The graying man went first. “Take a seat.”

Jack sat on a hard brown chair. “I know you didn’t call me, but I needed to be here.”

“We are glad you found us. We treat all these situations seriously. Let’s start at the beginning.”

“She refused to treat me. It’s that simple. Everything else is a lie. Everything is spin. It’s the press trying to make it look a certain way.”

Later, he joined his sister in midtown, who introduced him to her friend at The New York Press. Her name was Caroline, and he sat down with her at the corner table of a quiet cafe. Caroline wore her red hair in a tight braid down her back, and had a pink knit scarf around her neck. She shook his hand. “I’m going to take notes the whole time,” Caroline said, diving right into the matter as she began typing on her laptop. “Let’s start with the news of the hour, of course.”

“The one about me being a guy who happens to be dating a shrink?” he said, doing his best to keep it light.

She laughed. “Yes, that one.”

“Here’s the story . . .”

He’d expected her question, and he’d answered honestly, as he’d done before the ethics board. He didn’t know if this would be enough to save Michelle. But the problems had all started with perception. The media’s perception of him. The public’s perception of sexuality. Nick’s perception of fair targets. If this had all started with warped perceptions, even the ones about him, he could at least set those straight.

After addressing the first question, Caroline dived into a bigger one. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, why did you see a psychologist in the first place. Was it because of Aubrey?”

Ah.

The root of his problem. Of his struggles. Of what had sent him down the path and into Michelle’s arms in the first place. The last thing he wanted to do was blame a dead woman. The truth of their split was something the deceased didn’t need heaped on her.

But he could come clean about his own emotional state.

“You know, it was. But probably not for the reasons everyone thinks. I cared about Aubrey deeply, and I mourned the loss of her as anyone would. But by the time I went to see a therapist, I had a different issue to deal with surrounding her death. We had an argument that same day, a few minutes before her run, and she died shortly after. I’m going to live with that guilt. And I have been living with it for the last year, and I was ready to let it go. That’s why I went to a shrink. To start to move past the regret I felt over the things that were said in those final moments. I was able to do that with another therapist, and also with the support of friends, family and people I love.”