When I Don't Remember You (Percico)

Chapter Thirty Six: Never Seem To Get Enough

Sally Jackson

Yeah, Elena quickly fell into a 'more than friends' zone since there was nothing stopping us and she lived literally two buildings away so we could see each other all the time.

And yes, once I realized we had fallen into that zone, it made me incredibly anxious.

It was just small things, though, right? Like, we would meet for lunch or dinner and only one of us would pay and then we'd hug and stay there for like, a little too long, and we held hands like once or twice for a short period of time, and we don't cuddle or anything, but we'll lean back into each other and we're just touchier than friends usually are and I realized it when we hugged to say goodbye when she was over after a few weeks and then the door closed and I realized that we hugged for longer than we should've and it made me anxious.

I had to talk to my therapist about it the next day.

"Do you have any inkling as to why this situation makes you anxious, Sally?" My therapist asked me.

"I mean it..." I started off, knowing there was a reason, but it's something I never really talked to her about before. To my therapist.

Or Elena, but still.

"Like, the last time this happened," I explained to my therapist. "It wasn't with Elena, this is new. But I misread like, most of the situation I'm pretty sure, and when I proposed that we go out on a date or something, she gave me a weird look and insisited that we were just friends and then she said some other stuff that I blocked out, but the summary of it was that we were just friends and that even though we did some couple-y things, that could never happen and then she moved like a month later, which was so part of it but not all of it, and we barely talk now."

"And what about previous relationships?" My therapist questioned. "can I ask about how some of your previous relationships ended?"

"Hm? Oh, well my last actual relationship before the thing I just told you about was with Paul. We were together for like 2 years ago we were engaged and broke up like right before we got married, and the getting married bit was definitely kind of fast, but there was stuff happening with Percy and also Paul's family that getting married just made sense, but then Percy came out and Paul had a weirdly bad reaction to it and I guess I never told him that I was bi so when I talked to him about why he reacted the way he did to Percy, it was a long conversation that basically ended in my finding out that he was homophobic and so we broke up. Before him I was married to Gabe, but that wasn't really a relationship out of love, it was more like he seemed sweet and he provided protection from Percy because of his dad, as you know, and as a benefit it would help me get my citizenship. He started drinking, though, while we were together and he was very abusive and could never be pleased and after Percy started at camp he defeated Medusa and the gods sent him the head to like, use for you know what and he gave it to me because that's when he found out about Gabe being abusive towards me and so after a few weeks I ended up using the head. Before him was Poseidon. I guess I had a few short lived relationships that were only a date or two between the three of them but..."

I shrugged, not seeing what she wanted to get at.

"That's about it, why?"

"And you said that you've started to develop feelings for Elena?" But she didn't have to remind me. "But that you haven't acted on them?"

Slowly nodding, I confirmed her memories of what we were talking about like 10 minutes ago that started this whole talk.

"Okay," she summarized. "So from what I can understand, Sally, it sounds to me like you're worried about this possible relationship with Elena due to a history of partners, or even people like Elena who weren't a partner but we're more than a friend, not accepting you for you, and because of that, you've now internalized it."