Love and Psychopaths 2: Forgiveness

After breaking up with Janet, Joe is devastated. He spends the next six months in a depression. During that depression, he tries to contact Janet in order to salvage something like a friendship with her. She ignores his calls and emails. By the winter of 2003, Joe has gained 4 stone. He is ashamed of his new body but can't motivate himself to lose weight. Joe is also beginning to wonder if he made the right decision when he broke up with Janet.

At the start of the following year, Joe's mother Judy Vitos is diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. She quickly transforms from a feisty and energetic woman into a mournful and depressed victim of a torrid terminal illness, frequently delirious because of the constant painkillers she requires to get through each day. Judy doesn't have long to live.

During the final week of March, a weak and ailing Judy requests to see all the people in her life that meant something to her. She wants to wish them well, to thank them for being a part of her life, and to apologise for any pain she has caused them in the past. Judy even requests to see Janet, despite the fact that Janet is no longer in a relationship with Judy's son. Joe sends Janet an email explaining the situation. Janet does not respond. Joe sends Janet a second, more histrionic email pleading with Janet to meet him for coffee to discuss a potential visit with Judy, at Glenfield Hospital.

After this more histrionic second email, Janet reluctantly agrees to meet Joe for coffee at 11am, on the afternoon of April 1st, 2004. At this point, Joe and Janet haven't seen or talked to each other since their breakup. Janet is also in a particularly foul mood. She has just found out that a graphic novel she has written has been rejected by the publisher she wanted most to accept it.

At 11: 16, Joe and Janet are both sitting at a table, smoking outside a trendy sandwich shop called Stones. Despite the trendiness of Stones, it is nonetheless a slow day for business. There are only three costumers inside the building, all with their backs to the window. Joe and Janet are the only costumers who happen to be sitting outside, basking in the chilly spring sunshine. The street they face is also nearly empty, because most people are watching a typical Leicester procession in the middle of town. Leicester is a "Festivals and Events" type city, in the middle of England.

Joe and Janet are quite unique amongst the citizens of Leicester. This is because they both hate being around processions, fireworks, and children. Any public event that attracts every day people is normally an event they stay far away from. That means they hate townie pubs. They hate the house and cheesy pop music tracks, typically played in Leicester night clubs. They even dislike dancing in public. However, Joe and Janet do like Gay Pride. This is because they approve of Gay Pride, politically. But just because they approve of the politics of Gay Pride, this does not mean they would ever go to Gay Pride. Gay Pride, after all, is a parade that normally contains lots of cheesy pop music, and street dancing.

If Joe and Janet ever go out to hear live music in town, they will normally attend jazz, electronic, or experimental music concerts. Their musical tastes have remained this way, even though they no longer talk about music together. In fact, they no longer talk about anything.

But today, surprisingly, they are talking again. This is their conversation over coffee, in the chilly spring sunshine.

Joe: Thank you for meeting me here. I really appreciate it.

Janet: I bet you do.

Joe: Look before we go any further, I just want to say I'm really soz for hurting you the way I did. I hated saying those things to you.

Janet: That didn't stop you from saying them, Joe.

Joe: (speaking slowly) I know that Janet. I'm just... so sorry so much of it was so insensitive and horrible. I just freaked out, really. I couldn't handle the diagnosis and I started worrying about not understanding you. I didn't know what I thought about anything. I couldn't make sense of my feelings. It was stupid, I was stupid and said some unbelievably awful shit.

Janet: I can't even tell you how much you hurt me.

Joe: I never wanted to hurt you, Janet. When I said you were pretending to be a decent person, I think I was just... verbalising my fears about the diagnosis. I was worried that my experience of you being so wonderful was just this big illusion.

Janet: That's crazy, Joe.

Joe: I know I should have trusted my experience of knowing you for three years, but the diagnosis made me feel like I couldn't trust anything. I was in free fall. I couldn't make heads or tails of the world.

Janet: Then you should have waited until your head calmed down before you made any major decisions.

Joe: Yeah, ideally. But the reality wasn't so ideal. You suddenly told me you had the ultimate personality disorder. That disorder doesn't produce nice people, Janet. It produces cold conniving bastards. That's what people think... when they know you've been diagnosed that way. You're a movie villain, basically.

Janet: (loudly) But you shouldn't have thought that! You knew me intimately! You saw me nearly every day. We lived together for two years.

Joe: I know that, Janet. I know I made a huge mistake.

Janet: Nearly every day I had fun with you, brainstormed with you, went for walks with you, gave you advice, asked for your advice, wrote with you, listened to music with you, watched films with you, talked to your friends, made you laugh, made you orgasm. I even bathed you when you were depressed.

Joe: You did... and it was bloody incredible.

Janet: I held you when there were tears in your eyes, always. I calmed you down when you were anxious. I was even patient when you were behaving like a child. I was fucking loyal to you when I didn't have to be.

Joe: I know you were.

Janet: I put up with shit most people wouldn't have even understood.

Joe: (with sadness) You did. You were great, Janet. You were fucking perfect.

Janet: So your fear of me was bigotry.

Joe: Maybe it was. I don't know. It was wrong, whatever it was. I hate it all now. I hate knowing what I did.

Janet: Does that mean you want me to feel sorry for you?

Joe: I just want you to know how sorry I am.