"I don't want to seem emotionally needy," I told Allen. He nodded gravely.
"Then I'll remember that you are needy even if you seem otherwise," he assured me.
"That's not what I meant!" We were talking one of our semi-traditional walks across campus, usually short conversations where one of us, usually me, catches up to the other on his way somewhere. Allen was headed towards the Mansion before dinner and seemed a little uncharacteristically solemn. He was tired, I suppose, from a day of classes.
"Have you ever heard of protesting too much?" he asked. "Anyway, I am a therapist, I'm well aware people have emotional needs. It's OK."
I tried not to bust up in embarrassed laughter. I got it together and tried again.
"Well, you're all about to vanish for the winter in a week or two," I said. "And, um...."
Remember, after Samhain the masters drop out of campus life until Brigid. Some leave campus entirely, others, like Charlie, just get very hard to find. They make themselves so available to us when they're working that when they aren't working they make themselves totally unavailable to compensate.
Allen stopped a moment and turned to me.
"Daniel, it's really all right that you care about me. I'm quite pleased about it, actually. It's OK to miss people you like when they go away."
Allen is well-aware that I don't like talking about my feelings, especially with other men. I'm afraid I'll look stupid. I'm afraid of embarrassing the other person, or something. It's just not something I do. But....
"No, that's not it. I mean, yes, I'll miss you, but--" I blushed to say it. There's a real fear, admitting to something like that, and I don't know what it's fear of. "But, I mean, you leave to get away from the students, to get away from us. To rest. But I don't want you to have to rest from me! I mean, um...."
"You want to be my friend."
"Yes."
"You are. Daniel, I can't un-student you while you are, in fact, my student. And I'm glad you are my student. You're paying me to do work which I enjoy and which you can benefit from. That's a good thing. Our relationship is shaped by the circumstances of our knowing each other, but so are all other relationships. Do you remember what I told Nora when you and she first got here?"
"Huh? No."
"I said you can't pay me enough to talk with people I don't like."
"Ok, I know that," I told him. "I just feel kind of rejected when all of you leave."
"Because you're emotionally needy." We were walking again. I laughed, a little ruefully, acknowledging his words. He continued. "Any idea what emotional need you're experiencing?"
I'd never thought of it like that.
"To belong?" I guessed, as though he would know how I felt better than I. He laughed.
"Yes, I suppose that could be it. The thing is, you're...amphibious. All of you candidates are. Partway between being students and masters. In a way, you're both, but in a way you're neither. I can't imagine it's ever comfortable. I didn't much like it, when I was a candidate."
"Do you have this conversation with all the candidates, Allen?"
We'd come to the door of the Office, his stop.
"No," he told me. "Because I'm not friends with all of them." And with a little nod he stepped inside and left me in the fading light.
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