Lib Novel Page 50
“She’s had a big influence on you.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Jeffrey snorted. “Sorry. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. That’s just…yeah. Yeah. She has.”
“And you miss her.”
“I…don’t know if I miss her so much as I miss knowing what to expect. She was predictable. At least…until the end. I knew what she wanted from me, and who she wanted me to be. It was hard at first, but over time it got easier to be the Jeffrey she wanted.”
“And not Markus.”
“I stopped being Markus the day she faked my death,” Jeffrey answered easily. Somehow that sounded less painful than his other truths. Like this was something he’d come to terms with a long time ago. My thoughts spun. Like seeds in the dirt, the truth of what I’d learned began to bud. “I don’t even…I don’t even know who “he” is anymore.”
“He, as in Markus. You view him as a separate entity.”
“He is. Was. I am.” Jeffrey obviously tried to backtrack, but failed. “I just… Behind the person I built to survive Lydia I don’t really know…who or what I am anymore. The only part of me that ever felt good or real, was the part of me that was Blair’s big brother. But even he doesn’t need me anymore.”
My heart ached for him.
“When you had sex,” the doctor started, “did you feel as unsure as you do now?”
Jeffrey was silent once again.
Silent for so long I wasn’t certain he’d answer her at all.
“No,” his voice shook. “That was the first…first time in a long time where I just felt like…me?”
“Were you paranoid?”
“No.”
“And you were present, in the moment.”
“Yes.” Jeffrey’s voice was soft as hummingbird’s wings. “I felt…real.”
“You felt real,” she repeated. “That’s good. That’s very good.”
He felt real.
He felt real.
He felt real.
Did that mean he often didn’t?
The thought saddened me. Especially because, to me, he’d felt larger than life since the first moment I met him. He was real in a way nothing ever had been.
The hunger I’d felt for him all these weeks suddenly softened. From lust, it morphed into the need to see him whole. To see him happy. To soothe him, to love him, to protect him till the day I couldn’t anymore.
“Did the date make you happy?” she asked in a gentle voice. “Does your dog make you happy?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey replied immediately.
“I think…you haven’t devoted enough of your new life to discovering the things that make you who you are,” she said. “You need to spend time pursuing the things that make you feel happy. I’m not saying, go out and have a bunch of riotous sex—but I do think you should take some time to really figure out who you are, and self-discovery is a big part of that.”
“Okay,” Jeffrey sucked in one last, broken breath.
“I also urge you to do your best to rely on someone else this week. Even if it’s just something simple and small. Try to let yourself go a little. Test your own boundaries. You might like the man you discover you are. And the people you love might surprise you.”
“Right,” Jeffrey laughed, letting out the breath he held in a quiet swoosh. “Rely on someone. Ha. Okay.”