“Nope. I get up and shower, try to read or go back to bed.”
“And let me guess, you don’t take something to help you sleep?”
“Nope.”
“Is it easier to focus on helping everyone else rather than deal with your own stuff?”
That question hits me like a horse kick to the gut.
Because it’s true.
“Yes,” I say with a slow nod. “Helping others is so much easier.”
“I get that.” She pulls her knees into her chest. “But I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. If you … if you ever want to talk about it …”
My eyes wander over to her. I’m suddenly overcome with wanting to tell her everything. About the night terrors. About the guys I couldn’t save. About the woman who left me because she said lying next to me felt like sleeping beside a ticking time bomb.
“Thank you, I’m good,” is all I can scrape out.
“I don’t usually sleep well either. Well, I do in my bed at home, but when I would travel, it was hard for me to get settled.”
“Do you have nightmares … about …” I motion my head toward her shoulder.
“All the time. Every time I hear thunder, every time I smell pot.”
I sit up in my chair, excited at the prospect of her opening up to me. “Oh?”
She stretches out her long legs and rubs her neck. “My ex … he …” Her voice trails off as her gaze focuses on her hands.
She never says his name. She really has a thing with saying someone’s name. It’s “he” or “my ex” or sometimes “that man”. I don’t know why I notice it now, but I do. For Roxanne, saying someone’s name probably means giving them space and power.My hunch is, she’s not going to do that until she feels someone has earned that right. My heart feels weighted when I think about all the times she’s called me Mr. Faraday, even when we’re alone.
“Roxanne?”
“What?” Her attention jerks back to me. “Right. My ex. He didn’t smoke pot when I first met him. Shortly after we were officially dating, he started smoking to manage his anxiety. Once he got bored with it, he moved onto stronger things, but he always smelled like stale weed. Like it was permanently attached to his skin. Now, the smell of pot takes me back to … to being with him. I hate it now. Do you get that way about smells?”
I nod. “Oh yeah, CK One cologne.”
She tilts her head. “Really?”
“Yeah, we had this guy in our unit who was an incredible mechanic and to combat the smells that would attach to him when he was working on something, he would douse himself in that cologne. Great guy, one hell of a card player. One day, he … he didn’t come back. After that, the smell of that strong cologne reminds me of him.”
“Makes sense.”
“What about your favorite smells?” My question makes her smile, which is now my new favorite mission.
“Hmm, my favorite smells. They’re kind of weird, I guess.”
“Spill it,” I coax.
“Street vendor pretzels, warm and buttery. Old bookstores and cedar.”
“Great, now I want one of those warm, buttery pretzels.”
She giggles. “What about you?”
“Favorite smells.” I pretend I’m thinking and rub my chin, but I know instantly. “Fresh sawdust, a saddle after it’s been oiled, lemons and … you.”
Her eyes widen. “Me?”
