Chasing Zero

Twenty-Six

"How are you feeling today?"

"Negative thirty-seven."

Johnathon winced. "Well, that's not good, now is it?" He wrote it down. "Why are you upset?"

"A lot of shit has been going on this past week. Each time I look at Sky, I feel guilt rotting in my chest. It's like air won't settle in my lungs, and I'm scared I will hyperventilate and pass out, and a part of me wants to pass out so I can avoid any form of confrontation from him," I rambled.

"Well that's-"

"And Dakota is up my ass about a new chapter for the book. It's about my damn life, and I have no idea what the hell is going on, so how the hell will I know what's going on with Giselle as well? I feel as though I am going off the rails. Am I going off the rails, because it sure as well feels like it," I ranted.

Johnathon was at a loss for words. I needed him. He was my therapist. He was supposed to help me find answers or just give them to me. Instead, he was wasting my precious hour by sitting at his desk, staring at me as though I belonged in the looney bin, and constantly opening and closing his mouth in hopes of saying something. But a large part of me feared that nothing he would say would be able to help me.

"I'm going insane...aren't I?" I whispered.

"You always have been," he chuckled, hoping to release some of the awkward tension. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Let's take this one step at a time. You're worried about your relationship with Sky?"

"Very much so. Yes."

"What's been going on? Have you worked towards giving your natural reaction to everything?"

"Yeah, and I wish I didn't, because my actual feelings suck."

"What are they, then?"

"Regret. Stupid. Fed up. I don't feel anything that I am supposed to be feeling," I stated. "I tried to have sex with him the other day, and it failed. I had forgotten all about how he told me he didn't like having sex, and that is completely fine. There is nothing wrong with not liking sex, it's all about personal preference. But I was lying in his arms afterwards, and he was being so sweet and gentle and kind, and I didn't enjoy it. There was nothing but love behind his actions, and I do not feel any love towards him, but he feels it towards me. He is falling in love with me, he told me. And he hopes that's I'll feel the same way, but I don't think I can.

"I know I do love him. He's my best friend. I want him to always be my best friend, but nothing feels right. If I try to do what fictional characters do, I am doing the wrong thing because it's forced and unnatural. If I do the natural thing, I treat him as I would with any other one of my friends. Unless I act on lustful feelings, Sky would be treated like any other person. But that's it. I lust him. I completely and utterly lust him. I want to have sex with him, but he does not want it, so obviously I won't do it. John Oliver said that 'Sex is like boxing. If one of the parties did not agree to participate, the other one is committing a crime.' And I do not want to put any sort of emotional trauma on him when I care about him so much, but I also only feel something for him when I am acting on these lustful feelings."

"Sounds to me like you don't love him."

"But I do love him. He's my-"

"Friend," he stated. "He's your friend, and that's it. You do not love him as anything more than a friend, and you need to admit that to yourself, or else you will be dancing around your feelings for a long time. You need to understand that familial and friendly love are completely different from romantic love. When you say you love Sky, do you mean it romantically?"