19 | Ripple Effect

"Molly?"

After minutes of sitting without a word, Stravinsky decides to break the silence. Molly's eyes move to gaze at her but she still refuses to speak, a speck of anger gleaming in her pupils. "You want to talk about why you're so upset?"

"I'm not upset, I just don't have anything to say."

"Dawes, we're here for you, if you don't want to talk that's fine, we can reschedule, but do us both a favor and don't waste our time."

"Why did you make him leave?" it bursts out before she can resist.

"I didn't make him leave. It was a mutual decision because we both thought it best. I understand it's not to your liking, but it has as much to do with him as it does with me. I suppose he hasn't been privileged to this heartfelt treatment?"

Molly's eyes sink back to the floor and Stravinsky seizes the opportunity to start again, furious with herself over her unprofessional remark. She's not sure what it is really, just that the silent treatment she's been condemned to, being blocked out of whatever it is that Dawes is going through, has made her edgy and offended in a way that has never occurred with a patient.

"Have you been in contact with James since he's left?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And it was awkward and confusing and," Molly huffs and falls silent, Stravinsky can see she's not yet broaching what's really on her mind.

"Did anything happen between you two before he left?"

The look in Molly's eyes as she looks up at her tells Stravinsky more than words could ever say but she waits for Molly's answer. "He gave me letters to read, letters he'd written while I was... away. How he'd heard what happened, how he's looking for me, how he feels."

"And how did reading those letters make you feel?"

Molly folds into herself again, her voice small, "Guilty."

"Why?"

"You wanna a list? Because I never took into consideration that me being taken had such effect on anyone else. I mean, I know people care, my family missed me, the army looked for me, but he, he stopped his life to find me, he was away from his family for months in the desert, he's been through as much as I have and I forgot him, I fucking let myself forget him, how unfair is that?! And,"

"And what?"

"I remember, after reading the letters, I remembered what I felt for him before, I remember being in love with him, wanting him, knowing that he's the one for me but,"

Stravinsky senses the delicacy of the moment, Molly voicing what's really bothering her, the source of self-doubt, she waits for Molly to gather the courage to say it out loud.

"But remembering it and feeling it are two different things. There's, like, this gap, between where I was then and where I am now. What I know I felt then, I know the feeling in my head, but not, as a feeling, you know?

"And I feel his expectations, I know he wants that, he wants me to be that again, but I, I, I don't know that I am, I don't know what I feel, that I feel what he wants me to."

She falls silent, her doubts now exposed, her words ringing in her ears.

"It's not about what he wants you to feel, Molly. You're not obliged to feel anything and it's okay to be confused and angry and feel guilty." Molly's eyes shoot into hers at that last remark, "I'm not saying I agree with your reasoning of the guilt, but I understand where it's coming from and we'll have to work on stripping it down to dismantle it."

They sit a moment in silence, both thinking about Molly's words, Stravinsky trying to decide what to address first. "I think there is one thing you might be missing in your description,"

Molly raises her eyes carefully to Stravinsky and she can see her pain as she waits for some relief.

"I don't think James sees his time looking for you in the desert, as time away from his family. If I'm not mistaking, I believe he sees you as his family and that's why he was out there. You've both made the necessary decisions to keep yourselves alive in an extreme situation, Molly. You had to guard yourself against being weak in the eyes of your captures, and he had to join the rescue team to find you. It was his choice, Molly. You have to remember that, at the end of the day, you are not responsible for his choices, he is. So there is nothing for you to feel guilty about him looking for you in the desert, he chose to do what he felt he had to do, for his sake as much as for your."

"He was going to propose. Before my tour, he was waiting for me to come back to ask me to spend the rest of our lives together."

"Did he tell you this?" Molly nods, tears slowly gathering in her eyes. "He showed me the ring. Said he wasn't asking now, that I'm not ready but he wanted me to know where we were, where we left off, how much I'd forgotten.

"What does that make me, what kind of weak horrible person am I that I chose to forget him, us?" she can't hold the tears a bay any longer.

"Let's address that for a moment, Molly. Do you really think you made that choice out of weakness? Or is that what you fear he sees in you?"

When Molly doesn't answer Stravinsky goes on. "Let me ask it differently, do you remember what you were thinking at that moment when you decided?"

Molly nods slowly, "I was thinking about him, about home. I suddenly thought how scared for me he'd be, and angry when he'd hear what happened, how he'd go out of his mind with worry and that really scared me, that really hurt.

"I remember it was really dark in that pit but I wasn't scared of that, it was the thought of the distance between us, the impossibility, the unknown that scared me. And I started crying, I cried for ages, days I guess. The only times I stopped was when I heard the car arriving above me. Then I'd pull myself together thinking I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

"And then, one day I just knew that they were going to move me, that things would be different and I knew I couldn't let them see me scared or crying because it'd encourage them. Obviously later I cried with pain and they seemed to fucking enjoy that. But I knew I had to let go of anything that would make me vulnerable, weak."

"So you decided against weakness to protect yourself?" Stravinsky summarizes Molly's words, "does that sound to you like a weak or easy decision to make? You doomed yourself to loneliness to fight for your life, also rejecting the comfort such memories might bring when things get hard."

Molly doesn't seem to notice what Stravinsky is pointing at, she answers matter of factly. "Yeah, cause they'd have seen it and used it against me, they looked for anything, anything to use against me, to make me give up. So, I thought if I didn't hold on to anything, they couldn't take anything away. It'd be less painful if it were my decision, and not me losing control to them. Maybe that doesn't make sense now."

"It's not about sense, Molly, it's about survival. In everything you've said there is not one weak decision. It seemed you made a calculated decision to protect yourself emotionally because you understood that was what would keep you alive.

"That's not only admirable it's impressive. Not many people would have the sense, the instinctive understanding to do that."

Molly's lips curl up slightly, but her eyes grow darker.

Stravinsky carefully goes on, "I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about Molly. Yes, it's hard you've forgotten your life with James but you're getting it back, rather quickly even, from what I'm hearing, and you have to ask yourself if it's really worth wasting time on guilt when the alternative could have been that you'd not have survived at all. You might look at it as another chance for the two of you. What do you think of that?"

"Hadn't thought of it like that. That'd make us fucking lucky. Between him being shot and me being taken, I guess we should be grateful we're still here, still have a chance."

"Yeah, I would say so. Now, you want to talk about Thursday? Brize, your family?"

"Naah, Charles explained all that. What's gonna happen afterward, though? With treatment and stuff?"

"Well, you're going to go home for a few days at least and then you'll need to report for check up at Headly Court so they can decide what your rehabilitation will look like. The good news is," she exhales as she says it, wondering if Molly will see it as good news, "that I'll be accompanying you back. My time here is almost up, we've arranged my return with yours, so you and I will be able to keep to our treatment process in the UK. Thought it might be easier on you, not having to change therapist mid-process."

She looks hopefully over at Molly who's nodding absentmindedly, not revealing any special reaction to the news.