Page 18 of Melted by a Man

Logically, I knew that it was fine. That I didn’t need to be liked by everyone. I didn’t need to be friends or on good terms with all of my coworkers in the past, so this shouldn’t hit as hard as it did.

And yet, I felt like I wanted to sink into a hole in the ground from the discomfort of it.

A message popped up on my laptop, the chime echoing from the notification pulling me out of mywoe-is-methoughts.

Mary: Here’s a list of suggestions for when you lose.

I found myself grinning at the song selection she gave. Some of them were new releases, some of them older songs we used to listen to during our teen years. I was hit with a sudden wave of memories from one song listing in particular, a guilty pleasure of mine, and I found myself staring at the name of the title in thought.

Jacqueline would never like me.

She’d always assume the worst in me, no matter what I did.

Oddly enough, the thought made a sense of spiteful determination fill my chest, and in that moment as I stared at the third song Mary suggested for my performance, I decided to make the fucking most of losing this bet.

ChapterFour

JACQUELINE

“Are you alright?”He spoke the question against the back of my shoulder, his hot breath fanning over my skin. I arched against him, grinning when he groaned from the movement.

“I think I need a Gatorade or something,” I replied. A yawn took over the end of my sentence, but I didn’t let myself be embarrassed about it. I was exhausted, in the best possible way.

“If I order food for us, do you want to stay for a little longer?” he asked, before peppering my neck with kisses. I reached out and smacked around for my phone on his nightstand. It was only about nine-thirty at night.

“Yes, please.” I sighed as he pulled out of me.

* * *

“I see,”Mariam nodded at me once, her ringlet curls bouncing around her head with the movement. Her dark eyebrows raised a bit while she gave me a look that I was now very familiar with, “…Do you want to say it, or do you want me to?”

I groaned and covered my face with my hands, my fingertips digging into my hairline. It was an attempt to relieve the anxiety I had after filling in my therapist on the last panic attack I had at work. As well as the conversation with Leo that almost resulted in another one.

“I did the thing again,” I mumbled behind my hands. The “thing” in question was assuming negative intent, and being wrong about it. My brain operated like a Rolodex of past experiences whenever I found myself in a social setting I didn’t know how to navigate. I recalled how things played out in the past and attempted to navigate them accordingly.

The problem was a lot of my past experiences were traumatic. They involved toxic dynamics that required more guessing games on my part than they should have. Thus, I didn’t always handle situations with grace.

“You sure did,” Mariam’s soothing voice was encouraging, and I thought I detected a little hint of pride as well, “But the good news is, you know you did.”

“That…doesn’t make me feel better,” I kept my hands over my face. I was lying back against her couch in her office. It was one of those large, fluffy cloud-like couches. It wasn’t a lounge bed thing you saw in the movies, but it was a spacious enough couch that I could easily sink into it as if I were lying down. I had my weighted blanket on my legs, knowing I’d need it to get her up to speed in today’s session.

“That’s also good,” Mariam nodded, “Because that means you can take the opportunity to look inward and explore ways to make it right.”

I lowered my hands, “How do I make it right?”

“How do you think you need to make it right?” Mariam asked. I frowned, and she smiled.

“I…don’t know what you want me to say,” I muttered. She knew I didn’t respond well to open-ended questions. Questions designed to lead me to the right answer. Questions that felt like a trap. I usually took questions and words at face value.

Leading me to the “right” answer is what my ex used to do. It took me years to understand what was happening. It took me years to learn that no matter how hard he tried, my brain wouldn’t work the way he wanted it to. I was always responsible for solving his riddles, while he was never responsible for simply being honest with me. If I guessed wrong, or answered his question in a way he didn’t like, that was also my fault for ruining his day.

“I don’t have a specific thing I want you to say, Jacqueline. This is me just asking you a question. If you were to look back on those conversations with Brandon and Nicole and again with Leo, what would you take away from them?” Mariam leaned back and took a sip of her tea, adjusting her seat in her bean bag chair to the side of her desk. She stayed silent after that, giving me the time to think through her words.

“…That I overreacted,” I murmured, “That, I assumed the worst in the moment when my body was feeling anxious. After calming down, I can see that I may have just been feeling threatened. That…I don’t know, maybe their words weren’t that deep.”

Mariam nodded, setting her mug down on her desk while she gave me a reassuring smile, “Rewiring our brains, especially after leaving long-term problematic relationships, will always be a hard thing to do. The fact that you were able to recall those interactions, and step back to see what was really going on, is already a huge improvement. You could just dig your heels in, determined to prove that your coworkers were maliciously attacking you. But you know that’s not what was happening, right?”

“Right,” I sighed, my shoulders slumped because I didn’t exactly feel lighter during this conversation, “I was the problem both times.”

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