Chapter Text
“With Ste, I had to always be aware of everything. Always on. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. But yeah, I was always looking at each situation and thinking about Ste. How he would react. See that’s the thing, you always have to be thinking of Ste.”
“Isn’t it natural to be thinking about your partner?”
“In the beginning? Maybe. But then it takes over. HE takes over. I don’t even think he knows it happens. I sure as hell didn’t. You lose yourself in him. And you don’t even realize until you’re sat on someone’s couch, listening to them tell you how good you are, fit, smart…how much are worth. But, all you can think is about worthless you are without Ste. I said that you know—I said that if I didn’t have Ste, I didn’t have anything. And I was right.”
“What do you mean by not having anything?”
“I was going to go to America but I didn’t. I was going to Uni, but I stopped. I was going to be…you know, I don’t even remember, what I was going to be. My future, I know I had one—but now? It’s so different. I’m different. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself sometimes. I know my dad doesn’t…but I don’t think I can handle speaking about my dad and Ste in the same session.”
“Okay. Let’s just keep the focus on Ste.”
“That’s the problem.”
“What is?”
“The focus is on Ste. That’s what I meant. Everything revolves around him. Everything.”
“You’ve said that before. That he takes over. Why don’t you give a few examples and we’ll see how it happened?”
“Ste. Ste happened.”
“Alright, but how? It sounds a little like you want Ste to be the only reason for the choices you made in your life. Was he? Did you have no agency in your own decisions?”
“That’s just it, I didn’t!”
“Really? No choice of your own? No willpower? It was all Ste?”
“YES.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to take care of Ste. Me! See, if the situation got too tough, I had to handle it because Ste couldn’t. He’s been through so much…abuse, drugs, losing family members.”
“It sounds like if he lived through so much that he could handle it, but you wouldn’t let him?”
“Right…if handling it is getting angry. Or drunk? Violent…or maybe just high. Or some twisted combination. That’s how he handles things. I turned to prostitution to keep him from ‘handling things'. Because his handling things, would have put him back in rehab or the morgue.”
“Har—”
“I moved in and out of my father’s home—sometimes homeless—to allow him to handle things. I let him destroy my football dream in America, handling things. I let him sabotage my Uni dreams because he had to handle our homelessness, his kids, and Amy. His way of handling things meant sleeping with his ex-husband because he was having a bad day! I kissed him and propped him up after I got out of PRISON, so he could handle things with his kids…I turned my back on someone who needed me, when he was at his most vulnerable, because Ste couldn’t handle me being friends with him. But, yeah, maybe I was the problem… One time Ste said to me that he thought he had broken me. He compared our relationship to the one he had with Amy. How he abused her, broke her down, and how he destroyed her life. He said that to me one time. He said he did that to me. I said No…that he didn’t, but he did…Just not the same way.”
“How?”
“He takes over remember? A parasite. A venom.”
“Those are harsh words. They make him sound like a monster.”
“No. He’s. Parasites and venom are only doing what is natural. Told you, I don’t think he knows it happens. My father once called him a train-wreck and Ste was genuinely shocked because he didn’t see it. I didn’t, not for a long time. But parasites continually take from its host. And venom? It eats away at the person from the inside out until there is nothing left…until all that left is the venom and the damage: The first thing I thought about in the morning was Ste and how the day would affect him. The last thought I had before I fell asleep was to replay the day and think about the next day. And all the time in between, I was examining each situation for what could go wrong. I was so tired. Exhausted. Always on, always aware. Because if I weren’t? Things always went to hell. Always.”
“Did you ever get a chance to stop and breathe? To think about yourself?”
“No. Because I was Nowhere. I was just gone. Harry Thompson didn’t exist outside of Ste Hay. That’s what I meant when told James that if I didn’t have Ste, I didn’t have anything. It wasn’t just about my family relationship with him or the business being his…it was about me. I didn’t exist apart from him. My first and last thought were about him. But, then a host can’t exist without the parasite right?”
“I think it is the other way around actually? Wouldn’t the parasite require the host to exist?”
“No. A parasite can exist alone. But the host doesn’t until it’s infected. Until that moment it’s not a host—It’s a separate creature whose life is free.”
“Okay. How do you become free again? How do you find Harry Thompson outside of Ste Hay?”