October, The Odd Ones

I tried not to think about what that plaque and necklace really meant. I didn't want to go there. Every time my mind brushed against it, I flinched like it was an open wound. It was easier to tell myself it was just a kind gesture, just something nice. Easier to sit with the surface meaning than dig into what was lurking underneath.  I was caught between conflicting emotions—grateful, angry, upset, hopeful—but mostly just  confused. 

Did he ever love me? The question hit first, sharp and cruel. And if the answer was yes—if he really did—then how could he do this to me? How do you betray someone you love and still call it love with a straight face? And if the answer was no... if he didn't... then what was all of this?  Did I build a life on something I imagined was there, something I wanted to be real so badly I never looked too closely? or  did I misunderstand his love completely? Did I expect it to look like mine, to sound like mine, to move the way I love? 

And I kept thinking, looping the same thought over and over like I was chewing glass: If he had given me the gift that night—or even a few nights later—I would've forgiven him immediately.  I would've told myself that mistakes happen and relationships are complicated, and I would've smoothed everything over, even the thing with Laura, or at least not stirred the pot any further.

So the following day, I went to my therapist.  She didn't say much at first, just looked at me like she was waiting for me to start untangling the knot myself.

"I don't even know why I'm this upset," I finally said, my voice small and shaky. "It's like—I love the necklace. I do. It's thoughtful and beautiful and meaningful and... romantic, even. Everything I always wanted from him, in theory But I shouldn't love it this much."

"So why shouldn't you love it?" they asked gently.

I swallowed, frustration building like a lump in my throat. "Because how am I supposed to hold this version of him—the thoughtful, sweet one—next to the version of him who forgot me? Who forgot us? How do I reconcile both without feeling like I'm betraying myself? I keep thinking I should be furious at him, and part of me is—but honestly? I'm angrier at myself."

"Why at yourself?" she asked, soft but steady.

"Because I know myself," I admitted. "I know I would've accepted that necklace that night and forgot about the missing birthday, missing dinners, and her. And I hate that about me."

She nodded like she'd seen this before,"Why do you think you didn't tell him whenever you felt hurt by him during your marriage?" she asked, her tone careful, like the question itself might splinter if I pressed too hard on it.

I stared at a little crack in the wall by her bookshelf. It branched like a dried riverbed, or maybe a vein. I hated how exposed I felt in that room, hated how the silence waited for me to confess things I wasn't even sure I understood yet.

"I don't know," I finally said. "Maybe... maybe I was scared. Like if I said something, I'd be the bad guy."

She nodded, thoughtful. "Why do you need to be the good guy?"

I gave a hollow laugh. "It's easier to be loved when you behave."

Her gaze was steady. "Do you not believe you're already loved?"

I shrugged, but the motion felt hollow. "I am, by many people, mainly my parents...  They are amazing."

"But?" she prompted gently, tilting her head like she already saw the shape of what I was circling.

"but at the risk of sounding arrogant, I was easy to love, I was a good kid," I said. "Quiet. Polite. I didn't cause trouble. Got good grades. Did what I was told."

She let that sit for a beat. "And if you hadn't been that way?"

I swallowed. "I don't know," I admitted. "I don't think they ever made me feel unloved, exactly. But... they had me late. They were already tired. I didn't want to be another thing they had to manage. I wanted to be easy."

She nodded, thoughtful, like she wasn't just hearing my words but everything beneath them. "That makes sense," she said gently. "A lot of kids in that position learn to shrink themselves—not because anyone told them to, but because they felt it. That sense of needing to be low-maintenance, of making yourself smaller to keep the peace."

She leaned forward slightly. "What you're describing is actually something we call a fawn response. It's when people learn, often really young, to manage love and safety by pleasing others. By being what others need, even if it means abandoning parts of themselves."

I blinked. "Fawn?"

"It's a term used in trauma therapy, especially in relation to complex relational patterns. Along with fight, flight, and freeze, fawn is another response to perceived emotional threat. It's a kind of compulsive appeasement. People who develop fawning behaviors often do so in environments where love feels subtly or overtly conditional. Somewhere along the way, you internalized that being good, being easy, being 'low maintenance'—that's how you keep love close and avoid rejection or emotional abandonment."

I opened my mouth to object but found I couldn't.

"So,  I'm a people pleaser? I said instead, the words brittle but true. "I always have been actually."

She nodded again, slowly this time. "People-pleasing is exactly that—a learned relational strategy. It often develops in children who unconsciously perceive that love or acceptance depends on how well they can meet others' emotional needs. Even in healthy families, this can happen subtly. No one needs to say it aloud. The child just... notices the unspoken rules. 'Don't be a burden. Don't make waves. Keep everything smooth.' It becomes emotional self-protection."

I felt like she'd cracked something open that had been stuck for years. "It's like I thought... if I was just easy enough to love, they wouldn't regret having me."

She nodded again, this time with more softness. "Exactly. And when that belief embeds itself early, it tends to generalize outward—to partners, friends, even strangers. You become hyper-attuned to others' emotions, anticipating what they need before they even ask, often at the expense of your own needs."

