Prologue
BEX
My palms are sweating as I grip the steering wheel and pull into a parking spot. I’ve finally found the courage to park after two drive-by’s of the café where Sean and I are supposed to have our first…let’s call it meeting. Picking up my phone, I scroll through photos he’s texted me. My face blushes as I come across his latest dick pic, one of many that I scroll past, trying to find a clear photo of his face. His dick pics are impressive, but now’s not the time for a lengthy perusal. Near the beginning of our text thread is a photo that looks like a realtor’s headshot—did I ever even ask what he does for a living? Looking from my phone to the café patio, I search for a man who resembles the photo. The man I’ve been texting/sexting for nearly two months, but haven’t met in person. Yet.
It started like it usually does.
A swipe. A match. A message.
The typical back and forth that turns into late-night banter. Loneliness masked in lust. The desire for love downplayed to not seem desperate.
That must be him. At least he looks somewhat similar to the photo. He’s sitting alone in the café waiting for me, just as we’d planned, but my mind begins to whirl with doubts. Why would this go anywhere? He knows nothing about me, really—only made-up sexual fantasies and embellished truths. Not that I downright lied. But let’s just say I omitted a few mundane facts of my reality. Now, about to meet him in real life for an actual, in-person meeting, what will we even talk about? Trying to find love on an app, in Los Angeles, as a single mom, inching toward forty. Who do I think I am? How can sexting a few times a week translate into a real relationship? It was doomed from the first dick pic.
Feeling utterly defeated, I reach for my phone and start typing a text.
Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I can’t make it.
I quickly delete it. Too cold and impersonal after all the late-night NC-17 details we’ve shared with each other over the past few weeks.
What about, I hate to cancel on you last-minute, but I’ve realized that after all this sexting, maybe we’re better off letting the fantasy just be a fantasy. I wish you all the best.
I re-read the text and it just seems kind of cruel. Maybe honesty isn’t the best policy, after all. Fuck it.
Sorry for the last-minute cancelation, but I have a family emergency. Rain check?
And send. The text bounces into the ether. Too late for second thoughts. I slouch in the driver’s seat, taking a moment to wallow in my self-inflicted defeat, as I watch Sean check his phone then gather his things to leave. Simple as that. No harm. No foul. Regret starts to weigh on me. Maybe I should have met him after all.
Annoyed, I flip down the car visor and look at myself in the mirror. What are you doing, Bex? I answer my own question with a shake of my head. Another failed attempt at a connection, over before it even begins.
Liv
“Ethan?” Emma says.
My husband is staring out the window, the rush of a busy London street below, with a bored look on his face as Emma calls out his name.
“Ethan?” she says again. “How does it make you feel when you hear what Liv just said?”
Waiting for Ethan to answer, I stare at Emma’s long, curly hair, the kind that looks like it takes a lot of discipline and hard work to control. I wonder if she washes it every day. I wonder if she fights with her partner.
“Sorry, what?” Ethan snaps out of it as if he realizes he’s in this room, on this sofa, looking out that window for the first time in his life. Instead of the fourth time, at a cost of £100 an hour. “Oh, um.” He clears his throat and shakes his arm so that his Patek Philippe watch moves around his wrist so he can see the watch face. I know this move and what it means.
“I was just thinking,” he says.
“Yes?” Emma nods encouragingly from her throne-like chair opposite the sofa, urging him on with an open look.
“I was just thinking. I need to leave early. I’m sorry. I completely forgot I had a deposition today,” Ethan says, not at all sorry. He gets up and slowly makes his way to the door, stopping to turn to us before he leaves. “Thank you, Emma. Lovely to see you again. Bye, Liv. I’ll see you tonight at the gala.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
I turn to Emma and throw my hands in the air. “Do you see? I mean, seriously. I don’t know how much longer I can take this.”
Emma just nods at me, silently.
“Can we talk? Since I’m here?” I hate the pleading note in my voice.
“Liv, you know the rules.”
“But, we’re not even halfway through the session.” My stomach is churning with a mix of exasperation and desperation.
“Liv, I can’t do sessions with either of you separately. It’d be a breach of my ethics and a breach of our trust—you, me, and Ethan. You remember the patient covenant you each signed.”
“Ha!” I laugh out loud. “Trust…”
I grab my bag and throw my scarf around my neck as I try to get up from the sofa, which is like quicksand pulling me in. How many sad, angry, depressed, anxious butts have sat on this sofa? It must be my new heels that are throwing me off balance. After a good rocking motion, I finally rise to my feet but lose my balance and almost fall into Emma’s lap, catching a scent of her crisp, grassy perfume. She’s so perfectly put together and composed it irritates me during our sessions.
“Are you okay, Liv? I think it’s best if you leave now and we can regroup next week.”
“No, I’m not okay. You need a new sofa. And I am leaving.” I huff out of the room.
This isn’t me. I hate being angry. I’m not supposed to be like this—bitchy to other people, like a child throwing a tantrum. Ethan makes me like this. I had to practically kidnap him, brainwash him, and bodily drag him to therapy. The first session was fairly easy—who we are, what we do, our history as a timeline of places and events. Ethan loves beginnings. He’s always charming in beginnings, and with a run of his hand through his thick, salt and pepper, wavy hair, he ingratiates himself to everyone. And everyone seems to fall under his spell. By now, I know all of his moves, but I was just as dazzled by him during our beginning, too. That’s why he’s a good lawyer, I suppose. But this particular session with Emma, when things are starting to get real, when we’re finally scratching below the surface of who we are together as a couple, whether there’s even a together for us, he bails. Considering everything that’s happened over the years, I shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurts.
I stumble out into the crowded hustle and bustle of Tottenham Court Road on a blustery London day. It’s always such a jarring juxtaposition—the quiet, soft hues, and minimalist decor of Emma’s office, her well-watered plants, and just interesting enough paintings on the wall, then hitting the frenetic pace of the pavement outside. The car horns, the jostling with other pedestrians. London still manages to overwhelm me all these years later.
How did it come to this? I think to myself for the millionth time.
I reach into my bag to get my phone and see there’s a text from Ethan. In spite of myself, my heart leaps for a nanosecond. Maybe it’s an apology.