walked in after him and catch a whiff of his odor. Axe body spray. I could never forget the stench emanating from those locker rooms after gym class. He had just applied it in the car before his session; I was sure of it. I couldn’t imagine what he smelled like before he sprayed a heavy layer on, or even worse, if he wasn’t even using to mask a smell and he really thought it wasn’t a good scent. I used a Prada cologne. My mother always told me the way you present yourself was incredibly important, while I still talked to her.

Savannah sat in a lounge chair angled not quite directly at the couch I sat down on. The room was warm. She was wearing a sleeveless white blouse, professional, but she looked incredible. Not that I’d ever tell her that. I took off my jacket when I sat down and greeted her.

“Hi Benji, I’m sorry we went a little over.”

“Ah no worries, the lounge is nice.”

“Thank you for waiting. You’re looking very nice today, do you have a big event?”

“Just this,” I said. “I feel like I have a lot to tell you Dr. Richardson.”

“I can’t wait to listen,” she said with a smile. She liked to be called Dr. Richardson, but I never saw a degree hanging up on her wall. I didn’t care. She was my personal doctor. She’s made me all better.

I laid down on the couch and she sat on the chair across from me. I told her all about how my parents wouldn’t stop calling me, and how my sister had shown up to my apartment twice within the last week.

“I’m very sorry Benji, how does this make you feel?”

“I don’t know… It feels like they actually want to help me, but I can’t tell if they’re just lying to me to get something out of me.”

“This behavior feels a little obsessive. Maybe think about setting more solid boundaries. If you don’t think that they have space in your life, make that clear to them.”

“I know, I know. It’s just that my dad keeps leaving voice mails saying how he wants me to take over his company, and that him and my mom miss me. I don’t know, it would be nice to at least talk to them a little,” I said.

“It sounds like he’s trying to fit you into a little box. You’re so much more special than that.” As she said this, Savannah got up and moved to the chair closest to the couch. She sat down and took my glasses off my face, smiling at me and putting the glasses on the side table.

“I feel like I should still call him,” I said, smiling at my loss of vision. She placed her hand on my head and started running her fingers along my scalp.

“You don’t owe him anything. You’ve been doing so much better since we started having these sessions. I’d hate for you to throw away all your progress. Everything we’ve built together,” she said as she frowned slightly, and took her hand away from my head.

It felt horrible when she took her hand away. All of the warmth left my body. My she took some of my soul away in her fingertips. I needed her hand back. I needed the missing piece of me that she fills.

 “You’re right. I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll block his number. I don’t need him interfering with my life,” I said.

  “That’s more like it. You’ve been doing so so good, Benji,” she said and smiled. She brought her hand back to my scalp and started lightly tracing patterns with her fingernails.

…

 My life was completely ruined shortly after that. My sister caught me in the parking lot of my apartment complex one day after work. She let herself into my apartment and scolded me about ghosting our family. She asked me where I’ve been and why it feels like I’ve changed. She told me they love me. That was so hard to believe. It went against everything Savannah had be telling me. I thought she was going to ask me for money, or to move back home where they’d keep me forever, but she didn’t. She just begged me to call occasionally, and text back when I had the chance. That wasn’t too much to ask.

 I let her sleep over on my couch, I think she was scared I was going to move out that night and change my number or something. We ended up talking about Savannah, and how she’s been such a light in my life. I didn’t tell her she was my therapist. I knew that would get her in a lot of trouble, and then I’d lose her.

That night after I went to sleep, my sister rifled through my things and searched up Savannah’s name online. She ended up connecting the dots and called the office first thing in the morning, asking for the head of the company.

I lashed out at her for that. She had taken everything I love and everything I know and thrown it away.

…

Dear Savannah,

I miss you like the flowers miss the sun. I miss you like the earth misses the rain. I miss you like a phone misses its charger. I miss you.

I’m sorry again that my sister got you fired. I saw your face on the news. You’re being investigated. This is all so wrong. I know you did nothing wrong. The police keep asking to speak to me. I won’t do it, you told me not to. I want to though, I want to tell them all the best parts about us. I want to tell them how much you’ve helped me, and how you’ve been the light of my life. I’ll make it sound like you’re an angel. That would be so easy because you are an angel. I saw you had a husband. I never saw a ring on your hand. It’s okay, I forgive you. I know you only really cared about me. We have such a special connection.

Please write me back. Your phone goes to voicemail and my texts don’t send and I whenever I go to your house the lights are off and there’s no car in the driveway. I’m sorry I looked online for your address, I just couldn’t bare not being with you. I need to keep talking to you or I feel too vulnerable. I don’t know what to think or how to think without you.

I miss your fingers in my hair, I miss the way you let me take my shoes off before lying on the couch, I miss the way the sunlight came through those big windows and made your red hair bright orange. I miss how you could turn a bad day into the best day ever. I miss the smell of your perfume. I miss how we felt like we’ve known each other for forever.

I hope you get this. I’m lost without you. I’ll write over and over until I finally see your face again.

Love, deeply, forever, always, Benji.