Beyond Count(M,C)

“Let’s try that again.” Aubrey said as Maeve threw another dart. It had sunk into the very edge of the dartboard. It was still an improvement from Maeve’s previous shots over the course of the morning, which either couldn’t hit the dartboard or had been too weak to fully stick.

She picked up the two other darts off the floor and offered them to Maeve. The older woman waited patiently for Aubrey to retrieve the one that had been marginally more successful. “You’re throwing it straight, your aim is better than mine when I first started practicing. But for how you’re angling your shots, you’re not putting enough **** into your throws. Do you think it’d be easier for you to throw harder, or change your angling?”

Maeve considered the question for a moment. “Given how many ways you’ve tried to motivate me to throw harder, it might be best to try something else. How should I try to angle it?”

“Do you mind if I move your arm to show you?”

Maeve nodded, and Aubrey lightly tugged. She tilted Maeve’s elbow up and brought her wrist slightly closer to the dartboard. “Can you try that? You’re giving up some power stretched out this way, but when the dart starts dropping it’ll be higher up in the air.”

Maeve tossed the dart. It flew high in the air, high above either of them. They both watched as the dart dropped again in the air falling into the board. It still didn’t land in the bullseye, but it closed half the distance from her first time managing to stick to the board the moment before. She tried it with her other two shots, and they managed to land at similar heights on the board. They were farther from the vertical line of the board’s center than she had been aiming, but they were closer overall with the height taken into account.

“That was great!” Aubrey exclaimed, pulling Maeve into a hug. The therapist was caught off guard by Aubrey’s enthusiasm. “More forward momentum would help, but you got onto the board all three times. You've only been practicing a few days, so that’s a big improvement. It took me months to get competitive, so you could probably challenge Luna and play with Richard with more practice.”

“Thank you.” Dr.Petrov didn’t really care about darts or pool that much. But the bar games helped make the young woman more comfortable, so she was more than willing to learn.

“Would you mind if I got a few throws in?”

“Sure, that’s all right.” The break would be nice honestly. So she watched the blonde toss, hitting one bullseye after another as her blonde hair twirled with the movement of her arms and hips. She didn’t hand the darts back after a few throws like she’d implied, instead retrieving her ammunition and launching another round again and again. Content with the ability to just stand back, she didn’t remind Aubrey and just decided to use the time to learn more about the girl.

“How long exactly have you been practicing this?” Dr.Petrov asked.

“About the time I started in college. I’d go sometimes when I needed a break from studying, or when Richard was busy. I’d usually end up staying until like two unless he asked me to come over, so that kind of added up over time.” She explained.

“You didn’t have anyone else to spend your free time with?”

“Sometimes Tiff or Lauren would come with me, or they’d take me to this nightclub called Nectar. But taking things slow like this, just shooting while sipping mudslides would be nice when he needed time to read and I’d already finished my homework.”

“You usually finished your schoolwork faster than him?”

“Yeah, with some of my lessons back in grade school most of my undergrad was pretty easy. My master’s was harder but Richard and Helena were always super supportive, even if his sister got kind of overbearing at times trying to make sure I didn’t stay out too late. With them and Dad on my side I was able to become a teacher just like I’d always wanted. Even if Richard got confused and thought I’d be better off without him. It was like a miracle that we got to come here, got to have our second chance like he was talking about.”

Aubrey had finally accepted that the split had happened. She’d forgiven him, when she had understandable reason to be angry at his paternalistic reasoning. It seemed like there was a lot the young woman would forgive, though possibly not everything. She’d contrasted him with whatever it meant to be that kind of person. “Aubrey, can we talk about some of the things you said yesterday while the two of you were working things out?”

Aubrey left the darts in the board, not retrieving them again. “Can we get some lunch first?” She was smiling as she turned towards Maeve to ask the question. But the therapist had seen an expression like hers enough times to recognize that something was wrong. The smile was like glass, and pressure in the wrong spot would crack it.

“We can eat, but I do want to discuss this. I’m worried about you.”

Aubrey’s smile cracked and reformed a little steadier, like she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Alright. I’ll go get us some food.”

“Aubrey?”

“Yes?” She turned around, her hair whirling as she turned.

“Would you want to have one of my salads with me?”

“Why?” She was opposed, but not necessarily upset.

“Do you know how many times you’ve had pizza this week?”

“Let me think…” After a moment it became clear that she was struggling to count it up.

“Would it be easier to count when you had a meal that wasn’t pizza?”

Aubrey counted on her fingers. “On our first day here I had my cereal, and then some wine and crackers for lunch. I didn’t have any when Luna introduced me to his friends. I didn’t have any for breakfast today”

“Two days so far then?”

“Well, I had it for dinner with Richard when I showed him this place.”

“So that’s a lot in one week. I can tell it’s a comfort food for you, and it’s good to have something predictable around when there’s a lot of change happening. It might be good to take a break though, just because pizza isn’t super healthy. Having a more balanced diet can help us regulate our own emotions, and that can be as important as having a predictable thing to rely on. I think it’d be good for you to at least try it.”

Aubrey stared at her, and Maeve was having trouble seeing what she was thinking. The blonde nodded eventually, agreeing to the request. “I can try it for you.”

“Thank you.” Maeve watched Aubrey’s glass smile firm a little further.

“Of course, M-Maeve. I’ll go get us the salads and you just sit at one of the booths on the wall. Don't worry, they're not sticky like the real ones are.”

She brought them both a chicken salad. She’d brought a daiquiri for each of them, along with a cup of water that Maeve accepted. She wished that she could’ve talked Aubrey out of the **** as well but since they were going to explore questions that would likely be difficult, she’d have to content herself with little wins on other fronts.

