9
HE SAID, SHE SAID
September 15, 2016
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Thorn.”
Eric shot a limp salute to the flight attendant who stood before him in a formfitting, blue uniform. He had to admit, fame sometimes had its perks. He didn’t miss the indignities of commercial air travel. Far more civilized to make the trip from LA to Seattle on his label’s private jet.
“Call me Eric,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug.
The flight attendant smiled back warmly and leaned closer over the armrest of his chair. “Is there anything I can get you from the galley to start you off?” The top two buttons of her blouse had come undone, and her arm brushed lightly against his shoulder.
In a different mood, he might have ordered a bowl of mixed nuts and asked her to join him for a snack. But he had other plans today…
“No, thanks. I’m going to grab a nap, if you don’t mind.” Eric pushed the lever to recline his seat. He already had one hand in his pocket, reaching for his phone. He hoped this flight attendant wouldn’t be the type who insisted on checking in with him every five minutes. As an afterthought, he jerked a thumb at the man who sat on the other side of the aisle. “Maury over there will take a Jack and Coke.”
His manager had taken out his cell phone the moment they stepped on board, and Eric was grateful for the excuse not to talk. He didn’t know how much time he had before Maury interrupted, but perhaps he could manage to scrape together a few minutes. He might not get another chance all afternoon—and he knew he would be otherwise occupied that night.
The flight attendant teetered away on her high-heeled pumps, and Eric rolled onto his side, presenting her with a view of his turned back. He pulled out his phone and rested it on the seat beside him, shielded from view by his body.
As he fired up Twitter, he couldn’t help thinking how far he’d come in the past month. Back in August when he first created the fake account, he would’ve been way too paranoid to open it anywhere in his manager’s vicinity. He’d been feeling less anxious in general lately. Less quick tempered. More relaxed. His secret message exchange with Tessa had more than a little to do with the transformation.
It just felt good to have a simple friendship: a pressure valve where he could release all the stresses of the day. He could vent to her about his irritating “manager” at work. She could complain about her crappy boyfriend back at home. Just normal conversations that most people took for granted, but Eric hadn’t had a friend like that in years.
The Twitter home screen came up, and he smiled. A new message.
Tessa H: Are you online?
Eric darted a glance over his shoulder. Maury was still yakking on his phone, with a cocktail glass balanced in one hand. The flight attendant had disappeared into the galley.
He hastily texted back.
Taylor: For now. I’m on a plane. Might have to log off quickly…
Tessa H: Traveling again? That sounds fun.
Eric snorted. Fun? Not exactly. More like stressful and exhausting.
Taylor: Nah. Work trip. I’d pretty much rather blow my brains out, but what else is new.
Tessa H: You shouldn’t joke about that, Taylor.
Taylor: Sorry. Just an expression. So what’s up? Did you hear from Scott?
Tessa H: Nope. Not a peep. He’s kind of being a jerk at the moment.
Taylor: You should talk to him, Tessa. Stop messaging me and go call your boyfriend.
Tessa H: Maybe later. I have therapy in a sec. I’m just waiting for Dr. Regan to show up.
Taylor: Uh-oh. Have you been projecting again, young lady?
Eric bit down on the back of his thumb to stifle a laugh. He got such a kick from throwing all her Freudian mumbo jumbo back in her face. The two of them could go back and forth for hours, calling each other out on their various psychological shortcomings.
Tessa H: Of course. Projecting all day long. Except when I’m too busy catastrophizing…
Taylor: Catastrophizing? Pretty sure that’s not a word.
Tessa H: Pretty sure it is, and you do it all the time.
Eric tittered. This ought to be good.
Taylor: Such as?
Tessa H: You’d rather blow your brains out?
Taylor: OK, Dr. Tessa. That might have been a slight exaggeration.
Tessa H: Where are you headed anyway?
Taylor: Seattle.
He hit Send on the message and immediately winced. Crap. He hadn’t meant to let his guard down quite that much. He normally fudged the truth when it came to geographical locations. He bit his lip, hoping that she wouldn’t put two and two together.
Tessa H: OMG!!! SEATTLE? SERIOUSLY????
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.
Taylor: Whoa. Didn’t realize you were such a Seattle fan.
