“Can you tell me a little bit more about what was going on that day?” Jay asked.
Cassidy realized that she was holding in her breath, and exhaled slowly. “I had a meeting with my boss, and I knew it wasn’t going to go well,” Cassidy said.
“Why is that?”
“Because my performance hasn’t been meeting his expectations,” she said as a sense of shame filled her. “I don’t know why it’s so hard. I love what I do. It’s just that ever since . . . since . . . ” She felt herself shrinking into the chair. Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure Jay could hear it. “And then I found a Christmas party invitation in my mailbox, and it was this reminder that Pete was really . . . gone . . . ” she said, quickly wiping her cheeks with her fingertips. “And I started thinking about all the Christmases and birthdays and summers and . . . ” She sniffed.
More tears leaked from her eyes, and she grabbed a clump of tissues. “We were engaged,” she added. Her mind flashed to a future image of Pete kissing her on the top of a mountain ablaze with wildflowers while a small group of friends cheered.
Jay hadn’t moved but she sensed something change in his energy. “I’m so sorry, Cassidy,” he said in a voice so rich with compassion she broke down.
Images of the agonizing funeral, of driving to Seattle, feeling like a zombie, for the memorial, and ordeal of the party pulled her out of Jay’s office. She saw Pete doing little things like brushing his teeth or mowing their lawn or sipping coffee. What was she going to do now that Pete was gone? All of the things they used to do together would be so different now. And she was so afraid of starting over, alone. She hadn’t been able to go to Mt. Baker with Pete’s friends after the memorial, even though she should have. Would she ever be able to ski with them again or would it always hurt? The idea of it terrified her and also pulled at her with a longing so powerful she had to clench her teeth. She saw her skis disappearing into the deep snow then surfacing, her body floating, but instead of expecting to find Pete in her peripheral vision the space around her was empty. She would no longer hear his hoots of joy and taste his snowy kisses in the lift line. This swirl of emotions spun through her as the tears poured out and her head thumped hard. After what felt like a long time, Cassidy felt empty. She wiped her eyes and sat back. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Losing someone we love is terribly painful, Cassidy,” Jay said. “You have every right to feel the way you do.”
Cassidy risked another glance at Jay, unsure what to think of this.
“I’m wondering,” Jay said, shifting slightly in his chair. “How do you get through the day carrying this weight? Is there anything that helps?”
“Beer,” she blurted, a harsh laugh escaping her lips.
“Beer is great,” Jay replied. “It contributes to bone density, improves cholesterol, and because of the fermentation, it’s practically health food.”
Cassidy caught the twinkle in his eyes, and felt this bit of warmth move through her. She took a steadying breath. “Probably not at the volume I’m consuming,” she said. She had gone through two bottles of Scotch since returning from San Francisco, and her recycle bin had been considerably heavier the last few times she had wheeled it to the curb.
“Hmm, tell me why you think so.”
Cassidy picked at a worn spot in the knee of her jeans. “I couldn’t have gotten through the memorial without it. But I also had the Xanax onboard, and for the first time, I felt calm, and sort of, well, not happy, exactly, but sort of okay, for a little bit,” she said, wishing there was some way to experience that relief again without the cost or the risk. “It didn’t hurt as much,” she said, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. “The memorial was so awful. There were so many people there, most of them I didn’t even know, and I had to just sit there and listen to them all tell stories, and everyone kept looking at me,” she finished with a shaky breath.
“This makes total sense, Cassidy,” Jay said. “You’re suffering so much, and you had to be so brave—without any help. Things like Xanax and alcohol do the work of numbing the pain. Wanting that relief is completely understandable.”
Cassidy began to cry again. Jay didn’t know about Analeise Jewel or how the room seemed to spin and her head felt fuzzy or how she invited Mark into Emily’s bed.
“How did you feel after that?”
“Like shit,” Cassidy said.
Jay sipped from his mug, and then placed it back on the side table. “One of the biggest challenges we all face is that in seeking ways to cope, we sometimes do things that help us in the short term but that can hurt us in the long run, and can actually keep us from getting better. Drinking numbs the pain, sure, but after it wears off, the pain comes right back, plus it’s compounded by the grief you’re suffering in the moment. So you wake up not only feeling like shit, but with the grief you stuffed away plus the new grief that’s surfaced.”
Cassidy dug further into the weak spot in her jeans, which was now a small hole.
“Cassidy, can I step out of my role as a therapist for a minute here?” he said.
She looked up sharply, alerted by this change in direction.
Jay’s eyebrows knitted together and he was leaning forward slightly. “Because as a therapist I would never tell you what to do, but
