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"How was the meeting?" Saul asked as Paula walked through the front door, not looking up from his phone screen.
"It went pretty well. That newcomer girl - Velma - I think she'll be a good addition," Paula said. "Marvin finally opened up about his experience with you."
"And so did you," Saul muttered, sounding bitter. Although he didn't attend the meeting, he knew what went on during it, of course. He'd asked his wife about the meeting not out of curiosity, but because he was interested in knowing her point of view. He was proud of Paula for opening up, but he was also a bit annoyed with her. They fought about this frequently - Paula didn't see Saul's side of the story, Saul didn't see Paula's side of the story.
"Only because no one else volunteered to share their stories. Do you want to go to the meeting next week, or would you rather that I go again?"
Saul shrugged, frowning down at his phone and aggressively typing something out. "Depends on who else is gonna be there. I'm getting less responses than usual. Do you think I'm losing my strength? Or are all of these people just in denial about the fact that they need help?" He almost sounded insecure, which was a feeling he'd never express to anyone besides from his wife.
Paula's face turned sympathetic, and she sat next to him on the couch, taking his phone so that she could grab his hand. "You're sure as hell not losing your power, I can tell you that much. Give them time. You're probably scaring them, or they think you're a troll. Just let it go. You can't help everyone, and there's no one that you can singlehandedly save. Forget about the suffering souls. You need to take care of yourself."
"Focusing on the suffering souls is how I take care of myself!" Saul snapped, feeling himself starting to shake. He wasn't angry with Paula, but rather with himself. His phone had only been out of his hands for a few seconds, but he could already feel the withdrawal symptoms and anxiety start to kick in. He needed to be back on the internet now, he needed to find more people, needed to save more people, or else he was worth nothing.
Paula shook her head, dropping Saul's hands. "Babe, be honest with me, when was the last time you ate or slept?"
"Doesn't matter," Saul hissed, picking up his phone again and starting to type. He wanted to make a cutting remark about how Paula had no right to criticize him over lack of sleep, but he couldn't do that. His wife had struggled with insomnia all her life, and it would be way too much of a personal attack for him to insult her for it. Paula couldn't help her own failures. But Saul could help his, surely, he was a deity, and yet he was still failing. Failing his group, failing the addicts, failing his friends. He couldn't just stop, didn't Paula understand?
Paula got up off of the couch and for a second Saul thought that she was leaving, because he couldn't help her, but she only went into the kitchen. Saul relaxed a little bit, but he didn't look up from the stale pale glow. Paula returned a few minutes later, handing Saul some tea and a sandwich.
"Please, my dear," Paula said, knowing that she wasn't going to go anywhere until he ate.
"This isn't your drugged up hibiscus, is it?" Saul asked.
"No. I wouldn't give that to you without a warning, we both know that."
Saul hesitated, then eventually took a small bite of the sandwich and a small sip of the tea, keeping his clutch on his phone the whole time. It was almost like he was surgically attached to the damn thing. Paula wasn't angry with him for being an addict, she was frustrated and upset that he wouldn't admit his problems. She was worried because he didn't take care of himself. Paula stood there until Saul finished eating, then she placed the empty plate and cup on the table next to the couch. "Better?"
Saul didn't respond, but rather went right back to his phone, not moving for several minutes. Then he got up suddenly, rushing upstairs to their room and back down again, this time holding a charger. "It's gonna die," he said, his voice cracking. "It's gonna die, that means so much time is gonna go by and I won't be able to help-"
Paula didn't speak to or touch him as he plugged in, but rather watched him with a heartbroken look on her face until his breathing returned to a normal pace.
"Saul..." she said, her own voice breaking this time. "My love...I've never seen you this bad before."
"I'M FINE!" Saul practically shouted, which was all of the proof that he wasn't. "I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not me who isn't fine. It's everyone else. I need to save everyone. I need to save everyone, or else I serve no purpose. They're my friends. All of these addicts are my friends, and if I fail to help them it means they're hurting because of me." Saul rarely cried. The most he did was sigh and maybe snap. But in this moment, he truly felt like crying, and he hated it, because he was supposed to be strong. Because he was strong. He was strength. Strength.
If Paula had seen anyone else stressing like this over technology, she would suggest that they go to a meeting, but the more that she thought about it the more she thought that might be a bad option for Saul. If he heard all of these people talking about their struggles, that might make him even worse. Her husband got a bit of a bad reputation, but he was actually one of the most sympathetic people that Paula knew. He was kind to the point where it was his biggest fault. He never expressed frustration or disappointment with others, only with himself.
"Saul, you need help. Help outside of your group, I mean. You need to see a separate therapist." She'd suggested it before. She'd suggested all kinds of help. Talk therapy for Saul, couple's therapy for the two of them, and Saul always shot it down.
"I can't. Every moment that I focus on myself is a moment that could be spent focusing on others. I can't get help for myself. Only for everyone else."
"You've never tried to get help for yourself. Even at the E Goostman Faith Center, you only ever try to persuade the others to share their stories, you never talk about your own struggles."
"I don't need help. And what's it matter? Everyone knows about me now anyway because of you and Marvin. I'm not even a mystery to them anymore."
"Are you mad at us?" Paula asked.
"Well...no," Saul said. "I'm mad at myself, because clearly all I did was make you both worse. I told you, I'm a failure." He wasn't saying it to be rude or manipulative, even if it came out that way, and Paula knew it. She didn't snap at him, but instead sat next to him on the couch.
"Saul. Please. Put the phone down," she begged. She wanted to threaten him. Threaten to take it away like a mother would with a child. Threaten to serve him more tea, this time with the psychedelic. But she couldn't do it. If he didn't want help, help wasn't going to work, and that's why she felt torn apart inside.
Saul didn't exactly obey, but he did lock the screen and look in Paula's direction, even though he could feel the self-loathing and worry pumping through his veins the second the glow turned off. Even though he was looking at his wife, he kept thinking about all of the people in the darkest corners of their minds and of the internet, all of the people that he'd never get to reach.
Paula thought back to Velma's confession during the meeting, and decided to steal a phrase that one of Velma's friends had apparently told her. "There is god inside of you, and god is everything, darkness and light. I want the light part of you back, rather than all of these shadows. The only way to do that is for you to take a break. You can do it, Saul. This is a job, and jobs are not meant to be 24/7 thing. At the very least, you need to set some time aside to eat and sleep and be with me. In trying to restore strangers, you are only destroying yourself."
"I don't know how to stop," Saul said, and it was the most obvious thing, but for some reason saying it aloud felt like a breakthrough. "I don't know how to stop and I don't want to."
"I know that. You don't have to stop, only slow down. If not for yourself, for me."
Saul wanted nothing more than to tell her that he'd try, but he didn't know if he could. He couldn't just lie to her. He opened his mouth to say something, but he didn't even know what he wanted to say, so he closed his mouth again and looked down at the phone in his hands, not doing anything with it yet.
Paula's voice broke through Saul's messy thoughts.
"More tea?" she asked.
Saul nodded, but barely. "More tea," he whispered, still staring at his phone.