I nod and get my phone.
20
I arrive at Dr. Greyson’s office on a cold February day. The clouds hang low in the sky and the world is so gray and colorless, it feels like it’s in mourning. The trees on campus stand stark naked, without a leaf in sight. It is on days like these that I miss the sunshine of Southern California the most. I miss the mountains and the endless blue sky. I try to remember what it’s like to not feel claustrophobic all the time—from both the tall buildings and the low sky, but I can’t. It has been more than a month since I’ve been home and a month of clouds and grayness makes it hard to remember anything. Sitting in Dr. Greyson’s waiting room, I wonder if I can even make it here four years.
“I feel like this weather is making everything in my life worse,” I complain to Dr. Greyson.
She’s wearing a gray pantsuit and black heels. I glance down at her feet. A little bit of her olive skin is exposed between the end of her shoe and her pant leg. It’s barely twenty degrees out and I wonder if she wears these shoes outside or if she has boots or sneakers hiding somewhere underneath her desk, which she changes into on her way home.
“What do you mean?” Dr. Greyson asks.
“It’s just so cold and gray. It has been like this for more than a week and it just makes me so depressed. I don’t know if I can live here for four years.”
“Well, February does tend to be the coldest month. Luckily, it’s also the shortest month,” Dr. Greyson says.
I look at her. There’s an unusual amount of pep and optimism in her voice, but it quickly disappears when she finally realizes what I’m really saying.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Alice?” she asks, pursing her bright red lips. They are large and perfectly lined. I wonder how she gets her lipstick to stick the whole time. If I wear lipstick to one of these sessions, it’s usually completely gone by the end, but hers remains intact, bright and perfect, as if she had just applied it.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s just something I’ve been thinking of recently.”
“What?”
“Transferring.”
“Transferring out of Columbia? To go where?” Dr. Greyson asks.
“I don’t know yet. I was sort of thinking of University of Southern California. I got in there before. It’s back in LA. It’s warm there. My parents live there.”
Dr. Greyson shakes her head. “This isn’t just about the weather, is it?” she asks.
“Well, sort of. I mean, it’s hardly ever gray and bleak like this there and it’s never this cold. Maybe I’d have a better perspective about everything if I went there.”
“Perhaps.” Dr. Greyson shrugs. “But I don’t want you to discount everything that you have been through recently. That takes a toll.”
Ah, everything. That’s one way of putting it. I don’t say anything for a while.
“So, you haven’t told me how you’re feeling about this. Your marriage to Dylan?”
“Accidental marriage,” I correct her. The accident part is supposed to make me feel better about this, like it’s not all my fault. Even though I know it is.
“Okay, accidental marriage.”
“I don’t know how to feel about it. I just feel lost. We got back last night and Hudson was there in the living room and I felt like such a liar.”
“Why?”
“Because we were hanging out and we were both acting like his friends, but we’re not. Friends don’t do this to friends. They don’t get married and not tell him. Friends don’t marry your roommate and not tell you. Friends don’t marry your girlfriend and not tell you. We’re both such frauds.”
“It must be difficult,” Dr. Greyson says.
“On top of all that, we’re still technically on a break. What I mean is that we’re not broken up and now I’m married to his roommate. I just don’t know what to do. I need to get out of this marriage as soon as possible.”
“When is that happening?”
“I don’t know exactly, but soon. Dylan’s looking into getting an annulment. I really hope we can do that.”
I hate to admit it, but it’s actually kind of nice to come and talk to Dr. Greyson. Juliet always has some sort of jokes or witty comments to offer, but Dr. Greyson is an unbiased third party. She never makes fun of me or mocks the situation, no matter how absurd. She simply listens and nods. I do, however, wish that she offered a little bit more advice. When I first started coming here, I thought she would. I’ve never been to therapy and I thought that she would give me the right answer and send me on my way. She doesn’t. About the only thing that she does is give me one or two cryptic little sayings that could mean a number of things, but it doesn’t really amount to any actual advice since they often require me to think about what I’ve done even more (and that leaves me even more confused about the whole thing).
“What about your parents?” she suddenly asks out of the blue.
“What about them?”
“Are you going to tell them about Dylan?”
“No! Absolutely not.” I stare at her as if she had lost her mind. “They’d freak out and besides, I don’t want anyone to find out about this. If I could not tell Hudson about this at all, it would be even better.”
“But you just told me a few minutes ago that you want to tell him. That you feel like a fraud by keeping this from him.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know what I want. I want to just turn back time and have none of this happen.”
“We all want that sometime, Alice, but unfortunately, we can’t have that.”
We don’t speak for close
