Ordinary World by Elisa Lorello Read Free Book Online

up. Melody opened the office door and escorted me out, just like the previous client. The waiting room was empty.
     
    Later that evening, Miranda called to see how it went.
     
    “Okay, I guess. A lot of questions. I thought there’d be more…I don’t know…more therapy, I guess.”
     
    “That’s just the first day. It’s like you with your students, doing ice breakers and asking them to write about where they went to high school and stuff. She just needs to figure out where you’re at. You’ll see. It’ll get better.”
     
    “I hope so.”
     
    “It really does get easier,” she said. “I know it sounds like I’m patronizing you right now, but trust me.”
     
    “I guess,” I said, not wanting to show Miranda the depth of my disbelief. Sam was more than a best friend. He was my lover, my partner, my husband . Aside from the loss of a child, could any loss feel worse? Could it really get easier? I so longed to go back to a time when I at least believed that such things did.
     
    “In the meantime, just fake it ‘til you make it,” said Miranda.
     
    If she only knew what crappy advice that was.
     

    Chapter Seven
     
    June
     

                S INCE LEAVING SCHOOL, I’D GAINED TEN POUNDS and couldn’t get out of bed before eleven o’clock, so I’m not sure how well the therapy was working. I liked Melody, though, and seeing her gave me something to do once a week. The rest of my time consisted of going to the lake on the Edmund College campus and feeding the ducks, sitting in Perch (Sam’s and my coffee shop hangout), re-reading all the books we’d read together, and watching a lot of TV. Neither of us had ever considered ourselves couch potatoes, but we had our must-sees: episodes of the British version of The Office on the BBC, box sets of The West Wing and Boston Legal series, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report right before bed, baseball and football games, especially during the playoffs, and tennis Grand Slams. Now I watched marathons of sitcoms, talk shows, reality competition shows, just about everything but Fox News. I hadn’t realized how much crap repeated itself, as if all TV viewers suffered from short-term memory loss. Over and over and over and over again.
     
                Maggie and I called each other at least twice a week, and she often tried to coax me to do more productive things with my time.
     
                “Make something good come out of this,” she’d say. “Travel. Go see your mom or your brothers. Hell, come see me . Or write. Start those journal articles you’ve been wanting to write. Talk to your editor and work on that new collection of essays.”
     
                “I just don’t have the desire to write anymore, Mags. All my energy has been sucked out of my body. There doesn’t seem to be any point to it.”
     
                “What does your therapist say about it?”
     
                “She’s very into goal setting. And lists. She tries to get me to make a list of things to do for the day, the week, the month…that sort of thing.”
     
                “And are you doing it?”
     
                “What’s on the list? Sometimes.”
     
                “What’s the point of you going to therapy if you’re not going to apply it?” she asked, a hint of frustration lingering.
     
                “Well, we talk. She asks me a lot of questions.”
     
                “What does she say about your lack of motivation?”
     
                “She hasn’t really said anything yet.”
     

    ***
     

                The operative word was “yet.” Sure enough, at our next session, when Melody asked me if I’d achieved anything on my goal list, I’d answered her with the same blasé attitude as I had with Mags.
     
                “Andi,” she said in a professional tone. “I’m growing concerned about your