The Solitude of Passion (37 page)

The next afternoon, under a dull steel sky, Max and I arrive at Dr. Van Guard’s office together. Mitch is already here. Max played big man on campus yesterday, ad nauseam, and drove Mitch into the icy Pacific for the rest of the evening.

Everything in me quivers at the sight of them in the office together—such a small space—for damn sure it doesn’t feel safe. Just seeing the two of them together convicts me—makes me feel like a criminal for giving in to Max yesterday. I want Mitch to feel secure, and now I’ve rattled everything. I’m so afraid he’ll leave me, find someone else. The thought of Mitch with someone else would cut me deeper than him dying ever could.

Dr. Van Guard stands briefly as we take a seat.

There must be something that can bond the three of us, something that can take the acidity from our everyday lives. The kids perhaps, but, more than likely, we’re headed for a lifetime of misery—competition, and heartbreak, not necessarily in that order.

“Lee, how did the dates work out for you?” Dr. Van Guard initiates his placid smile. His silver hair shines against the backdrop of the dark-stained walls like lightning.

“They were great.” I fold my hands in my lap and bounce them. There’s no way in hell I’m going into detail.

“Go ahead and share a highlight from each.”

“Highlight?” I don’t want to make Mitch feel bad for not buying me real estate. “With Mitch it was a tidal wave of memories. He took me somewhere symbolic of the past, and it felt like we were transported back in time.” Those erotic kisses come tumbling to the forefront, and I take in a deep breath as if I were soaking them in all over again.

Mitch sweeps his hand over my knee, happy at my interpretation of our one-on-one time.

“Excellent.” Dr. Van Guard plucks off his glasses. “And with Max?”

Max. Our hormones exploded like a meth lab, and we had sex that made the field rabbits blush, right there in the open.

“We had lunch by a stream.” I don’t add anything to it.

“Nice.” He looks the two of them over. “Now from your perspectives. Mitch?”

Shit.

Mitch clears his throat, leans forward. “It was quite possibly the best date Lee and I have ever had. We shared an intimacy we hadn’t in a long time. I look forward to doing it again.”

“And, Max?”

I don’t like this back and forth crap. I don’t like the way the doctor is carelessly wielding kerosene and matches in the fireworks factory of my twisted love life.

Max gives a quick glance over at Mitch. “It was quite possibly the best date Lee and I have ever been on.” He mocks him with his tone. “And, we
shared an intimacy
we
hadn’t in a long time. Well, at least since a few nights ago. I most definitely look forward to doing it again.” He pulls his lips into a hard line and keeps his focus locked on Dr. Van Guard, not a single glance in my direction. It makes me wonder if I was just a “get,” something to win and hold over Mitch when he got the chance.

It’s like a noxious fume goes off, and no one dares acknowledge it. I can feel the pressing weight of Mitch’s sadness, it makes me want to cut out my heart and offer it to him on a platter. I’ve reduced myself to nothing more than a street whore. A part of me wants to say something hurtful to Max, tell him that I slept with Mitch even though I didn’t, and sadly enough it makes me wish I did.

“Lee.” Dr. Van Guard flops his pen onto the desk. “Which of these men would you like to have a one-on-one with first?”

“Mitch.” As much as he hates me at this moment, I need to rectify myself to him.

I don’t even bother looking at Max. He’s ignorant if he doesn’t know how fucking pissed I am right now—how I’m not really concerned at the moment whether or not I break his heart in two or four or six hundred pieces.

I listen for the click of the door before I fall to my knees in front of Mitch.

A jet stream of apologies funnel out, one after another. They come out hoarse, barely discernable, lost in a river of tears.

Mitch remains motionless. There’s no way to judge how much I’ve disappointed him. It takes another few good seconds before he gets down beside me. He doesn’t bother with words, just pulls me in and holds me. I hate this. I can’t stand what we’ve become—what my love for Max has reduced us to. I never set out to hurt anybody, and now I can’t seem to stop.

