Niles rose from his chair, intent on making himself a glass of sherry. But when he reached the bar, he stopped and appeared through the opening that looked into the kitchen. To his horror, he could see Daphne doubled over in hysterical laughter. And it didn't take a PHD in Psychology-or even a book from an Intro to Psychology Class-to know why she was laughing. And then her spoken words confirmed his deepest fear.
"Sorting candies by colors!" She laughed, barely able to say the words. "What will the Crane brothers think of next?"
Niles swallowed hard and hung his head, no longer interested in a glass of sherry, or even of being in Frasier's home. He stood there watching the woman he loved laugh at him as though he were some sort of joke.
And maybe he was.
All of his life he'd been teased and bullied, laughed at and ridiculed so why should now be any different? He should be used to it by now, after living with Maris for so long. Although she claimed to love him, he wasn't oblivious to the snickering and pointing that so often occurred when he said or did something she disapproved of. Nothing he ever did pleased her, and now that they were divorced it seemed that his insecurities had been tarnished to the point of no return.
Even his patients, who paid him large sums of money to pour out their feelings and deepest secrets in the hopes of being cured, looked at him in an odd way. He knew this… he knew it from the very beginning. But he simply chose to ignore it, with the ridiculous notion that if he did so, it might go away. But this sort of ridicule was entirely different, for it had come from the woman he loved. And suddenly he feared that the hurt, which was more intense than anything he'd ever felt before, might never go away.