Page 25 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Yes.”
“So why not tell him.”
“Because…” I huff. “Goodness, are you always this difficult?”
He sniffs a short little laugh. “It’s not a difficult question.”
“I haven’t told him because it doesn’t feel like something he needs to know.”
“It’s been over a year and you still haven’t told your boyfriend that—”
I slap my hands over my ears like a child, shake my head. “You don’t need to say it, I know what we’re talking about.”
He shifts on his seat, taps his pen against the clipboard on his lap absentmindedly and then he cocks his head at me. “Will you tell Arthur?”
A lump forms in my throat. I hadn’t even thought about it—I mean, the only thing I’ve been thinking about has been Arthur and The Nightmare but not actually sitting down and telling him.
“Why won’t you tell anyone?”
I shrug, tuck my hair behind my ear.
“There must be a reason,” he presses.
“I don’t know…” I blow out a breath. “I guess I haven’t told Digby because he doesn’t deserve to know and Arthur—well…”
“Well what?”
I kind of stick my nose in the air a bit. “Goodness, you’re very prying.”
“I’m a therapist. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on in your head. You’re free to leave anytime you want.”
I give it a second, think about how to say it without it sounding too sad but then I realise there is no other way to say it. There’s no way to pretty up how I feel. I’ve tried to ignore, tried to walk past it but everytime I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, it hits me. It’s like covering a hole in the wall with a beautiful painting—it’s still there, you’re going to know it’s there even if everyone else doesn’t.
“I don’t think Arthur will love me when he finds out.”
“Okay,” he says quietly, jotting something down.
I glance away from him, become very fidgety in my seat.
“I think he’ll see me as worthless—like a pointless woman.”
“Is Arthur the sort of man who would see it like that?”
Shake my head. “No—but it’ll change things very drastically for us and if he didn’t want to be with me because of it, I’d understand.”
“But it would hurt, yes?”
Roll my eyes at him. “Of course it’d bloody hurt.”
Dr. Kane shuffles on his seat, puts his pen down and faces me. “Do you think it’s fair to make an assumption like that about Arthur even when you know he isn’t that kind of person?”
I blink a few times. “What?”
“You’ve put Arthur on a pedestal here. You know he isn’t the type of person to view you as anything less than a woman but still, you think he would. You’ve written a script for a future conversation. You don’t have a magical mind, Phoebe. You can’t predict the future. Forget what you think might happen and focus on having this conversation with the Arthur you know.”
“But no man could love a woman who—”
I regather myself, walk about his office again. Go over to the window and crack it open so I can have a cigarette. He doesn’t mind and the office is so high up that no one walking past below could make it out as me hanging out the window with a menthol Vogue.
