▸ Column · Contemporary boardroom Metropolis — present day, the era of location-sharing apps and four-year therapy contracts.
LEX LUTHOR replies.
Replied to by Lex Luthor, with a rebuttal from Superman.
The letter
I'm four years into therapy and my therapist keeps assuring me I'm making "real progress." Then last week Marcus — the man I love — forgot to text that his flight landed late from a business trip, and I spent three hours treating his laptop like a crime scene, pulling up old receipts, because the location pin on my phone showed somewhere I didn't expect. I grew up with a father who was charming to the neighbors and a nightmare behind the door, so I know, intellectually, that my alarm system is firing at nothing. Knowing doesn't stop my hands from shaking. When I confessed what I'd done, Marcus was gentle about it, which somehow made it worse — I kept bracing for the moment he'd turn, because in my house kindness always came with an expiration date. I love this man, and I'm terrified my constant need to verify him will wear him down before I ever learn to trust someone who has given me no reason not to. How do I stop punishing a good man for what a terrible one did?
Lex Luthor replies
Oh, sweetheart. No. Four years you've paid a stranger to tell you you're "making progress," and the evidence you bring me is that last Tuesday you ran a forensic audit on a man's grocery receipts. That isn't progress, darling. That's an annuity — and your therapist is the beneficiary. Progress has a finish line. This arrangement is designed never to find one.
Here's the thing nobody in the office of feelings will say, because saying it ends the billing: your father is dead weight, and you keep him on the payroll. I know the species. Mine was a flawless performance for guests and something colder once the door shut. The day I stopped auditioning for his approval, I got my life back — and (note this) I did not get it back in a chair. I got it back by removing the instrument.
Your instrument is the pin. The tracking app. The receipts within arm's reach. Tonight — not "when you feel ready," tonight — turn it off. Delete it. You cannot build a case with no evidence room. Marcus has handed you nothing to find; the little dot manufactures the rest.
Trust isn't a feeling you'll finally arrive at, darling. It's a tool you set down. So set it down.
— Lex Luthor
Superman weighs in
Lex, you'd tell a person to rip out the smoke detector and call it courage. Four years of work isn't an "annuity" — it's the hard part, and she already did it.
Friend, the app can go. But don't do it alone in the dark like one more secret. Do it with Marcus. Tonight, tell him the plain truth you told us, then ask the real question: "When the fear hits, what do you need me to say to you?" He was gentle once already. Let him be your partner, not your suspect. I spent years certain that the day folks saw the real me, they'd turn. The people who raised me never did. You don't outgrow a frightening house by yourself.
— Superman
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