Tessa H: Don’t you know who else is in Seattle??????
Of course she’d caught it. This was what he got for befriending an Eric Thorn superfan of all people. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, considering how best to cover his tracks.
Taylor: Oh no. Don’t tell me.
Tessa H: ERIC THORN!!!!
Taylor: Huh, that’s weird. I didn’t pick up a signal yet on my douchebag detector.
Tessa H: He’s playing a stadium show tonight! I wonder if there are still tickets?
Taylor: Nope. Pretty sure I got the last one.
Tessa H: Wait. Wait. YOU HAVE TICKETS????
Taylor: Well, not exactly. More of a corporate VIP type situation.
Tessa H: OMG WHAT??? I thought you said it was a work trip!
Taylor: Mostly work, and I’m sure the concert will suck monkey balls…
Tessa H: Whatever. Do you have any idea how jealous I am right now? You know I’ve never even seen him live, right?
Eric paused, his finger hanging in the air. Really? He knew Tessa was confined to her home, but her condition had only started in June. How was it possible that she’d never come to see him play in all the years before?
Taylor: Never? I thought you were such a fangirl!
Tessa H: He never tours within five hours of my house.
Taylor: Where? What part of the country?
Tessa H: Let’s just say it’s a rural area… I can’t believe you’re seeing ERIC THORN. Will you please try to enjoy it? For my sake?
Taylor: OK. For your sake.
Tessa H: Promise? Will you sing along?
Eric broke into a playful grin. Sing along… Yes, Tessa. That much he could definitely promise.
Taylor: Every word of every song.
Tessa H: Good. And maybe try to smile at least once. Do you think you can manage that?
Taylor: Smiling right now, sweet pea. You tend to have that effect on me :)
Tessa H: Sweet pea?
Taylor: Well, you won’t even give me a hint what you look like, so I choose to envision you as small, green, and spherical.
Tessa H: LOL. Pretty close. I gotta go though. Dr. R is here.
Taylor: OK, talk to you tomorrow. Have a good session.
• • •
Tessa lay on the bedroom floor, doing leg lifts. She slowly counted the reps inside her head. She had to do something to combat the atrophy from all the endless hours spent indoors. Dr. Regan had suggested a free fitness app at their last session, and she didn’t seem to mind if Tessa followed along with the exercise routine while they spoke.
The therapist sat as usual in the beanbag chair, jotting notes on her yellow pad. Tessa thought she looked a little less uncomfortable than usual. It had to be the first time Tessa had ever seen Dr. Regan wear a pair of slacks.
“OK, Tessa. Let’s take a look at what you wrote in your thought journal this week. Can you walk me through this?”
Tessa shifted to her other side as her therapist thumbed through the spiral-bound notebook. More of the same, she thought to herself. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered writing anything at all.
“Tessa?” Dr. Regan prompted.
“I guess it’s mostly about Scott again,” Tessa replied, lifting her leg in the air and holding it for a ten count. “He didn’t come to see me at all last week. It kind of sucked.”
She could sense Dr. Regan’s thoughtful nod in response. “And how did that make you feel?”
It made me feel like shit, Tessa thought. What did her therapist expect her to say? Warm and fuzzy? With an effort, Tessa bit back a sarcastic reply. She’d save that for later. For Taylor. That was the nice thing about talking to her new friend. She didn’t have to dissect every passing emotion that flitted through her head like a butcher carving up a side of beef.
“I don’t know,” she said to Dr. Regan, playing for time. “It’s not Scott’s fault. He started his fall semester, so he’s busier now with school. I understand that.”
“OK, Tessa. Try to dig a little deeper for me if you can.”
“I don’t know!” Tessa snapped back. “How do you think I feel? I feel lonely and hurt and angry. And scared. I feel scared. OK? Is that deep enough?”
Dr. Regan’s blank expression didn’t change. She nodded calmly. “That’s good, Tessa. I hear you saying that Scott’s behavior frightens you. Could you tell me more about that?”
Tessa swallowed a groan. Honestly, couldn’t Dr. Regan ask a straightforward question for once in her life?
Tessa flipped onto her back and started doing crunches. She didn’t know why she found therapy so annoying lately. She should probably write about that in her thought journal. What would Dr. Regan say to that? Tessa, I hear you saying that I annoy the crap out of you. Could you tell me more about that?
