“Sweet mother of sanity,” I shake my head. “This is the girl whose wedding you’re attending?”
She lifts a shoulder, “It’s my goodbye gift of sorts.”
“We’ll shrink that later if you want,” I say as I turn off the pump and get up.
“Appreciate the offer, but right now I think we all need to wind it down, not dial it up,” she says.
“Agree,” I say as I set the bottle on the little stand and start to clean up, but my thoughts wander — uninvited — to the other man I can’t seem to forget tonight.
Not Kyle. The one from before. The man behind the usernameIT-1.
The first message had popped up late one night, back when I was doing my internship, buried in case files and loaded up on caffeine.
IT-1:
You’re a shrink, right? Or something close?
(Attached: a photo of a stack of worn psych books — Bessel van der Kolk, Viktor Frankl, Daniel Kahneman — all the heavy hitters)
Think you could fix my head?
I’d laughed out loud—a dry, tired laugh — and typed back,
Me:
Depends. I usually require more information before recommending brain surgery over text.
He answered fast.
IT-1:
Guess that means I must talk about it, huh?
Me:
That’s the general idea.
IT-1:
The only girl I ever thought maybe I could love died last night. Car accident. Back home. I left that town more than a decade ago and never contacted her during my visits.
Even now, remembering it, my chest tightens. I hadn’t known what to say, so I typed carefully, professionally, and maybe too gently.
Me:
Guilt doesn’t mean you failed her. It just means you cared. You probably shouldn’t text strangers when you’re drunk, though.
He never replied that night. But the next morning I got.
IT-1:
Never text while drinking. Lesson learned. I’m fine. Really. Back to it, you’re stunning. When can we meet up?
I wasn’t one to meet up with anyone on those apps, it wasn’t safe, but I sure as hell did stay in contact with him while in the city. Maybe not my proudest moments, and absolutely not something I will share with anyone, but his filthy played well with mine, and yeah… so hot.
Now, sitting in this creaky old room with my daughter sleeping a few feet away, it hits me.
The freaking jaw line, that perfect nose that was even better because it had a scar across the bridge. I’d fixated on that from the shadowy profile pictures on the app. The tone of his voice in our highly sexual voice messages. He had a hint of an accent when he was turned on, which I will never admit was in mymental highlight reel when I was in my second trimester, horny and very alone. The shape of his stunning brown eyes that I didn’t know the color of then, and only tonight am piecing together that they’re also the ones that met mine at the bar the night I waited for Kyle, and he’d asked if I knew what I was getting into.
