Falling in Love (7 page)

Helen Hall said that she understood that Paul and I had gotten engaged and then broke up, all on the night of the accident. I nodded. She mentioned that she had spoken to Paul and had asked him to join us in counseling sessions but that he had refused.

“Counseling? What for? The lovelorn?”

She ignored my sarcasm. “It’s the law,” she said, with the cheerfulness now gone from her voice. Matter-of-factly, she added, “All accident victims have to undergo counseling, if there is reason to believe that they might have been trying to commit vehicular suicide.”

I stared at her. If she was going to ask me if I had been trying end my life, I would have had to say that I didn’t really know. I didn’t consciously aim my car at a tree. But maybe that was mostly because I was just too messed up to have thought of it. If I had, I just might have done it. But Helen didn’t ask me if I had been trying to end my life, and I didn’t offer an opinion.

Two days later, Anita asked me if I would like Paul to visit.

“He asked you that?” I wondered.

She shook her head. “He asked at the desk if you could have visitors and they said yes. He said he might stop back tomorrow.”

I panicked.

“You can ask that he not visit, if you want,” Anita assured me.

No! I suddenly wanted desperately to see Paul, to somehow tell him all the things that I had wanted to say the night of the accident, and to somehow believe that there could still be some hope for us. My panic was because I didn’t want him to see me like this.

“He already has,” Anita informed me. “From the first day that you came in.”

That didn’t matter now. If Paul was going to visit me, I wanted to look somewhat presentable. It might be my only chance to get him back.

The next morning before breakfast, I had Anita in my room putting on my makeup. The hospital grapevine apparently worked at warp speed and everyone seemed to know that the ex-fiancé was coming for a visit. I was getting so nervous that my head began to throb. I didn’t care. This might be my only chance and I didn’t want anything to go wrong.

Finally, after I had my makeup reapplied for the third time and my hair combed for the second time, Paul arrived. I put on as much of a smile as I could muster despite the pain shooting through my face.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” I replied.

He didn’t kiss me or shake my hand but he did carry a beautiful bouquet of flowers that he set on my nightstand. “I’m glad to see you are all right,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Paul looked nervous and then said, “I kind of felt like this was my fault.”

“It wasn’t,” I assured him. “I was mine.”

There was a long moment of awkward silence. All of the things that I had wanted to say to Paul to try to get him back now seemed so out of place. The Paul I had known and loved, the sweet, wonderful, giving Paul was gone and in his place was this nice but distant man who seemed to be making a social call because it was the polite thing to do. I had the distinct feeling that when he walked out of the hospital I would never see him again.

“Well,” he said, nervously. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

I was right. I knew I would never see him again, and I got scared. “A psychologist wants to talk to me,” I said.

Paul nodded. “I spoke to her.”

“Would you go with me?” I asked.

Paul shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

He got up, about to leave. I tried to think of something, anything, that might make him want to stay. I blurted out, “They took your ring.” That was definitely not what I had wanted to say. I added, “I asked them to give it to you.”

Paul nodded. “I know. They did.”

My mind raced, trying to find some version of the right words. S
ay anything,
I thought.
Just don’t let him leave. Or it will be forever.
I considered telling Paul that the near-fatal crash had been a life-changing experience for me, that it had somehow turned me into the girl that he thought I was before he had learned the truth. In a way, it was true. During the long hours that I had lain there, I realized that I had to change something. I couldn’t keep spinning around in this vicious circle. I knew that the next time, I would surely kill myself, one way or another. Maybe I really was suicidal. I certainly had spent about most of my life wishing I were dead, so it probably wouldn’t take too much to turn that into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

But as I stared up at Paul through my aching eyes I realized that if  I could somehow convince him to again consider being with me, then I might not be the only mental case in the room. He would have to be as messed up as me.

But I never managed to get out my near-death-experience-changed-me-into-a-sweet-girl BS story. After a few more pleasantries, Paul left and I was sure that I would never see him again. I was the only nut in the room after all. Paul had finally realized that his one true love wasn’t true to anyone, not to him, not to myself.

Three days later, the doctors felt that I was well enough to be released from the hospital on the condition that I return in two weeks for an examination and that I meet regularly with Helen. Helen said that she would try to get me into a halfway house for substance abusers. Since my accident had happened while I was intoxicated, she asked me if I had an alcohol problem. I replied that I had more of a “life problem.” This apparently wasn’t specific enough so she marked me down as an alcohol abuser and I got accepted into the halfway house.

I appreciated having a place to stay but I dreaded the meeting with Helen. I kept thinking about what would be my answer if she asked me whether or not I had attempted suicide. If I answered “yes,” I was afraid that I might end up in some hospital for who knows how long, so I decided that I would just say no. I figured I wouldn’t mention that my last thought before my near death was of relief that my life was over. That might be as dangerous as saying that I was trying to kill myself.

Two days later, I went to her office for my first counseling session and was shocked to see Paul there. Helen had encouraged him to come and he had finally agreed.

I think that Paul was as apprehensive about the meeting as I was but Helen didn’t ask either of us embarrassing questions. Instead, she asked how our relationship had begun. I think both Paul and I were relieved that we got to talk about the good times that we had enjoyed together.

Then Helen pressed me about the nights that I had gone out after being with Paul but I couldn’t talk about that horrible part of our relationship, that horrible part of me. Finally, Helen asked us to return in a few days.

