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Dr. Baloyi asked me if there was anything I wanted to talk about and my mind travelled back in time, to Tuesday night when Alex enveloped me in a hug I couldn't stop thinking about. He'd been making frequent reoccurrences in my subconscious, memories of moments we'd shared constantly on replay.
Several things had me drawn to Alex. He was handsome, yes, but that always meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'd seen firsthand that the most dazzling beauty sometimes housed the most grotesque hearts. Call me corny, but I was more concerned with what lay beneath the surface.
He was a doctor who risked his whole career to save his daughter's life. He was confident, bordering on arrogant, but he knew when to rein it in. He was an empath, judging by the kindness he'd offered me from the first day we met. He was considerate, attentive and respectful. He was intuitive and knew how to read me, knew my limits and didn't try to push me past them. If I felt I'd said too much about something, he was a step ahead of me, changing the subject and smoothing over the awkwardness.
I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when my appreciation of all these things turned into actual feelings, but I knew that's where I was now. Even if I tried to deny it, the evidence would show up in my cheeks and in my rapidly beating heart whenever he said or did something even slightly romantic.
"Do you think I'm ready to be romantically involved with someone?" I asked Dr. Baloyi as a way of introducing Alex into the growing list of things we discussed during our sessions.
Her laminated eyebrows hiked up and she quickly wrote down a note before she looked up at me again, her perfectly contoured face full of curiosity and openness to understand where my question was coming from. "Are you interested in anyone?"
In answer to the question, I dove into a detailed summary about the friendship between Alex and I, where it all started and how it was going. I didn't tell her his name or his profession, not wanting to expose that it was her co-worker I was falling for. Dr. Baloyi's face remained pleasant and open as she listened, her countenance unreadable. I wondered what she thought of the girl who sat before her interested in a new man after recently being dumped. I hoped my confession wouldn't be met with too much judgement.
"Swimming and dinner sounds intimate." she stated with a smile on her face and amusement in her eyes. "It sounds to me like you're not the only one who's interested. What are your concerns?"
"I kind of just got out of a relationship, remember? Am I moving too fast?"
"I see." she smiled kindly. "Well, from what we've discussed about the relationship with Bakari, I don't know if the issue is that you're interested in someone new. Emotionally, you checked out of that relationship long before it actually came to an end."
"But there is an issue?"
"A potential issue." she said, fishing a stack of papers from the file in her lap and smoothing it out in front of her. "This is actually the perfect premise for us to consider an official diagnosis for some of the problems we've been tackling in each session."