"It's exhausting," I admitted, voice low.

"Of course it is. Because it's not connection—it's performance. And over time, that leads to emotional burnout, chronic resentment, or even anxiety disorders. You're essentially training your nervous system to believe that safety equals self-erasure."

That hit too close to home. I sat very still. "It's like... I don't even know what I actually want half the time. Just what they want."

She smiled gently, but it wasn't patronizing. "That's very common. Emotional attunement to others becomes so automatic that you lose connection with your own emotional reality.
is this true in your marriage and ever when you were dating Thomas?"

I rubbed my palms together, cold despite the warmth of the room. "Yes," I said, staring at my knees. "It's like... as long as I'm a good wife, a good mom, as long as I don't cause trouble... maybe he'll keep loving me."

"Maybe?"

"It sounds ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous," she said, gently but firmly. "It's learned. Conditioned patterns don't make you ridiculous—they make you human. But they also keep you small."

I sat with that, the air in my chest tight.

"Do you want love or do you want approval?" she asked quietly.

I looked up at her, stung by the question but knowing it mattered. "I don't know."

"That's okay," she said. "Most people don't at first. But the work is learning to recognize the difference. Approval is conditional. Love isn't."

I felt something crack inside me, slow and quiet, like ice breaking underfoot.

In the evening, I went back home feeling more confused and raw than I wanted to admit. It's strange, how painful it is to sit in front of someone and untangle yourself, to actually see the shape of your own patterns instead of just running past them. It's hard—really hard—to come to terms with who you are. The parts you hide. The flaws you pretend aren't there because, if they are, maybe that's why you're alone. The places where you've shaped yourself to fit other people's comfort. It felt like peeling back layers of myself only to realize I didn't even like what was underneath.

I tossed my bag on the chair and reached for my phone. Notifications stacked on the lock screen like quiet reminders that life was still happening, whether I wanted it to or not.

Several messages from Thomas.

Thomas [4:58 PM]: I'm with the kids at the park. Hope that's okay.
Thomas [5:12 PM]: I already cooked dinner. I will bring it with me from my appartment. 
Thomas [5:30 PM]: I'll have them home before seven. Let me know if you need anything.

He was doing that a lot now—sending these careful updates like he was reporting to someone holding a clipboard, like I might mark him down for being late or forgetting something. I just answered his message with a plain No thank you. It sounded cold. Detached. But I was anything but. I was fraying at the edges, held together by muscle memory, by the act of pressing send and pretending that was control.

I stepped inside the house and was met with the soft, familiar hum of home—the faint scent of something cooking, pans rattling gently on the stove, and the steady thump of the washing machine turning over in the next room. Mom was stirring something at the stove, still wearing her reading glasses on her nose like she'd forgotten they were there, and Dad was folding laundry on the living room couch with the same military precision he used for everything. Socks rolled in perfect pairs. T-shirts squared off like blueprints.

I really don't know what I'd be doing without them.

Mom looked up first, brushing hair back behind her ear. "Hi, love," she said, soft, careful, like she could already sense something wasn't right.  Dad spotted me next and gave that grin of his that always made me feel five years old again. "Finally. My serotonin source has arrived. Don't argue, I'm sensitive."

But then he must've seen something shift in my face—the too-wide eyes, the way I was holding my own arms—and his expression changed. Still warm, but serious under the surface.

He stepped forward, leaving a half-folded towel behind him, "Yep, this is a Code Red: Hug Required Immediately. Good thing I'm qualified." I let out a weak laugh as he lifted me up a little. "The official certificate's hanging on my wall. Bears signed it. Very formal."

He kept his arms around me. "C'mon, bug. I'm right here. Talk to me."

That did it. The tears broke out of me in one sudden, humiliating rush. Mom came over then, wrapping her arms around both of us, and I just stood there sandwiched between them, crying like a child.

"I don't even know why I'm crying," I choked out.

Dad didn't even hesitate. "Because you're overhwhelmed, because you are human, sweetheart. And humans feel. That's the deal."

After a quiet moment, Mom . She reached behind a stack of neatly folded cloth napkins and brought something out.

A bouquet. Not roses. Not anything neat or obvious. It was wild, almost unruly—branches of soft green mixed with pale blossoms and tiny white flowers, as if someone had gathered them by hand on a walk through an overgrown garden. It smelled clean, but earthy too. Like open windows on the first warm day of spring. Fresh. Alive. Untamed.

Then she set a small box next to it. Plain, tied with rough twine, nothing decorative—just practical, careful hands at work. Inside were small glass vials, samples of oils in pale golden and amber tones, each with little handwritten labels. Some smelled sweet, others sharp, a few warm and musky, and some crisp and green, like the air after rain. It wasn't polished. It wasn't professional. But it was deliberate.

"This came for you," she said gently. "Delivered while you were out."

The card was tucked awkwardly between the stems, his handwriting neat but slightly uneven like he'd tried harder than usual to make it look right.

