For Part 1 and Part 2.

The Sadness and Mr. Williams

I had lied.

Not about a lot, but a couple of little ones sprinkled through.  It made the story better if I left out a couple of parts.  Like not telling Barry I had already gone to Vegas for a lost weekend, and forgotton most of it.  Or like not telling the Doc that the last time I had seen her, technically, was when i had driven past her apartment accidentally on purpose one night.

Or telling the Doc that he was up to speed.  Here’s a tip, doctors don’t want to be up to speed; they want to investigate.  They want to discover.  They want to make it hurt.

They say that’s how the healing happens.

I say they’re sadistic.

---

“How did it feel when you saw her?”

I watched a yellow and blue sailboat pull into it’s mooring.  I repressed the urge to be a complete smart ass.  “Time stopped.  I wanted to throw up and scream and cry and all I could do was…nothing.”

“But how did you feel?”  He hadn’t looked up.

“I felt frozen.  I felt…what?”  He was shaking his head.  He finally looked up.

“Those aren’t feelings.  Those aren’t emotions.  Those are sensations and reactions.  What did you feel?”

Tricky bastard.  “Like I needed a drink?”  Smart ass had won the battle.

“And we’re back to avoidance.”

“Buildup,” I countered.

“You pay me by the hour.”

He had a point.  I breathed deeply.  “Fear.”  He wrote in his notepad.  “Anger.”  He looked up at me over the edge of his glasses without moving his head.  “And sadness.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Just the saddness.”

---

Once she walked away, I kept myself composed until I walked into the lobby restroom.  Then I had let go.  There were tears, vomiting, thinking I was done.  More tears.

More vomiting.

I remember making it to the bar down the street.  I remember ordering.  I vaugely remember pouring myself into a cab a couple of hours later.  I don’t remember getting home or falling into my bed.

I knew I was sleeping when I woke up, and I knew I had been dreaming about her because I was crying.  That was all I knew or cared about.  I had seen her.  I had been in front of her.

---

I had imagined that moment for so long.  I had thought about how it would go.  All the things I was going to say.  How I would tell her how she hurt me.  Apologize if I had hurt her.  That I was finally going to get answers.  I was going to find the truth to what had happened.

Instead, the truth I found was that of normal conversation followed by vomiting.  So pretty much every date I had been on for the last three years.

---

“So, what happened?”

“When?”

“How did you see her again? How did it happen?”

It was my turn.  I couldn’t keep building it up.  “Well, Doc…”

Continue to Part 4…