“It’s okay,” he whispers, pressing his lips to my ear.

“Lee, Mitch.” Dr. Van Guard speaks just above a whisper, coaxing us back into our seats. Mitch grabs a box of tissues off the desk and sets it on my lap.

“Mitch, what’s going through your mind right now?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to verbalize it. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Anybody, being me.

“You don’t have to worry about hurting me,” I whisper. “I’ve already done that myself.” I’ve inserted the sharp blade of grief into that narrow space between my soul and spirit—the secret place only God once had the power to divide.

“Lee?” Dr. Van Guard’s ears peak back. “Anything you’d like to share?”

“Yes.” I straighten in Mitch’s arms and touch his cheek. “I choose Mitch. If he’ll take me, I want to be with Mitch.”

Mitch

“Me?” I want to clarify in the event she said Max, and my brain manipulated it to sound better. I was hoping to hear those words a couple nights ago, but after the picture Max just painted, I think I need her to reiterate.

“You.” Her glacial blue eyes pulsate in pools of watery tears.

“Me,” it comes out with relief this time. I dive a kiss over her, not really interested in the fact we have an audience or that the good doctor keeps tapping his pen like it’s his new favorite song. We don’t need to say anything else the entire time we’re here, except maybe to Max. He can be in charge of the guest book at our wedding. Hate to leave him out in the cold entirely.

Dr. Feel Good clears his throat. “Lee, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk a little of how to go about this.”

For once, I welcome his interruption.

She pulls back and adjusts herself, giving me a mournful smile as if she already regretted her decision.

I keep an arm slipped tight around her waist, my eyes glued on hers. I can’t believe I have Lee back. Max killed me with his sucker punch, and it was Lee who resuscitated me with her beautiful words.

“I can’t tell him.” Lee shakes her head at the doctor. “Maybe you can?”

“No.” He gives a soft chuckle as though this were impossible. “This needs to be handled a little more delicately, and I’m not sure if in the office, with Mitch present, is the right environment. I commend you for making a decision, and so quickly at that, but I hardly think this is the venue. He might feel as though we’re all ganging up on him, and it might sponsor a whole host of volatile feelings. It could get ugly fairly quickly, and there are children involved.”

The color bleeds from her cheeks. Lee was never one to run toward confrontation. It was always an inside joke between the two of us if she ever got angry at anyone she could always give them the “wrath of Lee,” which was nothing short of an apology. I can’t really envision her sticking the verbal pitchfork in his chest, twisting it with satisfaction like a rotary blade.

“I’ll tell him,” I volunteer. Be glad to.

“No.” They both say in unison.

It was more of a tongue-in-cheek offer on my part, but I can see why Lee and Dr. Van Guard aren’t exactly as giddy as I am at the moment.

He leans in. “Before Max is apprised of the situation, I’d like to present what I think is the best case scenario.” Dr. Van Guard points over to me. “Mitch, I recommend that you and Max patch up your grievances—preferably right here with me before Lee breaks the news. We could put in a few extra sessions this week and at least give it the old college try. You’ll be sharing children for the rest of your lives. You’ll be doing yourselves and your families a huge favor by getting off on the right foot. Now, you
can
do this after Max has been informed of Lee’s decision, however, I don’t think he’ll be quite as open or happy to cooperate.”

A smile twitches on my lips. I love how we’re all privy to this, and Max is stone cold in the dark with an ax ready to fall over his unhappily married neck. The thought of Lee and me holding a secret so big it’s guaranteed to shatter his universe makes me float on air.

“Yes, by all means. I’ll patch things up with Max. Let’s have it out. One week you said?” I’ll have Kyle draw up the divorce papers by Sunday.

“Yes. If your schedules permit, just a few visits.”

“Bring him in.”