"I know you used to leave me notes. All those years—and I barely ever wrote back. I didn't know how. Still don't, honestly. Words don't come easy to me. But flowers... they speak. So I picked these for you. First bouquet of your garden. Thought maybe they could talk better than I can."

Underneath that, smaller:

"Vetiver, for grounding. You said once you felt like everything was slipping under your feet. I didn't know what to do about that. But then I remembered that afternoon one summer when Jimmy made that 'boat' out of couch cushions, And he kept yelling 'Captain Daddy!' until I climbed in. You had baby Alice asleep on your chest, and for a minute—it was all still. You even smiled at me, That's what grounding feels like to me. That moment."

Bergamot, for clarity. for that Sunday when we were all piled in the kitchen, Alice drawing on the floor, baby Lola drooling on my shirt, and you just stood there making tea like the whole world wasn't falling apart around us. You always said bergamot helped you think clearer. Honestly? I should have drunk that damn tea instead I was worried about work.

Neroli, for comfort. That winter Jimmy was sick, and Alice was teething, and none of us had slept more than two hours in a row for a week—you tucked neroli oil under your pillow and said it reminded you of warm hands. I didn't get it then, but I do now. I started dabbing it on my scarf in the mornings after that. 

Sweet pea, for remembering the good things. Like that picnic by the lake when we were just dating. You fell into the mud, the lemonade exploded on you, and you laughed until you were crying. I remember thinking that if I could bottle that laugh, I'd never need anything else. That was the first time I realized I'd marry you.

It was beautiful. Too beautiful for the ache in my chest. Part of me softened. Part of me curled tighter, like a fist refusing to unclench. Because I remembered what always came next. These moments, they were always temporary. Just as I'd start to enjoy them, his phone would buzz and then he would return: that version of him I hated—the polished, distracted, stone-faced man, always halfway out the door. 

Mom glanced down at the bundle in my hands, brushing a thumb lightly over one of the petals. "Is it from your garden?"

"Yes."

"Are you ever going there?"

I swallowed. "I don't know. I'm not ready yet.I told him he can go and take care of it."

Silence stretched between us. Then Dad, folding his arms, asked, "Does he know about your studies?"

I shook my head. "No. He knows I love scents. He knows I'm... passionate. But not about the diploma. Not about the perfumery course."

Mom smoothed my hair like she used to do when I was sick as a kid. 

"I have so many questions," I whispered. "For Thomas. About all of it. About why he did this, how he could hurt me like that, how he could look me in the eye knowing what I didn't know. And about... us. About everything I thought I knew."

Dad kissed the top of my head, firm but gentle. "Then talk to him, sweetpea. Ask. You deserve answers."

I nodded, biting my lip. "But I'm scared of the answers."

"I know," he said. "Sometimes the truth hurts like hell. But not knowing... that's worse. Not knowing is a weight you can't put down."

I buried my face into his shoulder again. I didn't feel brave. I didn't feel ready. 

"The food smells amazing, actually," I said, more to fill the silence than anything else, changing the subject before the weight of what wasn't said suffocated the room.

"Yeah," they said with a quick laugh. "Thomas came by earlier, actually. Brought a whole bag of groceries—and get this—an actual written list of recipes." They pulled a folded paper from the counter, shaking it slightly. "Said he thought we should try this one because you once told him lemon makes everything taste like sunshine."

I did say that. Once. Ages ago. Lemon. Lemon zest in cakes, lemon in salad dressings, lemon in tea when I was sick—sharp, bright, alive.  What shocked me wasn't the groceries or the recipe. It was that he noticed. After all these years of meals half-eaten, or quick breakfasts standing at the sink while he rushed emails on his phone, he remembered the lemons. Or maybe he was just trying to remember now. Too late, in that way men remember anniversaries when the argument's already started.

I went to my bedroom with the bouquet. The room looked the same, but I didn't feel the same. I sat on the edge of the bed like I was waiting for something, or someone, to catch me. My heart was beating so fast it felt like it was echoing in my throat when I reached for my phone.

I called him.

He answered almost immediately. "Hi. Are you fine? Need something? You okay?"

His voice was careful.  "Yes," I said, too quickly. Then I corrected myself. "Yes... I mean—maybe."

The silence between us stretched like the gap between two people standing on opposite cliffs. Both waiting for the other to speak first.

I haven't called him since that awful night. Just brief texts about the kids—nothing more, nothing less. It's a sharp contrast to the wife I used to be—the one who would call just to hear his voice, the one who sent stupid little texts full of hearts and inside jokes. That version of me feels like someone else now. Someone I'm not sure I'll ever find again.

I drew in a breath, felt the weight of it, then let it out slowly. "I want to talk about... the night of my birthday," I said. My voice trembled just enough to make me angry with myself. "When you left me at home with the kids to go look for her cat."

Silence. But not the kind that hurts, not yet. This was the silence of someone thinking carefully, assembling words like someone stacking dishes too carefully so nothing breaks.

"Okay," he said at last. Low. Steady. "Whatever you need. Tell me when and where."