Weather Girl(87)

You can be okay for months, for years, before it creeps back in, telling you lies like you will always feel this way and no one will love you because of it and why bother. Once, you could tell they were lies, but now they weigh down your shoulders and take up space in your lungs. Sometimes they come out of nowhere. Other times, some grim event helps yank you back to that dark place.

And god, you are so fucking exhausted, so you let it happen.

I beg weekend meteorologist AJ Benavidez to cover for me and spend the rest of the day under my weighted blanket. Depression has made all my breakups rough, but there is no comparison to this one. I could wrap every ounce of heartache a man has made me feel into one devastating package, and it still wouldn’t come close to the aftermath of Russell Barringer.

The snow has turned to rain, and for once, I’m not thrilled to see it. By Tuesday afternoon, when the snow has become piles of gray slush and the gutters are overflowing, I’ve watched a season and a half of America’s Next Top Model, which I thought would be comfortably nostalgic but has only shocked me with how problematic it was. Still, damn it if I don’t hold my breath for the photo reveal at the end of every episode, and it’s nice to feel something.

I’m about to hit play on a go-see episode when an alert pops up on my phone, letting me know I have an appointment with Joanna in two hours. Shit. When I saw it there at the beginning of the week, I almost laughed to myself, assuming I wouldn’t have much to talk to Joanna about. Nothing to discuss! Everything’s swell, I imagined saying, because a few days ago, when everything was different, I could see myself becoming the kind of person who used the word swell in casual conversation.

I want to go to therapy even less than I want to be on camera wearing a dress made from human hair like the models did in Cycle 14, but I drag myself out of bed. And only partially because it costs $120 for a same-day cancellation.

Once I get there, wearing sweatpants that say GOOD VIBES ONLY on the ass that Alex got me as a joke gift years ago and a scarf so long it doubles as a blanket, I’m less chatty than usual. Joanna has to pry the breakup out of me, though I guess the pants probably gave it away.

“Do you think,” she says between sips of tea, “that maybe you were looking for a reason to end it? And this realization about the way Torrance and Seth interfered in your relationship gave you an out? You could tell Russell that you were questioning whether he could handle you at your worst without a safety net, because they gave you a reason to do that?”

I burrow deeper into my scarf-blanket. Joanna is the only one who won’t judge me for being a mess. “Why would I sabotage myself that way?” I ask. We’re twenty minutes into our session, and I’ve only just begun speaking in complete sentences.

“You tell me.”

“He said I wasn’t acting like myself, like whoever I was in that moment wasn’t someone he found particularly appealing.”

“What do you think he meant when he said that?”

“That I’m a terrible, draining person to be around,” I say. “That there are limits to the time he wants to spend with me, and he’d rather I be the happy-go-lucky person I am on TV.”

“Even I know you don’t believe that,” she says, which makes me let out a low grumble because she’s not wrong. “You haven’t always been that person with him, have you? That happy-go-lucky person?”

“No. I guess not.”

“I think,” she continues, “that maybe he meant that both of you were surprised and stressed out. And that maybe you needed some time to decompress and sort through how you felt about Torrance and Seth having played a small role in the beginning of your relationship.”

“That’s what he kept saying. That he wanted to take a step back,” I say. “And it felt like what he was really saying was that he couldn’t deal with me, the way I was.”

“Hmmm.” Joanna draws out the syllable. “I wonder if that was his way of working out, in real time, how he felt about everything. He was telling you what he needed, which unfortunately happened to be the opposite of what you were telling him you needed.”

“Which means there’s no point in trying to make this work. We want different things. Opposite things.”

“I actually think that ultimately, you wanted the same thing: reassurance from the other person that you two were going to be okay. And, well . . .”

“Neither of us got that.”

“Right.”

I sit with that for a moment, distantly annoyed by how comfortable these GOOD VIBES ONLY pants are. “So are you saying it doesn’t make us incompatible, the fact that we wanted to approach that situation in different ways?”

“What it seems to me is that you were focused on trying to get a very specific reaction from him,” she says. “That was the easiest out, the quickest way to justify how you feel about relationships—and justify why you’ve hidden your depression and your history with your mother. This was the validation you’ve been looking for, even if you weren’t aware of it. And that made it okay to shut down this relationship, even after you were open with him.”

“Isn’t that what I got, though? That validation? He hasn’t exactly been blowing up my phone, letting me know I misunderstood him, that he was wrong and that I can be as grumpy and bitter as I want to be around him.”