“Tessa?” Dr. Regan interrupted. “Did you hear me?”
“Sorry.” With a final grunt of exertion, Tessa sat up all the way and clicked the fitness app closed. She knew she had to focus. She was never going to get better if she didn’t take therapy seriously. “I guess I’m worried that Scott might be drifting away from me. Like I’m a chore on his to-do list. And I’d be really isolated if I didn’t have him. I’d be completely alone. That scares me.”
Dr. Regan made a note. “I see. Have you expressed these feelings to Scott?”
Tessa shook her head. Her pulse rate had slowed back down after the exercise, but she felt it quicken again in response to Dr. Regan’s question. How exactly would that conversation go? She could just picture Scott’s eyes glazing over at the first hint of criticism. Then he’d either change the subject—or worse, cut the visit short. “I don’t want to seem clingy. Taylor says—”
“Taylor? This is your new online friend?”
“From Twitter,” Tessa confirmed. “We’ve been chatting a lot lately.”
Dr. Regan flipped to a clean page. “That’s good, Tessa. How frequently do you and Taylor chat?”
“Every night for about a month now.” Tessa broke into a shy smile. “Sometimes Taylor messages me during the day too, but she has to work a lot.”
Dr. Regan kept her eyes fixed on her notepad, scribbling again. Tessa couldn’t help but wonder what her therapist did with all those notes. She didn’t really save them, did she? Maybe she used them for origami paper. Or no, even better: papier-mâché. Maybe she made them into a gigantic piñata and beat it with a stick in her backyard. Probably, right? Anyone that robotic had to have some serious pent-up frustration…
“And you feel comfortable sharing your feelings about Scott with your friend Taylor?”
Tessa coughed to cover her giggle. Right. Taylor. Back to Taylor. “Sure,” she said. “We’re friends. We talk about all kinds of things.”
“Keep going, Tessa. Tell me more about your friendship.”
“We just understand each other,” Tessa said. “Taylor has a lot of anxiety too. She’s not in therapy or anything, but she probably should be. I try to tell her things you told me, to help her a little. And then we just have common interests. We talk about Eric a lot.”
“Eric Thorn?”
“Yeah. She’s funny. Her username is @EricThornSucks. She pretends like she hates his guts, and she makes fun of me for obsessing about him, but she’s obviously a huge fan too. She follows everything he does almost as closely as I do.”
Tessa cracked a grin. Her friend constantly surprised her with just how much she knew about Eric. Taylor always caught the song references whenever Tessa quoted lyrics. It was no exaggeration when her friend promised to sing along with every song tonight.
“It’s deeper than just fangirling together,” Tessa continued, musing out loud. “We kind of analyze Eric together. I keep telling her my theories about him—about how he’s secretly unhappy. She’s the first person I’ve met in the whole fandom who doesn’t think I’m hallucinating.”
Dr. Regan cocked her head to the side, studying her client’s face. “OK, Tessa. I hear you saying that you talk a lot about Taylor’s personal life, and you talk about Eric Thorn’s personal life. But do you ever talk with Taylor about your own personal life?”
“Yeah. We talk about that too. All the time.”
“Do you feel comfortable sharing things with Taylor that you wouldn’t share with me?”
Tessa’s eyebrows rose slightly at the question. Maybe Dr. Regan wasn’t quite so clueless after all. “Probably,” she said. “There’s less pressure, I guess. It’s not so formal. And it’s just texting. Sometimes that’s easier than talking face-to-face.”
Dr. Regan paused a beat. Tessa watched her curiously as the therapist gathered her thoughts. When Dr. Regan spoke at last, her voice had fallen a notch lower. “Tessa, do you think you might feel comfortable enough to tell Taylor what happened in New Orleans?”
Tessa froze—a deer, but not in the headlights. More like a deer staring down the barrel of a gun. Every muscle of her body went rigid as the question rang in the air.
New Orleans.
She slammed her eyes shut and squeezed them tight, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass.
“Did you hear me?” Dr. Regan prompted softly.
“No,” Tessa whispered. “No. I’m not ready. I’m not there yet.”