My Sweetheart's Psyche

A Rude Awakening

Here it was. The scenario I'd feared the most. The one I'd worried about countless times before. What if one of Mr. Weston's personalities woke up early and found me naked in their bed? I used to think that was the worst thing that could possibly happen. I was wrong.

Arthur. Of all the people he could have been today, why did it have to be Arthur? The one personality I was trying to ease into the truth? This situation was anything but easy.

He avoided all eye contact with me. He stared down at the bedsheets, his eyes still wide with shock. He shook his head, sputtering out incoherent half-sentences as he tried to make sense of whatever was going on.

Guilt flooded every inch of me. Poor Arthur. He was the last person I wanted this to happen to. He already had so much anxiety about his "memory loss." I couldn't even imagine the confusion and panic that he must have felt thinking he might have forgotten our first time together. Well, what he believed to be our first time anyway.

I grabbed the blankets and quickly covered myself, trying to salvage what little bit I could from this situation. I reached out to touch his arm gently. He flinched away from me like I'd electrocuted him.

"Arthur-"

"What the hell is going on?!" He cried.

His voice was panicked. He looked terrified. However, now that he'd finally managed to say something, he did seem a little more in control of himself. That was reassuring. To some degree.

Honestly, I was panicking about this situation too, but I couldn't let him see that right now. Right now, he needed stability. He needed me to calmly and rationally explain what was happening. He needed a rock. Unfortunately, I felt more like a rock in a hard place.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. "Look, I know this is probably very confusing-"

"You think?!" He held his head in his hands and took a shaky breath. "What's going on? Why are you here? Why are you... I-I mean, did we..."

I could see the pain on his face as he trailed off that last question. I wanted to answer him, but I wasn't sure what to say. Yes? No? Both were true, but neither was really the full truth.

The full truth. It was the thing I'd been waiting so long to tell him. The thing I wanted to tell him. I wanted to finally put his mind at ease. I wanted him to stop worrying and searching for answers all the time. I wanted him to wake up in the morning and feel confident that, memory or no memory, it would all be okay. That someone would be there to give him an explanation. That I would be there. More than anything, I wanted him to know that.

But not like this. I never wanted him to find out this way. I wanted to break things to him gently. Well, as gently as you can break the news to someone that they're technically a mental disorder.

Was there a right way to do it? Probably not, but this was definitely the wrong way. It was obvious that there was no "putting things off" anymore though. If I still had the option of not telling him before, it was certainly gone now. I had to tell him. I just wasn't sure how to do it.

As I watched him sit there, confused and panicked, one thing was obvious: I needed time. Time for him to calm down, if nothing else. Before anything, I had to take care of him.

I took a deep breath and reached out again. I touched his arm gently with my fingertips. This time, he didn't pull away. I gave his arm a gentle squeeze. If I wanted to comfort him, I suppose the best place to start was with the thing he wanted to hear the most.

"I took care of things with my boyfriends," I said softly.

I thought saying that might help to calm him down, but I was surprised by how effective it was. His personality did a complete one-eighty. It was like someone flipped a switch in him. All traces of worry or panic immediately disappeared from his face. Instead, a mixture of curiosity and hope took its place.