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"What do you feel for James?"
Seated in front of him, Silna looks like a deity from another time, a totemic sort of peaceful being staring straight into Francis' soul. Her calm, flat voice has, as always, the paradoxical effect of pushing him to reveal his darkest secrets, even when the question is a hard one, one that forces him to face things he would normally avoid, like his feelings, which are always too strong, too much, completely unbalanced when compared to other people’s.
"I…" Francis thinks about how to explain the enormity of what he feels. It's an important question, one which deserves a thorough answer, but all the words he reaches for are not the right ones. In the end, he settles for a simple, yet viscerally honest: "I love him."
It's the first time he’s said it out loud. An incredulous sort of happiness mixed with euphoria bubbles up his throat and he feels it in his nose, tickling his eyes. It makes him smile without his consent.
"And how does loving James make you feel?" Silna asks.
Ah, yes: the classic therapist question. Francis used to hate it, at first. He has yelled at Silna so many times in the past, when she asked him these kinds of questions, it's a wonder she never punched him. It didn’t matter that listening to him is part of her job: he was horrendous to her when they initially started seeing each other twice a week for ninety minutes at a time, because that's how much Francis needed it. In the last few years they've narrowed it down to one hour per week, so every Friday Francis wakes up, gets ready, feeds Neptune, takes him on a quick walk, then heads to Silna's office.
He used to hate that too. He hated how different her space looked from the stereotypical therapist office he was picturing in his mind: no certificate or degree or any kind of documentation hanging on the walls to display her skills, no bookshelves stacked with heavy-looking psychology essays and medical books. Just blinding white walls all around, as if her professional success should be self-evident. Francis thought it was pretentious. In hindsight, he understands that the main issue he had with Silna's sessions was her silence paired with the white walls: they made him feel like he was in the middle of nothing, lost and alone, already dead.
Silna, with her pitch black hair and bottomless eyes, was the sole point of focus in the entire room, which forced Francis to stare at her even though the only thing he wanted to do was to run away and hide in some forgotten nook where he could nurse his pain in peace.
They spent the first few weeks like that: staring at each other in stubborn silence, two animals studying their enemy. Silna (who insisted on being called by her first name, no surname and no 'Doctor', because we're people Francis, I already know I have two degrees, a top-grade Master’s and the licence to practice. I don't care about you being so formal. Just talk to me ) was only doing her job, but Francis was doing it out of spite: what right do you have to insist on helping me, he thought. You think you're going to save me? You think you're going to understand what I saw, what I lived? No one knows what I felt. No one understands. You won't either . You have no right to get close to my pain. It's the last thing he gave me. It's mine alone, I won't let anyone touch it.
He ended up telling her all of that and more when he finally couldn’t take it anymore: he ended up spending that entire session yelling at Silna, who had suddenly become the incarnation of all his fears and anxieties. Francis opened his mouth to voice his anger and hasn't stopped since, as though Silna's therapy finally managed to crack something in him.
In time, he has learnt that there is no point in hiding his true thoughts from her, because she is that good at her job, so he now lets his words flow from his mind to his mouth and out of him, freeing them and himself with it.
How does loving James make you feel?
"Terrified." It's the first thing that he ends up saying before he can even process it. His ever-present fear weighs on him like a wet cloak, crushing him to the ground.
"Happy." It's the second thing that he feels, overlapping his fear. And then, all in quick succession: "Worried. Melancholic. Scared. Lucky. I can't believe it." He laughs at his own confused report. "It makes me feel all sorts of ways, I could go on for hours."
"Go on then." Silna says, as placidly as ever.
Francis takes a breath. He thinks about James, picturing him as he was last night when they had dinner at his place. James made them pad thai from scratch while Francis watched him cook, seated at the table set for two. How lovely it had been to watch James move confidently in his own space, smiling at Francis every time he turned around to tell him a joke and watch him laugh.
"I can believe I fell for him." Francis says. "What I can't understand is why he fell for me."
"Is it that strange, Francis?" Silna asks, furrowing her brow a little. "That someone else could love you?"
Someone else besides James .
"I find it strange that he loves me just like I love him." He explains. "The same way, with the same intensity. This— what I'm living with James is everything I've ever wanted from a relationship." He chuckles, his heart in his throat thinking about him and what they are creating together. "It's different from what I had with James. It's good and incredible just like that, but different."
"How so?"
Francis knows the answer to this particular question perfectly well. He has been thinking about it for days, weeks, he was already thinking about it even before he and James—this James—got together. He’s been thinking about it day and night, when he's with James and when he's by himself. He's been living his life with this sort of euphoria that sometimes would subside and morph into something dark, throwing him into his worst fears, as if someone was monitoring Francis attentively and they had the power to decide when it was time to make him suffer, that he's been happy enough.
Francis swallows. He clasps his hands together, looking for something to hold onto. He stupidly wishes James was here, so he could hide his face in his neck and hold onto him; he wishes he wouldn't have to face this particular thought on his own.
"When I was with James," he says, very carefully, "I still didn't know what losing someone felt like. But now I do."
Silna stares at him for a long moment.
"You're scared what happened to him might happen again, to you and James."