I’m going to wrap up this relationship so fast heads are going to spin. But, if I come across too eager to restore some semblance of a friendship, he might get suspicious and set us back ten weeks—ten
years
. I’d better go along with whatever Van Guard’s got up his sleeve. I’ll go along for the ride, answer all the questions, so long as the road leads back to my wife.

Max comes in and settles next to Lee, plants a kiss on her lips before she can get a chance to field it. I’m sure that’s how he does everything with her. An entire slew of pornographic images crop up and tattoo themselves in my brain.

“Max, we’re going to keep Mitch with us if you don’t mind. I think now’s a good time to pull back the curtain a decade or so and explore the friendship you once had together.”

“Not a problem.” Max shifts in his seat because he knows this shit just got real. He searches Lee’s face for clues, but she doesn’t offer any.

“Tell me again,” he addresses Max. “You were childhood friends all the way up until high school. When did you feel the rift?”

“I went away that summer to visit family back East.” He presses out his dimples at me. “When I came home it was like I had the plague. Mitch had a girlfriend,
Lee
, but I still wasn’t sure why he stopped talking or hanging out with me.”

“Good.” Dr. Van Guard taps his pen like sounding a gavel. “Mitch, what happened that summer that made you give Max the cold shoulder?”

Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. Hashing out old problems will only point a shiny white spotlight over what really happened, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going there.

Both Lee and Max lean in and stare me down. I have no intention of sharing my side of the story. If I did, it would drag this whole nightmare out longer than needed—indefinitely if Lee finds out what I did and why.

“I was your average teenager—moody.” I flick a finger in the air as if it were gospel.

“Sure.” Dr. Van Guard rocks back in his chair. “So what was the logic? Moody quantifies a lot of actions, but to end a serial relationship seems like an unlikely excuse.”

Serial? Sounds more natural attaching it to killer than relationship, although killing my relationship with Lee is what Max set out to do from the beginning, so it only makes sense.

“I had a girlfriend.” I try to shrug off the conversation. “I didn’t hang out with too many guy friends after that. Lee had a way of monopolizing all my time.” I tweak her on the knee in jest.

“I’d call you on the phone, and you’d hang up as soon as you heard my voice.” Max cranes his neck to get a better look at me. “More than once.”

Lee shoots me a death ray as if I’d ran over a litter of kittens just to piss Max off. Shit—Shepherd is going to draw out all of my past offenses and swing the pendulum back in his corner before we get off the couch.

“Bad connection.” It comes out stale. “Listen, I’m sorry. I was a jerk. Blame it on too much too soon for not giving a rip about the people around me. My head went numb when my dad died. It took me around the block emotionally so, please”—I lock onto his baby blues and hang on for dear life—“forgive me.” Nothing but word vomit. Take it and run with it, Max. We can hug it out later. I can sleep in my own damn bed before midnight if you cooperate.

Max locks me down in an unrelenting stare. He doesn’t trust me. He smells something rancid, and all arrows point to the bullshit that just flew from my lips. I’m going to blow us back into the dark ages if I don’t bring this down to reality right this minute, shoot us off this pink fluffy cloud I’ve lifted us to.

“There’s something else, but I don’t want to say it.” There. At least some of the truth escaped. Max can call off that inner siren and stop scowling at me. It’s going to be a long life, and like it or not, Max Shepherd is going to be a very real part of it. I may as well dump out the past and see if there’s anything salvageable to colonize a relationship with.

Max

I look from Lee to Mitch. Why exactly is he hanging around in my session again? I’m pretty sure we’re not going to high five our way out of this one.

“Max?” Dr. Van Guard observes me. He looks intent as though I’m some new species, and he’s unsure of my spontaneous behavior. “It’s okay to share your thoughts.”

Doubtful. “Lee, is this some fantasy of yours for Mitch and I to get along?”

“Fantasy?” She looks insulted. “We’re raising children together. We’re going to be spending lots of important milestones elbow to elbow.”