Transference: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him

“NOTHING’S GOING TO HAPPEN,” he said, standing and striding towards the door. At least that’s how I pictured it when I thought it over later – but it couldn’t have been that way because the next time he spoke he was sitting in his chair. “It’s not as if we’re going to jump into bed together.” He was under the window then, so close our knees were almost touching, although in reality he can’t have moved because a moment later he was still there, facing into the room, the low glass table between us.

I’d gone to him for help with my obsessive thinking. I was fixated on my boyfriend, his coldness, his resistance to getting married, and the discovery, still fresh, of his unfaithfulness. “Why don’t I just leave?” I sobbed through my first session. But instead of leaving, I spent hours running over past events, bewailing my passivity, recasting myself as the fiery, outspoken woman I wished I was. I’d sit at my desk, my work neglected, and re-enact how it might have been – standing up to him, storming out, throwing my possessions into the car and driving off. How powerful I felt when I was speaking the truth. But that was inside my head. On the outside nothing had changed.

“It’s a torment,” I told him. “Like being in some kind of trap. He says he loves me, but …” I cried and gulped water, tissues and tumblers helpfully lined up, while he looked at me in a sympathetic way and waited. It didn’t take long before I started up again, listing the endless cycle of events that made up that week’s sorrows, stopping only to blow my nose and swat away new tears. “I’m so embarrassed,” I said eventually, rising up for air. “This isn’t who I want to be.”

That’s the first time I sensed that he’d come closer, although of course he hadn’t moved. “I don’t mind,” he said.

I know you don’t mind. It’s me that minds. I’m embarrassed for myself. But I didn’t say these things, because that’s why I was there. I didn’t, couldn’t say.

Each week I dragged myself to see him, crossing London from west to north, walking through terraced streets, compiling lists of things we might discuss – longing, regret, forgiveness, marriage. But as soon as I was in his room, had removed my coat and then, with some embarrassment, another layer – for it was always hot – I forgot about the lists. Instead I started on the story. It was as if I had to get it out – the poison silting up in me – on and on, if only I could stop, or at least fall silent for long enough to give him a moment to respond. But the next week there was always more. “I’m just going to have to tell you everything, and then, I promise, I’ll pause for breath.” And I’d start – each event in order – what I’d said, how my boyfriend had reacted, my threats, his promises, all recreated with my exquisite memory.