Francis nods, unable to speak because his throat has closed up.
"It would be pointless for me to tell you that bad things are never going to happen and that you two are going to be perfectly alright forever." Silna says, matter-of-factly, "It might be. But it might not."
The mere mention of the possibility is horrendous. As long as Francis was considering it on his own, it was acceptable: it was a scary thing that only lived in his mind, like a monster in a child's imagination; for as ugly as it was, he knew it wasn't real, even if it felt like it. But by acknowledging it, Silna has brought it to life, has turned it into a real thing. It could happen. No one says it's going to happen, but it could .
Francis' heart sinks, causing a painful void to open up in his chest, somewhere between his throat and stomach. He grasps his hands tightly together.
"I don't want you to tell me it's going to be alright." He says, focusing on controlling his breathing. "I don't want your pity."
"And it's not what I'm giving you. I'm saying your pain and fear make sense. I'm saying you're a much braver man than you think— no Francis, don't." She says, when Francis tries to protest (him? Brave? With the way he has acted in recent years? No). "You are."
He shrugs, making a noncommittal grunt. Silna lets it be, and instead asks: "Have you talked about it with James?"
Francis' head snaps up.
"No, of course not."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to talk about James so much with him. He— James, my partner, doesn't deserve it."
"But you deserve to suffer on your own?"
"That's not the point."
"Then what is the point?"
Francis knows what the point is. He knows it all too well, which is why he has trouble talking about it.
When he manages to speak, his voice wavers horribly, and he can barely whisper, "I just want to be happy. With him."
Silna's deep gaze pins him to the seat. "You said you were happy."
"I am, but—" Francis takes a deep, shaky breath. How can he explain to someone who has no idea what living in this fragile state—suspended in time with this thing inside him that could turn itself into the worst of demons at any given moment, while also being absurdly happy—is like?
"I'm so worried and scared all the time, Silna," he starts, " all the time , every minute of every day and every night. I'm happy, I've never been this happy before, but in the back of my mind there's always this thing, this thought, telling me that this won't go on forever, that it's going to get bad at some point, really bad, and I won't be able to do anything about it just like last time, and it catches me so off guard, in the worst moments possible, I hate it— the other day I was watching James sleep, I was perfectly alright, but then I found myself thinking ' What if he doesn't wake up —'" His voice breaks. He hides his face in a hand.
Silna lets him cry and Francis hates how much he needs it, how much he needs another person to see his tears and witness his pain, as though he requires confirmation that someone else besides himself knows how he truly feels all the damn fucking time.
He calms down when he manages to grasp the trail of his own thoughts and stops them from spinning around, like Silna taught him.
He wipes his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. How he would love to go home to James, bury himself in his presence and forget about his worries once and for all. Sometimes he’s so tired of being tired.
"Why haven't you talked to him about how you feel?" Silna asks. "He's your partner now. It's your right and duty to share your thoughts with him."
"Are you trying to make me feel bad about it?" He jokes, but his voice is still too watery and it comes out awkwardly.
"I'm trying to let you understand that it's alright to be scared, especially in your situation, but you don't have to go through it on your own." Silna says. "Not anymore."
Francis' jaw trembles, threatening another outburst of tears. He swallows it down and sets his jaw tight.
"How do you think James would react, if you told him how you feel about him?" Silna asks.
Francis thinks about it, he really does, and he finds himself smiling without meaning to.
"He would say that I'm sweet, that I have a big heart, or something along those lines."
"And how do you think he would react if you told him that you're scared because of what happened to James?"
Francis has, to some degree, told him. Not with this many words, but he has, he thinks: with his artworks; with his tendency to grasp James close, as though it was the only way to keep him from disappearing; with his words, stammered awkwardly in the dark, late at night, because it's been years since he was last in love and he's slowly re-learning how to do it.
"He's always been understanding when I've mentioned it, so I think he would probably hug me and tell me it's alright." He smiles, feeling the impression of James' familiar embrace around him. "But I don't want to burden him with this—this other presence in our relationship."
"When we get into a new relationship, don't we bring our past and pains into it?"
He shakes his head. "But this is... is too much."
"You managed to get through it anyway." Silna points out, "Even if it was too much."
"Because I had no choice!" Francis bursts out at last, voice hard. "No one was there to spare me the pain, but I can do it for James and I will, I don't want this to hurt anyone else, especially not him."
He realises he's tensing up all over, leaning forward on the edge of the seat. His hands are starting to feel weird. He squeezes his eyes shut.
"I know that by doing this you think you're sparing James the suffering," Silna says, voice calm, "but it will come to a point where, if you keep burying everything inside yourself, you're going to explode. Like last time."
Francis flinches at the mention of one of his lowest moments. He remembers it all too well, that first night with James, when he found himself crying desperately in his arms with a panic attack clouding his mind and shaking his body like a leaf in the wind.
"Then what do I do?" Francis asks at length, tired of fighting against his own mind.
"Talk to him. Let him see your pain. Let him reach you. He's with you now, Francis." Silna says, as if it was that simple. And perhaps, Francis thinks, perhaps it is that simple. Perhaps this time it doesn't have to be hard.
"You're not on your own anymore." Silna says. "You have James now."