Love Is Ǝvil

43 I'm Normal During the Day

He threw the door shut behind himself and his hands flew in wild, desperate gestures. "He knows. He fucking knows!" It was only a matter of time, when Nicolas would have enough of him. Marshall already had enough of himself. "You need to fix me. Now!"

This time, she sat at her desk and looked at him with question. An elegant movement of her hand invited him to sit down on the couch.

But he kept standing. "It's really bad, Doc. You have to do something." If there was anything that could be done. Perhaps he was a lost cause. Probably. Certainly.

"What happened?", she asked. With quick movements her hands closed the file she had been working and brought her paperwork into order. "You haven't called in between appointments for a long time." Her eyes examined him closely. "You seem shook." He felt worse. "Is there any trouble with your sobriety?"

He let out a deep breath. "No, that's ... I'm alright." Now he sat down on the couch and buried his face in his hands. "It's Nicolas. And Ryan. And the cheating. Everything's going to shit."

"I'm afraid, you need to elaborate on that. What happened?", she asked again and came around the desk. She sat down on her chair.

"I'm stupid and an asshole. Colossally stupid and even more of an asshole, that's what happened." He thought he could handle this by himself, but he should've known better. He should've come here sooner. He should have - a theme of his life.

She slid to the edge of her seat. "Try and start at the beginning, if you can. Take a deep breath and tell me, what happened."

So he took a deep breath. Then a second one. Marshall lowered his hands, but kept his gaze fixed on them as he spoke. "Last Friday - no, it started the weekend before that. I went out with Ryan as friends, right." He needed to stop lying. In here, to her he needed to be truthful. A fixed lie wouldn't help him. "Not just as friends", he admitted with a low voice. "I dressed up a bit and put a cute act on, he likes that, you know. Things worked out great, we ended up in his apartment and got it on and ...", his voice trailed off. Marshall cleared his throat and pushed the memories from that Saturday night out of his mind. "We have an affair now. Which is bad enough on its own, but Nicolas knows about it. It's a fucking nightmare", he lamented and buried his face in the palms of his hands again. If only he could shut out the world.

She was silent for a moment. "That is quite a development." There was surprise in her voice, but also suspicion. "Am I interpreting things correctly, that you wanted the affair with Ryan to happen? Since you dressed up for him and acted how he likes things."

Marshall nodded. He wanted it and that made everything much worse. Wasn't he with Nicolas? Didn't he want him, too? He wanted too much. Why was he fucking things up?

"How did Nicolas find out?", she asked.

Harshly he rubbed over his eyes, the pressure behind them was hard to bear. "He came to the studio that Monday. Everything was fucking obvious. Ryan had made me a hickey and shit and the two of them almost broke out into a fight. Nicolas even said that he knows I was with someone. That he expects me to be with someone else. That we can do things ... casual." No!

"I see", she nodded slightly, but her eyes stayed on him. "Anything else?"

"I'm a moron", he answered. "I thought I could handle this by myself. That this isn't as bad. I should've known better." The things he should. "It's just Ryan and he's married. Ain't like it'll get serious between us or anything. That this'll keep things kinda in the family, you know, until we fixed me cheating at least. But ..." He rubbed over his face in a frustrated gesture. Why was he the worst? Why were things so hard? "Ugh, I'm such a cunt. Nicolas cancelled our date last week - understandable. He's probably done with me now anyway and just too nice to say anything this close to Christmas or something. I don't know. Anyway, he cancelled. And what do I do? I ask Ryan if he got time to go out. After all, I had a clear schedule for a Friday night, what else could I be doing? I should know better by now. In the end, Ryan had no time either, his wife needed some attention or whatever." He made a dismissive hand gesture. "I went out anyway. I still have the app on my phone, so, that's how I spent the night. In a motel with some guy." He looked up at her, expecting to be reprimanded harshly. Somebody had to yell at him for this. Why wasn't Nicolas?