Blue

 Glory knows how to contain her sadness: swallowing it whole so she’s the only one who feels its weight. She has always been selfless, she reminds herself. Toby, however, breaks without care or reticence, his feelings pooling at the base of his feet, leaving prints wherever he goes. Glory resents him for it, disparaging his ease in his own skin. The woman watches him cup a steaming mug, taking slow sips during conversation.

“It’s been a tough week,” he says, answering honestly when asked how he has been. His job has increased his workload without changing his role or compensation. He sighs, complaining that all he can do in this economy is keep his head down and try finding something else.

Glory nods as her eyes dance between his lips and hooded eyes. She counts the white hairs peppering his dark beard and wonders who taught him to bleed so freely, who permitted him to move effortlessly in sincerity. He bats the question back at her. She clears her throat. The condensation from the glass in front of her leaves a small pool on the table.

“Yeah, I'm doing okay.”

He waits for more. Uncomfortable, Glory shifts under his gaze, readjusting her back against the solid oak chair. The chatter in the cafe peaks as two acquaintances embrace over patterned cups and sweetened pastries before the room descends into its usual buzz.

“I’m fine,”

Toby nods. He mentions Sandra and the homework assigned to their group: keeping a journal of emotions and observing how their more difficult feelings emerge during the week.

 “I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know there was a difference between guilt and shame. Have you seen that feelings wheel before? I swear Sandra has a diagram for everything.” Toby brushes off stray crumbs from his chest.

“You’re better than me, I haven’t even started.”

 The first and last time Glory journalled about the blue, her mother had found her scribbles. Even then, the entries were nothing more than questions. Questions about how the childlike joy that had punctuated her early years had become harder and harder to reach, yet still her mother asked what she had to be sad about. As if grief couldn’t haunt a child that already knew, one way or another, the world would rob her. Her mother, ever the pragmatist, reminded her to simply be grateful. Because she was not born in a place where struggle was her daily bread. Nor born in a land held in the bosom of war, like she had been. Therefore, to mourn when you had it all was nothing more than greed, and her mother told her to behave herself, before she really gave her something to cry about.

Sandra’s homework exercises were too contrived, too trite. They were lengthy tasks asking what colour an emotion felt like, or where they sensed it most deeply in their body. Glory does not complete them. She stops reading the handouts after the second session and decides the only way to be whole is by fasting and starving the sadness out of one’s bones. Just like her mother had taught her.

She had only agreed to the group therapy sessions as a condition of her medical leave. The doctor had held her gaze when asking if she had ever thought of harming herself. His words had been steeped in such care that she sobbed right there in his office. She chastises herself as the memory replays. She simply needs to pray more — yes, that’s it. Her shoulders relax as she repeats this mantra to herself. She knows herself better than anyone, after all, and certainly better than her doctor, her therapist, and the man sitting opposite her.

Toby watches her through eyes like flint: dark and brilliant. He is her group buddy, arbitrarily assigned during their first session through folded pieces of paper. They had both chosen a neatly ripped piece with the number three scrawled across it. Now, every week she meets with a man who has been allowed to wear his weakness as an extended branch instead of a noose around his neck. A man who has transmuted his pain into an invitation, a place where others can be honest and known.

And still, she resists him, for what she sees in Toby is alien to her. She was taught that weakness must be subjugated, ignored, and wished away. Yet here is a man who leans in to know its nature, its rivets and its depth, and invites her to do the same. But to acknowledge it is to imbue it with life. So she continues as she has been taught: begging her God to deliver her and grant her the joy that can only come from Him. And when those prayers go unanswered, she accepts that it’s a test of her faith, and she simply cannot falter.

“Don’t look at me like that Toby. Trust me, it’s fine. I don’t really get the point of homework.”

“Glory,” he pauses, “have you ever tried some of the exercises, though? Maybe you’d find them helpful, you know?” She notices how he always ends his sentences with a question, his odd way of signalling the end of a thought.

“Okay, but who says I’m not trying?” Glory leans back, crossing and uncrossing her arms, suddenly aware of how she’s taking up space.

He’s quiet now, his mind working, searching for the right sequence of words. He scratches his forearm, and Glory sees the silver gossamer scars, horizontal lines stacked across his wrists. It’s now merely a memory on his skin, so evenly healed it’s easy to miss it in the right light.

“How are you finding the group?”

“Pardon?”

“Our Thursday group - it’s your first time attending group sessions, right? I can usually tell.”

“Enlighten me.”

Toby smiles, a lopsided gesture that brings his shoulder close to his ear.

“Well…” he motions towards her. This time, it is Glory’s turn to remain silent, urging him to elaborate. “You seem amazing, you know? Strong, which isn’t a bad thing at all. But you never open up. You never tell us what you’re struggling with. It’s like you’re just biding your time, ticking off the sessions. No judgement, honestly,” He splays his fingers, wrapping and unfurling them around his fist as he pauses.

“I used to do that, it never helped nothing. I kept bouncing through groups, thinking it was the therapist, the people, the space or the day of the week. But I think back then, I thought I was better than it, you know?”

Glory keeps his gaze, biting the inside of her lip to steady its tremble. She reaches for the glass in front of her, needing something tangible in her grip. The water sits halfway. She can’t decide how to measure it.

“And then, you found your voice, opened up, and you were cured. That’s where this is going, right, Toby?”

“No, it wasn’t as simple as just feeling better, or less sad. I began to learn that I didn't have to hold the weight of it by myself.”

He scratches his scars again.

“I don’t think my brain will ever be 100%, you know? I’ve been like this since I can remember. It’s not like I will never feel the lowness or whatever. But I think learning that I am not this monolith of a person who is purely defined by this one thing helps. There are others who get it. That helps.”


Glory brings the glass to her lips, emptying it in a single motion. Toby asks for the bill. Their meetings usually never last more than thirty minutes, and he had mentioned meeting a friend afterwards in the city. His collar sticks up awkwardly after he puts on his jacket, but Glory doesn’t mention it. He squeezes her hand. She smiles as he goes to leave.

“See you Thursday, yeah?”

“As always.”

She watches after him, a hidden bell rings to mark his exit as the door shuts behind him. Glory brings out her phone, pausing a moment before drafting a short email.

Hiya Sandra,

Hope this email finds you well.

Quick question — I know it’s been a few weeks, but is it still possible to change my assigned group partner?...

…

Felicia is a British-Nigerian writer and creative practitioner. She founded The Writers Club, a community for underrepresented writers. When she’s not writing or building worlds in her mind, she’s usually off exploring somewhere beautiful or at the gym.