In therapy

We get to the point where he was drunk in the shower, 

And I pause.

She looks at me, so I begin to study my hands.

I haven’t gotten my nails done in awhile, they’re short and I resist the urge to put my thumbnail in my mouth.

I can feel her observing me —

But I’m thinking of that moment and what he said to me and I wonder if telling her makes his accusations true.

I can feel myself drifting away from the couch in my mind when I tell her how I opened the shower door.

The bottle of alcohol sat on the edge of the bathroom sink.

I undressed and stepped inside,

Trying not to remember all times I had softly washed his hair or written messages on the steamed glass.

The softness of my body, its vulnerability. 

I try to coax him out 

but he is angry.

“You don’t care about me or love me,” he says.

“Okay,” I say.

“You don’t, you just want to feel like you’re a good person. You’re such a good fucking person,” he says. 

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s just get you into the bed and I’ll leave you alone.”

When he does get out,

He steps on my clothes by the shower door.

They’re wet when I get dressed and I’m shivering when he asks me to leave, so I do.

But when I get to the screen door he’s asking me to stay — “I hate that I do this,” he says. 

To me, it’s close enough to an apology.

And as I would for anyone I love, I stay.

But by morning, he’s asking me to go once more

And when I’m surprised he tells me

“I didn't tell you that I loved you, just that I didn’t want to be alone.”

I don’t have much to say because it’s true.

“That must hurt. To have someone you love assume that your actions weren’t out of care,” she says. 

I shrug, look at my nails again. 

“It’s okay if he doesn’t think I’m a good person. Not everyone is going to think I’m a good person.”

I don’t tell her how I still called him once I got home to beg him not to do this all again.

All those other times hoped he’d come back to me,

Believing in some misguided notion that there was some invisible purple string tying us together.

Knowing now, I’m just the remedy to empty space that needs filling.