The Break-Up Retreat(64)

I close the door behind me and sit down. I look around, mentally comparing the state of the office to what I saw last night.

Strangely, by now, it looks no less menacing in the daylight.

“I’d like my car keys and my cell phone.” After a second, I add “Please.”

Martina just smiles.

“Do you want to take off your jacket?” she asks, as though it’s a question and not a command, adding, “It’s wet. I wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

I can’t find a reason not to, so I shrug out of my jacket, leaving it hanging over the back of the chair. One sleeve begins to drip onto the floor, a dull, rhythmic sound that ties into the drumming of the rain onto the ceiling.

“So,” Martina says, “how are you feeling?”

I shake my head.

“Thank you for asking. But we don’t need to talk about my feelings today. I just want to go home.”

Martina tilts her head, ever so slightly, her smile remaining, slim and closed, on her lips.

“Why is that?” she asks me.

“Does it matter?” I shoot back.

Doctor Martina sighs. It’s not the frustrated sigh of one who hasn’t received an answer to a question; it’s the disappointed sigh of a parent whose child is misbehaving.

“Of course it matters, Isobel.” She’s playing at being the ever-patient parental figure, again. “I was expecting something like this, to be honest.”

“You were expecting for me to want to leave?” I ask.

Martina leans forward over her desk, resting her elbow on the leather-clad surface, her hands clasped together as though in soft prayer.

Everything about her, I see now, is designed to seem soft: the casual, though immaculate, clothing, the toned-down makeup. But behind it all, there is something sharp, a razor without a handle.

“You know, Isobel,” she begins, “our lives are just repeating patterns. We learn them from an early age, and then we keep doing the same dance, over and over again, trying to figure out where we are going wrong, never wondering if the dance itself might be the problem.”

“I’m not here for therapy,” I say, and Martina laughs.

“Oh,” she tilts her head. “But of course you are. Do you know why therapy works?”

I try to protest, but she keeps talking over me until her voice drowns mine out and swallows it.

“Therapy works because you keep repeating the same patterns with your therapist that you do in your other relationships,” Martina tells me. “And so of course you’ve decided you want to leave now.”

“This is not about patterns.”

“Yes, it is.” Martina’s lips stretch in what’s not quite a smile. “You’re doing what you always do. You let me and your fellow patients in, let us peek behind the curtain, and now you have decided to cut and run. That’s your pattern, isn’t it? You thought this was going to be some cute little retreat where you wouldn’t be challenged, and instead you found that it’s hard, and painful, and risky, and now you want to run, instead of seeing it through.”

“I’m not leaving because of that.” I keep my voice steady. This is not an argument; I am not open to being convinced otherwise. There is nothing she can say that will change my mind, because I am not Isobel Anderssen, and I am ready to go back to being myself.

“So tell me,” Martina encourages me sweetly, “why do you want to leave?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I refuse to play. “I want to go, so I am going. Today.”

“You’re right.” Martina nods, as though we are agreeing with each other. “It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what you’re telling yourself is the reason. We both know it wouldn’t be the truth. You’re lying to yourself, because you don’t want to admit what you are doing.”

I stare at her.

“I’m—”

She interrupts me. It’s as though I haven’t said anything at all.

“Every single relationship”—Martina leans forward over the table—“Every single time someone gets close, you have to push them away. Just run away, and never let anyone see you for who you really are. Where does it end, Isobel? Aren’t you tired of being alone? Don’t you want to get to relax into something? Don’t you want to let go? Wouldn’t it feel good to take your walls down, to trust someone, to trust that they want the best for you? Don’t you want to get to be soft , for once? Yielding ?”

Her mouth stretches against the last words, lingering on the last syllable.

“I am not running away.” I can feel the agitation taking hold, just like it did when I was a child; that feeling of not being heard, not being treated like my own person.

She’s doing it on purpose.

“Of course you do, Isobel. You’ve been running ever since you were a child. Because if you stop, you’re frightened of what might catch you. Isn’t that right?”

Her teeth glimmer white in the soft light from the Tiffany lamp on the desk. Straight and sharp.

For a moment, last night flashes before my eyes.

Running through the trees, in the night. Hearing someone whispering my name.

A familiar voice I couldn’t quite place. A scent on the wind.

Could it have been her? Could it have been Martina?