Now for another excerpt from the forthcoming novel Love Stories - coming 2/14/2014. ================ Mona had to do something. Hearing Jeremy talk about his children—the love, the regret, the hope—it was too much for her. She was not just smitten; she was freefalling in love with this man. But the only way for it not to be creepy or unethical for them to be together would be if he were no longer her patient. She knew she should’ve ended her professional involvement with him the moment the attraction first began, but she just couldn’t. At first she couldn’t admit to herself that she would let herself be compromised, but as time passed she just couldn’t stand the possibility of not being able to see him again. So she couldn’t just send him away, but what could she do? “I could cure him?” she thought aloud, sitting in her office after their last session. “I could cure him!” she declared, more confident this time. Now other than a mild case of clinical depression and social anxiety disorder, that may have had more to do with his artistic nature than with any true psychological or physiological condition, there was really nothing wrong with Jeremy. He had been through a tough year, and it was going to take him a while to get his bearings back. He was just one of those people that lived in the past. He led with his heart and not his mind. He saw things through the rosy colored windows of hindsight and reminiscence, where everything looks better than it really was. And those quirks that he thought were holding him back from a happy, normal life were all the things that Mona had come to adore about him. She saw the past as a void filled with disappointment and pain, and he saw it as the greatest times gone by. She wanted to look back on parental failings and awkward teenaged experiences and broken hearts and see it as he saw it, as a great story or a chance for redemption. In her opinion, the only thing he really needed to let go off was the insecurity that those dastardly former lovers of his caused. That was, in fact, not her professional opinion but her biased personal one. But how? Mona wondered, tapping her pen on the legal pad atop her desk. How do I get him closure with people he doesn’t even talk to anymore? She thought maybe she could encourage him to reach out to his exes, but then she would risk him rejecting her advice and, by extension, her. Besides, in that scenario she would have no control over the events. She needed something else, some way to show Jeremy that he was better off without those women and they were better off without him. Too bad I can’t just bring them all here, she said to herself. Then a thought occurred. Why couldn’t I bring them all here? Mona lit up with what she considered a stroke of genius. She could bring them there. Jeremy’s birthday was approaching, as well as the release of his new book, and she could send out invitations for a party. He had already mentioned his ex-wife would be bringing the kids down for that weekend, so that’s one down. Natalie still lived in town so that would be easy. Mona could use her practice’s ample resources to send plane tickets to those far away, pretending to be from the publisher’s office, and claim they were specially invited VIPs. Then she would get them all in a room together and let them discuss the past, then bring Jeremy in, and let the combined fury of his collective romantic past loose on him. The perfect storm. After encountering all that, he would put away his memories and move on with his life. He would be upset with Mona, no doubt, but when she explained it was confrontational therapy designed to absolve him of all past connections and free him for his future, he would forgive her. They would stop being doctor and patient, and in a few months she’d casually run into him at the farmer’s market he mentioned he visits every Saturday morning, and she’d ask him out. And we’ll live happily ever after, she thought, with visions of wedding gowns dancing around in her mind.
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 02:37:09 +0000
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