… I Decide to Tell Mrs. Barbara Jonssen a Secret …

I shrugged; I was far from a therapy expert. Yet, a therapist, Mrs. Sayhoushi Vandal, did teach me how to read the different types of people. Each type had its own fears you could use against them.

“It nearly didn’t… I think Elsa is a lot like me, & able to separate ourselves from our emotions… well not so much separate, as to thinking around our emotions.”

Mrs. Barbara Jonssen had a sad look in her eyes, “I was worried about her. Thank goodness we caught it, but she was abused by a schoolteacher when she was much younger. What you see now is after years of therapy helping her get over it. I was worried that she would never find someone willing to meet her halfway from the beginning. She was very strict with boys & that garnered her a rather unfortunate reputation.”

Then Barbara looked into my eyes with her warm smile of gratitude. “That is why neither Inga nor I did anything when your… making love woke us up.”

Normally I resisted such a notion. Even now I wanted to reject her assertion that I was making love with anyone. I simply did not do making love. Yet, strangely enough, I was unable to come up with a defense. It was a lot like the earlier sensation in the kitchen with Barbara. Finding parts of myself inside them awakened a sense of belonging I never knew I could possibly want until it was there.

“I see you didn’t correct me… that makes me happy.” Barbara clearly didn’t **fully** understand what was happening in her bed. I thought that because I could also see the beginnings of a twitch of sadness in her facial muscles.

That Ms. Elsa Jonssen was the sole woman I could feel this way towards was what was thought by Barbara. I never understood why people assumed being in love with one person took away from another. Still, it was a rather touching display given that she thought she was giving something up.

The problem was that experience had already taught me that misconceptions & such always lead to problems later down the road. I had to curb-stomp that idea right out of that head of Barbara’s.

“Ah… so you are making the same mistake as Inga.” I said knowingly towards Barbara.

“What!?! Oh no, that truly is crazy. I just told you my daughter is the victim of ****. Why would I ever do the same thing?”

“But is it?”

“Is it what…?…” Barbara was being difficult, but I was unable to tell if it was intentional or subconsciously choosing to wear blindfolds.

“… the same thing… You said a schoolteacher did it when she was younger. When she was only beginning to gain an understanding of what it means to be considered an adult.

“Since then, Elsa has had several years of therapy, her own experience of being of age, her sisters, & you to watch and comprehend. If anything, the experience just made her realize her ignorance, & that could only drive her to make up the deficit in maturity as fast as possible to avoid stepping even close to a similar situation.”

There was a flash in Barbara’s eyes that suggested she had an epiphany from my words. “You know because it happened to you. That is why you act the way you do, because… why?”