He leaned over and squeezed her hand. “Thanks for letting me help you.”
* * *
Brent’s legwas bobbing up and down, and he couldn’t stop it.
The therapist obviously noticed, but didn’t say anything.
Brent looked around the small, quiet room again, taking stock of the space. Everything was neat. Nice. Kind.
Jess would love it. He should have asked her if she’d done therapy after he left.
The therapist gave him a warm smile. “Is it hard to put into words?”
Fuck, yes. “I’m not much of a talker.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s complicated.”
“It usually is.”
Brent nodded. “I left my wife a year ago. I still love her.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I’m—” He’d checked this person out. She had been a relationship counsellor for two decades and self-identified as queer on her website, and it was still fucking hard to say it out loud to her. “I’m bisexual. And I’m in the closet, I guess.”
“This is a good place to talk abut that, then.”
“I left her because I thought I was gay.”
She made a note on her pad, a brief one, then gave a supportive smile. “Understanding our identities can be an evolving process.”
“So I’m learning.”
“You said you still love your wife. Where is your relationship at right now?”
“She’s moving away. It’s easier that way, she says. She’s probably right.”
“How much have you discussed with her?”
“Yeah. I was outed to her, which is shitty. Well, she guessed it when someone told her I’d checked a guy out.”
“Did you want to be out to her?”
“Yes?” He scrubbed his knuckles against his jaw. “I guess. But I couldn’t say it out loud when I thought it excluded her from my life. And then I just left. So maybe I never would have said anything.”
“Being outed can be traumatic.”
“It was upsetting. I confronted the guy who did it. He didn’t say the words, he just—Fuck. I don’t know. Oh shit, can I swear in here?”
Her lips twitched. “Yes.”
“Thank fuck.” Brent rolled his neck as he tried to think about what he wanted to say. “It’s not ideal, but what’s done is done. Jess is as supportive as she could be. She told me to go to a gay club. And then I did, it was a bust, and she told me I had to go again.”
“So you guys are talking?” More notes.
“We’ve started again, now that she knows. Yeah.”
“And what does ‘it was a bust’ mean?” The pen stopped and the therapist looked up at him.
