Matt was a lot of things but he wasn't a pushover, and he tolerated my unrelenting hatred of every psychiatrist in Boston. He tolerated it, but he never let me stop the search.
Rhonda Brissett wasn't a pushover either, and she told me under no uncertain terms that I was finished with sex. And drinking. And pills. And cutting. All of it, it was over, if I had any interest in counting another birthday.
I did, I really did.
She let me run away but only because she believed I couldn't recover in Boston. It was the land of bad decisions, bad memories, bad people. That first year in Hawaii, when I discovered the taste of true loneliness and homesickness, we had phone sessions every other day.
But then, when the second year rolled around, I found fire.
Maybe the fire found me. I still wasn't sure, but Rhonda and I cut our calls to twice a week.
That fire, Iunderstoodit, and it was wild to think this way, but the fire understood me, too. I found new patterns in the geologic record, quiet signals in the volcanic noise, and I feared nothing about those explosive mountains because I recognized their fury. For the first time in my entire life, I was smart and accepted andgoodat something, and I wasn't suffocating with the sense that I was a used-up piece of trash anymore.
By the time I graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa—a full year early because I couldn't get enough of my studies and I couldn't go home—Rhonda and I were down to once a week. I was still on the sex-drugs-danger-to-myself timeout, but that didn't figure into my daily life. Men didn't register on my radar. Neither did women, despite my roommate's repeated suggestions that I give her a whirl. When the occasion called for it, I sipped a beer but rarely finished one. There was, of course, some Portuguese moonshine, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Andeverythingdidn't hurt anymore. Plenty of things hurt often enough to notice, but it wasn't everything and it wasn't always, and that was an eternity away from having my stomach pumped and my veins patched.
It was three years ago when Rhonda started nudging me toward relationships, and she revisited that topic when we spoke in late December, after Angus's death. It was the first time we'd connected in eleven months, and she reminded me that I'd survived and I'd keep surviving. Oh, and I needed to get back to work on the whole 'interacting with humans' thing. I wasn't good at relationships. I wasn't good with people—some called meprickly, others preferredbitch—and I was only able to get away with that because I was fucking great with volcanoes.
But I didn't always want to get away with it. I'd regretted leaving places without saying proper goodbyes, and moving on to new adventures without committing to staying in touch. I'd worked with a dozen field study and laboratory teams, lived in six cities, and finished one and started another doctorate degree—geology and geophysics, and atmospheric, oceanic, and planetary physics, if you must know—and I could only count my friends on one hand. None of them knew about sleeping pills or paring knives or Shannon abandoning me in a psychiatric hospital for a month. And even those friends teetered closer toward acquaintances than individuals willing to bring me chicken soup when I was sick or celebrate my lobster-boat marriage.
I didn't know how to do relationships. I didn't even know how to start the conversation, and for that, I came off as aloof, disinterested, pretentious. But the one thing I did know was how to be destructive. I knew how to burn not just bridges but boats, villages, and churches. Burn it all down before it burned me too.
"Knock, knock."
My gaze whipped to the door, but it was still shut. Thank God. I needed a few more minutes before dealing with my I-dare-you-to-marry-me husband. I really did run headfirst into catastrophes.
"Erin?" he called. "You've been in there for a bit, darlin'. Everything okay?"
I held up my hand and stared at my water-pruned fingertips. Maybe I'd lost track of how long I was taking for this timeout.
"Yeah, great," I said. "I was pretty dirty. Taking some time to get clean, you know?"
"I'd apologize for that, but I wouldn't mean it so I'm not going to." His laugh rumbled from the other side of the door, and it sent a curl of warmth through me. "Want some help?"
"Ummm." I stared at my toes and the tile and all the water that I was wasting. "Not really."
There was a pronouncedthunkagainst the door, and I imagined it was his forehead dropping there. He wanted me to say yes, to invite him in and wow him with sensational shower sex.
I didn't come equipped with that feature.
"Take your time, darlin'," he called. "I'm not going anywhere."
Eventually, the water ran cool and I found my way off the shower floor. I scrubbed my hair and skin, maybe a little harder than necessary. When I stepped out, the wide bathroom mirror caught everything. The red welts from my scrubbing, the fingertip-sized shadows along my ribs and backside that would darken to bruises, the love marks on my breasts and belly. My hands skimmed down, lightly touching each one. It was as if I didn't know whether they hurt until I poked them.
They didn't.Noneof this hurt.
I finger-combed my hair and changed into the t-shirt and undies I'd snagged on my way into the bathroom. Bright sunshine was peeking through the curtains in the bedroom and it shot warm, glowy fingers of light to Nick's bare abs. He was leaning back against the headboard, the sheets bunched around his waist. Naked underneath, of course.
He offered me a lazy smile while he rubbed a hand down his chest. I leaned against the wall, watching as that hand followed the dark trail of hair beneath the sheets. Slow and unashamed, he stroked himself. No taboo to be found. I tugged my lips between my teeth, a silly attempt at concealing my smile.
"Clean?" he asked.
I didn't have an answer ready, not when a single word was packed with filthy suggestions. Instead I shrugged, and dropped more of my weight onto the wall. The top of my foot was skating over my calf. His eyes followed my foot while he stroked, a little faster now, as if the slide of my skin could turn him on.
Nick held out his free hand to me. "Come back to me," he whispered. I pushed off the wall. "Be here with me, Skip. I need you."
I took his hand, and he yanked me to the bed.
