45

Monday evening, the offices of Melanie Anderson, Penny's therapist

"So, Penny, how are you today? You sounded a bit disturbed when we spoke over the weekend."

"Yeah, I guess I did. I'm sorry."

"That's nothing to be sorry about. You should be able to be comfortable telling me how you feel. You don't need my approval. If you feel badly tell me. If you're angry tell me. And, hopefully we'll be able to determine why you feel that way. And if it's something you need to talk through, well, that's why I'm here."

"Thanks. It's been a pretty intense few days. A lot happened. Not much of it is resolved. And I'm in the middle of making some pretty serious decisions."

"Is there a way to look at this one thing at a time?"

"I'm not sure. Leonard, my fiancée, is kind of in the middle of all of it."

"Does he know that?"

"Oh, he knows it. But he just doesn't think there's as big a problem as I think there is."

"So let's try and break it down."

"Okay, I wasn't comfortable telling him that I started seeing you at first. I kind of lied to him about the anti-depressants when he offered me some wine. I said I had an infection and couldn't drink. Or have sex."

"Do you trust Leonard?"

"I thought I did. But lately he's been acting like a jerk, especially since I started to work for Sheldon."

"His old roommate."

"Yeah. For some reason he thinks Sheldon is up to no good and he's gonna flake out."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you think Sheldon is up to something?"

"If he is, he's doing it to help me. He could never do anything to hurt me. I'm sure of that."

"What about Leonard?"

"Could Sheldon do something to hurt Leonard? I didn't think so until Saturday."

"What happened on Saturday?"

"Sheldon and his sister Missy invited us and another couple to dinner and Leonard on his own invited Sheldon's ex-girlfriend who was definitely not welcome. Things got really messy and it came out that Leonard almost destroyed Sheldon's career sometime back. I didn't know. And I'm really ashamed that I didn't know."

Penny began to cry. She reached for a tissue.

"Take your time."

"A few years ago Sheldon led this big research expedition to the Arctic and he took Leonard and two other friends to assist him. When they got back Sheldon got really upset when he found out that they had played a joke on him with his data. He ran home to Texas and almost quit his job. I convinced Leonard and the others to apologize and bring him back. Leonard told me all was forgiven and everything had been settled and I slept with him for the first time that night. Nobody ever talked about it again. I found out on Saturday that their little joke had almost destroyed Sheldon's career and that it's affected all of his work since then."

"How do you feel about that?"

"I felt like Leonard had hurt my friend and I rewarded him for it. And it's not the only time I did that."

"Penny, did you know that you were rewarding Leonard's bad behavior at the time?"

"No?"

"Does Sheldon blame you?"

"No."

"Then you should probably stop beating yourself up for it, shouldn't you?"

"I guess. But when I found out about it on Saturday I made Leonard leave. And except for a couple of minutes this morning I haven't spoken to him since then."

"Why did you do that?"

"I needed some space. I started thinking that Leonard may not really be the person I thought he was. I mean, who does that to their best friend?"

"So you took some time."

"I've been staying with a couple of new friends. They've been really supportive and not pushy."

"I think you probably did the right thing. Have you reached any conclusions?"

"I think so. I think I need to take a step back. Leonard has been pushing to get married soon and think about moving and start a family and I'm just not ready. And I'm not even sure I want to any more."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I don't think I want to break up with him. I love him. But we aren't ready to live together. We're getting on each other's nerves way too much. And I can't get any time to myself. I'm going to ask him to move out or I'm going to move in with the friends I mentioned."

"Do you feel comfortable with that decision?"

"I do."

"When are you going to tell Leonard?"

"Tomorrow night. I already told him that I want us to talk things out tomorrow."

"I think that's good. You're taking control of your life. How is it going with the drinking? You thought you might have a problem stopping."

"To be honest, it really hasn't been an issue. I haven't had a sip since I started the anti-depressants and it never really occurred to me to take one. The people I'm staying with don't drink so that's helped. I think it'll be okay."

"That's good to hear. No side effects. Sleeplessness. Irritability."

"With what's been going on wouldn't that happen anyway?"

"You're probably right."

"I, um, did something I never did before yesterday."

"What was that?"

"My new friend Nora, who I'm staying with, models for art classes. I didn't want to stay by myself all day so I went along with her when she got called in for a job at the last minute. I kind of ended up working along with her posing naked for artists."

"How did you feel about that?"

"A little weird and nervous at first. But then I got comfortable and it was fun. And it turned out one of the artists was an old friend and he gave me the sketches he did of us and they're really good. Plus I got paid."

"So it was a good experience?"

"It was. And if all that crap with Leonard hadn't happened I wouldn't have had it. And it was weird. I was up there naked in front of a room full of mostly strangers and I felt like for the first time in a long time I was getting some perspective on my life. I guess you could say it was liberating."

"Interesting choice of words considering what you're about to try and do."

"Yeah, I guess it is."