After a polite goodbye to both of us, Paul quickly left, and I regretted not talking about my nights’ out. Not that I wanted to rehash my disgusting behavior but I had wanted to apologize to Paul. I felt terrible that I hadn’t gotten a chance to say that I was sorry and that if we got into some kind of therapy, I felt certain that I would never do anything like that again. I feared that Paul wouldn’t return for the next meeting where I could tell him this.

But three days later, Paul was beside me as I talked about the night I had gone to the party. I said that I had just gone for a drive to get some fresh air and that I had made a mistake by going to the party and then I had gotten drunk and didn’t quite remember what happened after that but obviously I knew it was something that I wasn’t proud of. But I was fairly sure that it wouldn’t happen again because I would never let myself get that drunk.

By the time I was done, my story didn’t even sound convincing to me, and I was sure that neither Paul nor Helen really believed this sanitized version. But what was I supposed to say? That I had read in some book that a good way to quit smoking was to smoke so many cigarettes that you got sick of them so I decided to try that with a hallway full of guys? I was supposed to tell the man I loved that this was why I wouldn’t let him touch me but instead I would let every man at some party do anything they wanted with me?

I did manage to turn to Paul and say, “I’m sorry. I would never do that again.” He didn’t look like he believed me and, actually, I didn’t really believe me. Not after I had told myself over and over that every time I did something like that, it was going to be the last time. There was never a last time.

On our third session, Helen asked us about our pasts. Paul admitted that a number of his relationships had been like ours and that he had a tendency to “pick losers.” He quickly looked at me like he regretted his words but he didn’t take them back. I didn’t protest.

Helen turned to me. “Have you had this kind of traumatic breakup before?” she asked.

I couldn’t look at Paul. I nodded and whispered softly, “Yes.”

Helen didn’t look surprised. She smiled and offered, “Maybe the next time will be the charm.”

That actually did seem semi-certain to me. I knew I couldn’t keep living through this agony. But I remained silent because I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing, she would lock me up and I just wanted to get out of Sparta forever.

“Do you think you were suicidal that night?”

So much for hoping that silence might keep me out of the loony bin. But then I thought that maybe I should try to be honest, that maybe I deserved to be locked up. “I don’t think I was consciously trying to kill myself but I was in such a mess that I certainly didn’t care if I died. Maybe that makes me suicidal.”

She smiled softly and shook her head, “Not necessarily. We all have moments when we wish we were dead. The difference is acting on that wish.”

Helen asked us to return the following Tuesday and Paul looked impatient. “We’ve been here three times now. Aren’t you ever supposed to say anything?”

Helen hesitated, looking perplexed. Finally, she said, “I think you both may need specialists.”

“Specialists?” asked Paul. “What for? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve jut been unlucky.”

“You think so?” replied Helen. “Your best friend tells you your girlfriend is sleeping around and that night you propose to her?”

“I thought he was kidding.”

“Does he usually—?

“—All right,” Paul cut her off. “All right!” He looked away.

“There is a twelve step program for codependents that I suggest that you try.”

Paul turned to glare at me. “What about her?”

“Well, I think Sherry might need another group,” she said, “for sex addicts.”

I stared at her in disbelief. I was appalled that she would call me a sex addict, that she thought I was
addicted
to sex, like I actually liked doing what I did when I went out like that. I hated it. But then I realized that most addicts wanted to quit what they were doing, whether it was drugs or alcohol, or, I guess, sex, only they couldn’t. Just like me.

Then I felt a little relieved. I had always felt alone, the only perpetually bad girl in the world, constantly wracked with guilt and pain. Now Helen was saying that there were not only other people like me but that there were so many they had a whole organization. And that they were meeting the following Sunday evening at a local church.

I hadn’t called my insurance company about the accident but it didn’t matter. Without telling me, Paul had fixed my car so that it was better than ever. Did he do it to give me more guilt? I didn’t even bother to try to figure that one out. But there I sat in a shiny car parked down the street from a lovely white-stone church surrounded by a lovely garden and a graveyard. I had arrived a half-hour early because I wanted to see what kind of people called themselves sex addicts. Most of them were men but there were a few women. I was surprised to see that they all basically looked normal, like the people you might see in a shopping mall.

I started to go in but then got scared. What if the new people had to introduce themselves or something? After waiting several minutes, I got the courage to go inside. I hated the idea that I might be associated with a group called sex addicts but I also wanted so badly to stop doing what I was doing that I was willing to do about anything.

I walked along the stone path to the side door and quietly slipped into a small meeting room. People sat in a circle of chairs listening to a well-dressed man. He seemed to be fighting back tears as he said, “I thought I couldn’t sink any lower. But that bottom line, too, had a trap door.”

I felt pangs of pain in my chest, just looking at his face, the intense agony. “Then I did hit bottom,” he continued. “When I molested my own step-daughter, my darling, defenseless, ten-year-old Amy.”

Suddenly, revulsion overcame me and I couldn’t breathe. I rushed back out the door and let it slam behind me. I stood outside fighting for air. I rushed back to my car and squealed out of there. I had gone several blocks before I finally stopped hyperventilating. I wasn’t sure what my problem was but I knew I was not one of those people. I would never do what that guy had done. Never! Whatever I was, I wasn’t a sex addict.

At our next meeting, I made sure Helen knew that. “I may have some problems,” I told her, “but I’m no sex addict. They’re perverted.”

Helen asked me to give it another try but I knew I was never going back. She asked Paul if he had gone to the codependents meeting and he shook his head. When the session was over, Helen said she was now confident that I wasn’t suicidal and that I would no longer have to see her. But she again recommended that both Paul and I seek therapy.