Better Without You

"It had haunted me all my life.
Maybe even formed who I was.
I'll never know, because I can never undo what happened
and see the person I might have been.
My thoughts drifted back to that sound of the big, fancy, door, always that door, which slammed behind me, as the
memories rushed over me yet again....

__________________________

Aimee Parker feels trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who makes her feel worthless. Feeling especially
isolated since quitting her job to become caretaker to her mother, Aimee finds solace in the music and voice of Rob
Stone, a singer-songwriter who lives across the country. After meeting at a party, they start an intense long-distance friendship that fills Aimee's heart with hope and joy, despite the fact that Rob is also married, and apparently not unhappily so. Though her husband Steve is materially generous, he is emotionally bankrupt, while Rob is the opposite. She thinks he's everything she needs.

When Rob tells her that he is a fledging sex therapist, a healer who uses his hands to awaken women's sexual energy, Aimee is thrown for a loop. Past trauma won't allow her to fully trust him, but despite her fears, she flies to the west coast to be with him, and to meet his family. They spend a blissful and confusing week together, but when Aimee returns home, her world falls apart. Caretaking her mother, a woman with a jagged exterior that shields her own traumas, had become central to Aimee's life and when she dies, Aimee is bereft. And Rob stops answering her calls and messages when she needs him most.

Was he just a manipulator all along?
Is she better off without him?
Without Steve?
Without her past self...?