Free Getting Over Jack Wagner by Elise Juska

Probably.” I stare at the top of my coffee: flat, black, sinister as a poker chip. “I think he might already see it coming.”
    Hannah nods, but I know she isn’t close to finished. She swallows and lowers her cup, spilling some pinkish tea onto the saucer. When she speaks again, it’s her therapist voice: a long, slow string of ellipses. “I know I’m repeating myself, Eliza, but…have you given any more thought to the possibility that…you’re attracted to guys who won’t stick…because of your father?”
    And there you have it. Exactly the kind of insight I crave but hate. The advice I want but don’t. It doesn’t take a genius to make the distant father/elusive rock star connection, but for some reason I need Hannah to keep reasserting it. It’s times like these when having a best friend studying to be a psychiatrist is both handy and terrifying. Obviously, I’m looking for feedback when I call her, especially when I’m fresh from a “moment,” especially when I agree to meet her at the Generous Garden. Because, deep down, I really do want to understand myself. I’m just not crazy about the process of doing it. It’s kind of like eating vegetables. Balancing my checkbook. Going to the gym. Going to college. Probably, in the end, it will have been worth it.
    Hannah blows on her tea, sending tiny ripples across the surface. “I mean, on some level, you might be worried you’ll end up like your mother did…when your father left.”
    I nod, sort of. It’s tough to argue these points with Hannah, considering she was there. She witnessed my parents fighting and my mother numbing over. It was her sunporch that became my surrogate bedroom, her family that I adopted as my own. It was she who was watching TV with me the night I burst into tears over the injustice of My Two Dads.
    â€œMaybe you’re taking steps to prevent what happened to your mother from happening to you. Like avoiding relationships that involve any risk…or depth. True depth.” She says this kindly, but the extra emphasis is not lost on me: that the kind of “deep” I date is actually shallow as a puddle.
    I feel myself growing defensive again.
    â€œI mean, by looking for this perfect musician,” Hannah goes on, “you can pretty much guarantee you’re not going to find him. So relationships will never get that serious…or require a real commitment.” She pushes a damp curl off her forehead. “After all, commitment is scary.”
    I know, on some level, Hannah is making sense here. Still, I lurch back with a clumsy, “So you’re saying my mother is scary? Is that it?” which isn’t relevant and isn’t even believable, since my mother is the last person I would rush to defend. It also isn’t spoken at the required whisper, which prompts the woman at the next table to look up, frowning, from Feeding the Inner You. Even the Gregorians sound annoyed.
    â€œSorry,” I say.
    Hannah nods, understanding. Too much self-assessment at once is like drinking a can of soda too fast; it can make you feel oversaturated. Overmemoried. I find myself recalling what my house felt like in the weeks after my father left: the blaze of light from the TV, the black rotary phone I begged to ring, the ragged green recliner hulking by the curb. In truth, it wasn’t my dad I really missed; he’d been so distant, there wasn’t much to miss. What I missed was me—the kid I used to be. A normal kid. A kid with two parents and a sibling. A kid whose biggest worries were figuring out her locker combination and convincing her mother to buy her Guess jeans. A kid with every piece of her family, if not happy or healthy, at least intact.
    â€œMaybe we could talk about something else?” I say. Of course, by shifting the conversation to Hannah’s court, I know what I’m setting myself up for.