Chapter 8 — Compassion Through Perception
The argument with Jess started over something small, which was how most of them did. It wasn’t necessarily because either of them set out looking for one but because the day was already sitting on both of them by the time they met. Molly had been late leaving work and Jess had been waiting at the bar near the office with his jacket still on and his phone face down on the table like he’d put it there on purpose.
“You could’ve texted,” Jess said as she sat down.
“I did,” Molly said as she dropped her bag at her feet. “I said I’d be a bit late.”
“After I’d already been here twenty minutes,” he said.
“It was one of those afternoons. Things dragged. Am I your babysitter?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Leila?”
Molly’s head shot up at the sound of her government name. It sounded militant coming from him. She felt that familiar squeezing start before she decided to respond. She felt like she was being pulled forward the way you do when you’ve had a bit too much to drink and you lean just a tad too far over. It was like she needed to explain herself properly or the whole thing would tip.
“What do you want me to do?” she said. “Leave work half done.”
“That’s not the point,” Jess said. “I work, too. The point is you just disappear into it. I never know where I stand.”
“I don’t disappear,” Molly said. “I’m just busy.”
“Busy or unavailable?” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”
She felt herself tense up like a clam as the conversation sped up without either of them meaning it to and Jess kept talking until it became harder to answer than it should have been.
“You act like it doesn’t really matter if plans fall through. You act like it’s all flexible. It’s not.”
“It does matter,” Molly said. “I just don’t think stressing about it helps anything.”
“That’s such a cop out,” Jess said. “You always say that.”
She felt her cheeks start to flush and the desire to push back harder. Her thoughts were getting about as narrow as tunnel vision the way they always did right before things escalated. She wanted to tell him where he could get off. Glynnis had been down her throat half the day long and she didn’t need this.
But she didn’t.
“Hang on,” she said as she held up a hand. “Why are we suddenly talking like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like we’re being graded,” Molly said. “Like this has to be resolved the right way or it means something bigger.”
“Because it does mean something to me,” Jess said as he crossed his arms in front of him.
“You mean something to me, but me running a bit late didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of our relationship ten minutes ago.”
Jess looked confused and they sat there with the argument hanging between them. Molly could still feel the pressure in her body but she wasn’t in a hurry to get rid of it. She could recognise the way it had come in through unmentioned expectations about effort and commitment and not letting people down. He was frustrated and turning it into something that felt like a test.
“I’m not trying to mess things up,” she said more gently. “I just don’t want everything to feel like it’s on trial.”
“I know,” Jess sighed and rubbed his forehead.
They ordered drinks after that but neither of them really drank much. The only possibly positive thing was the fact that even though the tension didn’t disappear, it stopped building on itself and the conversation moved to safer ground without either of them having to name what had just happened.
Walking home later, Molly thought about how quickly the fight had changed once that other pressure arrived and how easily she usually blamed the person in front of her for it. She was still annoyed and still felt misunderstood, but she knew what had entered the space between them and what hadn’t.
Jess was still Jess and the frustration was still real.
The rest of it had come through both of them and eased once neither of them kept feeding it. They could love each other in the thick of it and be compassionate toward each other’s plights without defending themselves.
It felt oddly relieving.