the anatomy of love [BxB] COMPLETED

44

"I quit the internship," Jackson says, smiling with pride, as if this had been the natural culmination to all of their sessions.

Delilah raises an eyebrow. "You sound happy about that."

"Very. I hated it there." Jackson pauses at how vicious he sounds, thinking about Wes and taking risks and maybe he's exaggerating a little. "But I did meet Jack. And Wes. So I guess it wasn't all bad."

"For nothing was simply one thing. To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf."

"I have actually read that," Jackson says, with a surprised smile. "The lighthouse was never really just a lighthouse. It was a lighthouse but it was also something more."

"Correct. In that sense, everything in life is a lighthouse. But also something more," Delilah says, with an amused twinkle in her eyes. She seemed to like talking in turns of phrases, which meant everything and nothing at the same time.

"Do you think people are like lighthouses, too?" Jackson asks, in the mood to speak of things abstractly, which is really speaking of things as they are in the fullest sense. "I've been thinking about it a lot, actually. Not the lighthouse, specifically. Just me, as a person. And my parents. Trying to forgive them. I think a part of me feels like I resent in them what I resent in myself."

"What do you resent in your parents that you resent in yourself? Does anything come to mind?"

"My dad's way with people. He's so good at talking, at getting people to like him. People have always said I could make anyone and anything like me."

"That sounds like a good thing to me," Delilah says, tilting her head.

"Yes, but that's what I resent. I got that and I also got how bad he is at love. And I never got all the selflessness in my mom. I feel like I got all of my dad and nothing from my mom."

"So you are entirely like your dad. Nothing of your mom?" Delilah clarifies.

"That might be a bit dramatic. But it feels like that, yes."

"Do you share any hobbies with your mom? Anything that just the two of you like? It can be silly or profound, or anywhere in between."

Jackson thinks about his mother, her kind heart always giving and rarely receiving anything in return. Always the giver of the family, the giver in his life. She always insisted on helping the less fortunate through action, although his dad always preferred to write a check and be done with it.

"My mom, she would take me to the homeless shelters to volunteer. We did this the first weekend of every month. Just us two, we would go and help in the kitchens. I didn't really understand why we did it if my dad could just donate money, but I liked it. It made me feel more like her, maybe. More giving."

"I'm sure most kids your age did not volunteer at homeless shelters once a month with their mothers. Why would you not say you are a giving person?"

"I don't know," Jackson says with an uncomfortable amount of honesty.

"Sometimes, we like to tell ourselves stories," Delilah says, "that make us feel better about life, better about ourselves, better about other people. The more you tell them, the more you rely upon them, the more you forget you can change the stories. Do you think that you tell stories about your parents to confirm a story you already tell about yourself?"

"Do you think I say I'm like my dad and not like my mom so I can somehow justify my actions?"

"You tell me," Delilah says with a smirk.

"Ugh, why are you such a good therapist?"

Delilah laughs.

☆★☆