Waves

Part 49

I already know this is one of those chapters where you guys are going to beg Eve to leave Joe's ass...you've been warned!

"It's as if he has no trauma from this whole experience. His whole life was turned upside down and nearly changed forever, yet he's just magically been able to put it past him without processing any of what happened. Just poof, it's over and done. I don't understand that," Eve exhaled.

"That's how he copes. You don't get to judge or question how someone else processes trauma. All you are responsible for is yourself," Angie replied. Eve was in the middle of a therapy session a few days after she had told Michael she would split the teaching opportunity in Spain and she had yet to tell Joe. Every time she picked up the phone to call him or looked over at him during dinner to say something, she couldn't, and it was slowly eating her alive.

"If how he copes makes me feel like I'm unable to be honest with how I'm processing, then doesn't that make it my problem? I mean, here I am, with a great opportunity to go do something I absolutely love, and I'm afraid to tell my own boyfriend for fear of how he'll respond."

Angie scribbled a few notes on a pad and adjusted her glasses before answering. "Nothing you've told me has indicated that Joe has prevented you from being honest. Is there something you feel is holding you back from transparency?"

Fiddling with her watchband, Eve gnawed at the inside of her cheek, a million hours of their relationship playing at rapid speed in her mind. She was afraid to put voice to the thoughts that had been quietly resurfacing, almost as if she let them free, there was no taking them back.

"Joe can be...inadvertently all consuming. People tend to get overpowered by him; even though he doesn't ever intend for it to happen, everyone in his orbit at some point fades to the background. We became ancillary characters in his life; always deferring to him, always yielding our feelings to his," Eve said, "and that was a central theme of our relationship the first time around. Even though he never means for it to happen intentionally, you lose yourself in him. When we broke up, I realized how much I had deferred to him over the years, and now, I'm starting to feel that way again. Like if Joe is over this ordeal, then I have to be over this ordeal too."

"That's a feeling you've developed in a vacuum. It's a common trauma response. What do you need to do in order to not feel that way?"

Eve leaned back onto the plush couch and closed her eyes; the realization already setting in. "I need to be honest with him. I've got to tell him how I feel and I need to tell him about Spain."

Twenty minutes later, Eve climbed back into her car and made her way home. She felt at once both lighter and heavier after the session with Angie; as if she'd cleared a major roadblock only to discover a steep cliff on the other side. Joe had asked her to come over for dinner later that night, and she knew this was the night she needed to tell him about her plans.

She gave herself a pep talk in the shower and practiced how she was going to tell him as she did her hair. She ran over various responses he was going to have while she drove down the Parkway and how she should handle them as she parked in front of his house. Despite all of that, every ounce of resolve she had worked up evaporated as she walked inside and saw the tiny tea lights that had been placed in the hallway and she certainly lost her nerve when she saw the massive floral arrangement Joe had gotten her sitting on the dining room table.

"W-what's all this? Pretty fancy for a Wednesday," Eve joked. Wrapping his arms around her, Joe pecked her lips before nuzzling her nose, swaying gently to the soft music playing from the speakers. "I thought you deserved a little pick-me-up. It's been a long couple of months for you and I wanted to do something special. Besides, I have something to ask you," Joe shrugged.