COTTON
November 01
Dear Shiloh—
This is a letter-slash-journal, from me to you. Weird, I know. I’ll just tell you straight up; I don’t want to be writing this letter-slash-journal, and it’s unlikely that you’re ever going to see it. Mainly because I’ll probably do one day, and then quit.
I don’t want to be writing in this crappy little notebook...ahem. Journal. The llamas on the cover are entirely too whimsical and it’s just stupid. Makes me think of Mr. Cooper’s tenth grade English class, the one where he made us “free write” in our journals at the beginning of every class for ten minutes. He never gave us topics, so I’d always sit for five minutes, staring at a blank page, while you were scribbling furiously in your notebook.
And somehow fifteen minutes turned into thirty every single time because Cooper was a lazy ass who didn’t really want to teach. He was invested in busy work, and as much as I liked to write, I hated busy work. I wanted to be talking. Or playing volleyball. Throwing back a beer, flirting with a boy...something.
I still hate busy work, and so far, I do not see the point in this exercise. The problem is, my psychiatrist friend Michael says I need to talk to someone, and if I can’t actually talk then I need to write.
Yes, you read that correctly. Your friend…crazy ass Cotton…saw a psychiatrist. I can’t talk to Michael. It was a huge risk even meeting him in public and pretending we were just out with friends, having drinks. If they thought I was talking, it would be bad for everyone involved.
That said, I’m having fucking panic attacks and I’m anxious all the time and I just want my life back. So, Michael gave me some meds...Valium...but he said that’s the last scrip until I can prove that I’m working my shit out.He told me about this Grimm’s fairy tale where something had happened to a princess and she was disguised by a spell and she couldn’t talk to anyone because of the spell. But a wise king said, okay, you can climb in this stove (that we’re not cooking with right now, haha) and you can tell your story to the stove. And she did. Only thing was, the king was listening through the stove pipe thingie in a different area of the castle, heard every word, and was thus able to help her without her breaking the terms of the spell.
Or something like that. Long story short, she married a prince and lived happily ever after.
Michael is making me do the same, in a figurative sense. This is me, spilling my secrets to the stove.
Otherwise it’s just acid, eating at every part of me, and I’ll never break the spell.
So. Here I am. Talking.
I need to tell you about what happened to me a couple of months back. Happened to me. Just saying that phrase pisses me off. I’ve never been the kind of person that shit happens to, you know? I make shit happen. I’m a doer. I’m not some passive ass pussy who sits back and waits.
And yet.
I guess I should start at the beginning.
With Justin.
IADJUSTED MY EARBUDS IN MY EARS AND CRANKED THE VOLUME ON MYSPOTIFY LIST. The sex sounds—a giggle, a low-pitched murmur, a moan—emanating from behind the closed bedroom door were making me nervous. Not that Shiloh and Gunner were making me nervous. In the couple of days I’d been here, their love for each other had been blatant. Almost sickening. I wasn’t afraid for Shiloh, or anything crazy like that. I was thrilled for her, and before now, I probably would have been banging a fist on the door and teasing them both unmercifully.
It was more that I wasn’t that girl anymore. Just a few months ago, I had teased Shiloh about getting freaky with Gunner. During a Skype call, the guys and I back on base had listed every colorful euphemism for the act we could think of, until Shiloh’s face was red with embarrassment. But that was then, and this was now, and I couldn’t even think about sex the way I once had, as something fun, something normal.
It was anything but ordinary now, a fact that pissed me off royally.
As I stared through the French doors to the pool cover rippling in a stiff breeze, I pulled my feet onto the chair, tucking my knees into my chest. I wrapped my arms around them, locking my hand around the opposite wrist. Closing my eyes to the strains of Pearl Jam playing loud in my ears, I rubbed the spot on the back of my wrist with my middle finger. I’d learned the repetitive motion centered me in some weird way.
Shiloh and Gunner…they made me happy. They gave me hope that one day I could have something similar. One day I might be able to laugh during sex—hell, one day I might even want to have sex again. I might moan in response to a man’s touch, with pleasure rather than fear.
Their story made me smile every time I thought about it. Shiloh had kissed Gunner for the first time when he was a cute but awkward ninth grader and she was a senior. We’d been at a party and a frenemy had dared her to do it, thinking she’d probably back down and be embarrassed.
Shiloh had risen to the occasion…as did Gunner…and claimed that boy’s heart that night.
He’d never asked for it back, even after she graduated and went to college.
Instead, he had bided his time until she walked back into his life several years later—as his senior English teacher, no less. It had been awkward and painful and complicated by a completely creepy stalker-slash-serial killer, but eventually, he got the girl.
It was sweet and romantic and I was so stupid-jealous sometimes I couldn’t stand myself.
Gunner found me in the same position a while later. I yelled when his hand gave my ponytail a tug, jumping up and pivoting to face him. He leaped back; hands raised. “Jesus! I’m sorry! It’s just me, Cotton.”
The adrenaline pumping through my veins fled as quickly as it had arrived and I slumped back into the armchair, pulling my earbuds from my ears. “No, I’m sorry. You startled me.”
Gunner’s eyes narrowed on my face. I wasn’t certain how, but he could tell he’d scared me a degree past Surprised With Earbuds. For a moment I was afraid he was going to push the issue and blanked my expression. Shiloh chose that moment to stroll into the living room, toweling her hair dry and talking into the terry cloth that covered her face.