The two of them ate their lunch. They were both eating slowly but in different ways. Maeve was savoring the salad, alternating combinations of the chicken and veggies. Aubrey was mostly eating the chicken, spearing big clumps of vegetables on her fork when she noticed the older woman looking. She was hoping she’d be able to get what she needed to over with while she could get credit for it.

Neither of them talked much. Maeve had promised to wait on her questions until after lunch, and Aubrey was focused on timing her veggies to the attention of the silver haired woman across from her. She only had one drink during the meal, but it would be hard for even her to say whether it was a conscious decision or whether she’d just been distracted by the effort she was putting into eating.

As it became clear they both were done eating, Dr.Petrov opened the question she’d wanted to ask. “Could you explain to me more about what you said yesterday, when you explained that a break-up needed to be someone’s fault?”

“Well, nothing happens for no reason. If someone leaves, either I wasn’t good enough for them to stay, or they were a bad person. It can be both, but usually it’s my fault.”

“It’s usually your fault? Why do you think that?”

“I’m kind of a fuck-up. Richard was worried about me not finishing my master’s if he was distracting me given all the times I’d skipped classes to hang out without him, and in hindsight maybe he had a point. After undergrad he and his sister bailed me out all the time when I’d not have rent ready or I accidentally blew up my credit card debt. One time I forgot to get my car’s oil changed for long enough that my engine was gone. If Helena hadn’t offered to pay the replacement, then I would’ve needed to go back to taking the city bus when Rochard wasn’t around. She bought me that car too, and I fucked it up.”

“And is that the only reason?”

Aubrey paused, looking nervous as she was trying to decide how to answer. “Richard told me to stop saying the other thing about myself.”

“Is there a ****, or less **** way to say it?” If it was serious enough that Richard had tried to address it, then he’d probably have seen her react badly to it more than a lack of responsibility.

“I’ve already kind of brought it up with Luna. I’m…” She was looking for a word weak enough to not break her promise to her boyfriend. “I’m dumb.”

“I have trouble believing that. You mentioned that your bachelors was in linguistics? How many languages do you speak.”

Aubrey lost her dour expression for a moment as she thought about the list. “French was my first, and then Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Latin were pretty easy to learn after. I picked up German after that. Korean was a fun semester, the K-dramas my teacher found made it a lot easier than Tamil was. I know a little Arabic, but that one I’m still working on and can’t really be counted with the others.

“So if you included English and Arabic you’d be up to ten. How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven?”

“Learning ten languages would be a remarkable achievement for someone twice your age. It takes a certain intelligence to do what you’ve been able to.”

“Someone smart would have been able to cut fifteen into thirds yesterday. Someone smart would be able to grade essays without it taking longer to count their own marks than to actually read. Someone smart would be able to notice when their credit card debt was more than their salary.”

Maeve put her hand over Aubrey’s, trying to help steady her. “And it takes a lot for someone to be able to get their master’s too.”

“It doesn’t change that I’m dumb. Stella had to count my dice for me.”

“You have other talents. Was she, or anyone else upset that she was doing that for you?”

“No.”

“So out of the three of them, no one was upset by that?”

“They weren’t, but people have before. That’s why I need to try as hard as I can for people I care about, so they’ll forgive me for being stupid.”

“Can I ask who has before?”

“No. Can we stop talking about this?” All the reinforcement on Aubrey’s smile was being put under more pressure than it could handle, and the glass was starting to crack.

“Of course. I’m sorry for pressing so hard. Are you comfortable with me changing the subject to something related that I think would be reassuring for you?”

Aubrey looked back up at her from across the booth. “Can I sit next to you?”

“Go ahead.”

The blonde shuffled out of her side of the booth. She sat down on Maeve’s side and leaned her head on the pillows of her chest. After draping the therapist’s arm over her shoulder, she asked: “What did you want to say?”

“I think you are brilliant.” Maeve told her. “You need help sometimes, but I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t.”

The girl went still. She's just trying to be nice, right?

“You don’t have to worry about working hard enough for me, and I hope that over the past few days you’ve seen that Richard doesn’t want you to push yourself for him either. Given what you’ve told me about Helena and Stella supporting you and what Luna said in front of me, I don’t think there’s a single person on this island who believes you aren’t intelligent.”

The bar was quiet. Maeve listened to the young woman’s slow breaths. “Aubrey?”

“Thank you.” Aubrey murmured.

“Was that too much?”

“No, it… Thank you.”

“I’ll tell you this as many times as many times as you need.” Dr.Petrov assured her before moving on. “This is pretty heavy. That’s not your fault and it’s not a bad thing, but I don’t want us to sit with something this heavy if you’re ready to move on. Did you have anything else you wanted to share on this, or should we try to lift back up?”

“We can move on.”

“Would you like to tell me about something happy that Richard might not have been able to share? Afterwards you could give me another pool lesson if you'd like?”

“Can I talk about the time that Dad took me to Disney World?”

Maeve smiled. “That sounds nice.”

“So we went when I was fourteen. We’d been saving for almost seven years because every time Dad thought he had enough they had raised their prices, but child support came for three or four months when I was thirteen and that made it a lot easier for him to make rent for a while. But for my eighth birthday Dad got me the DVD for Mulan, and my teacher, Ms.Gentille, got this box set for me with Cinderella in both French and English. With how excited I was afterwards, Dad said he’d take me to meet Cinderella for real. Then when we finally got there we were able to meet Cinderella and Belle and…” Maeve listened as Aubrey’s spirit rose with the story of the Conners family vacation.