“I think that would be good.” Soraya looked away. “It isn’t just a rebounding spell, though. I think I was being punished.”
“Why?” Nora asked.
“I ... I slept with Declan.”
Nora and Daisy were completely silent. Nora had assumed Soraya would sleep with someone eventually, but she’d expected it would take multiple dinner dates and an emotional connection, not ... a couple encounters in a hallway.
“So, you know, having the house go up in literal flames right after felt like a plague. A punishment.”
“Oh, Soraya.” Daisy reached out and put her hand over hers. “Sex didn’t cause it. Okay, sexdidcause it, but that was on David, not you.”
“That seems logical, but what about any of this has been logical? We’re playing with all this power, and who knows what all it can do?”
“Yes. Yes, that is true. We have power,” Daisy said. “And yes, it can hurt people. If all we’re channeling is anger.”
“So how do we channel something else?” Soraya asked.
“I’m trying to figure that out,” Nora responded. She had a couple of things she had to deal with that she wasn’t especially excited to confront. She needed to have it out with Ben, and at some point she was going to have to handle Sam. Sam. Just thinking about him hurt. “Am I emotionally unavailable?”
Soraya and Daisy looked at her. “Yes.” Their answer was in unison.
“Well, that ... I don’t like that. I thought it was just a shitty thing that had been said to me to manipulate me.”
“It might’ve been a shitty thing that Ben said to you,” Daisy said. “Because he wasn’t trying to work your issues out. He was just looking for an excuse to leave you and not talk to you. Having said that, I can’t say that you’re the most open person.”
Nora huffed. “I just . . . I . . .”
“It’s not actually a character flaw,” Daisy said. “I think it’s trauma. Has anyone ever actually attempted to communicate with you, or have they just weaponized your own issues against you?”
“Sam,” Nora said. “I think he tried. I blew it up by generally being closed off.”
“Well, I am sorry about that.”
“It’s a bad combination of things. Because I want to work on myself but also be less self-obsessed. Focusing only on my own issues is what caused a lot of this.”
“Maybe that’s the thing.” Soraya rubbed her arms. “Maybe the more we reach out to other people, the more we help other people heal, the more we heal ourselves.”
“That’s kind of profound,” Nora said. “Thank you. I think you’re right. Isolation is the enemy. It makes you feel like you’re crazy and making all of it up. That’s what makes you feel like everything is hopeless. When you get cut off from your community and your kids and everything else, that’s what makes it unbearable, and then you’resort of focusing on all your own issues at the exclusion of everything else, and you can’t ever catch your breath.”
Daisy put her hand on Nora’s. “I think this is the right thing. I think it’s the way forward.”
“Also,” Soraya said, “Sam is your best friend. It’s okay to be hurt by what happened, but don’t you think you need to go talk to him?”
“But if I do, then ...”
“What are you actually afraid is going to happen?” Daisy pressed.
Nora buried her face in her hands. “I’m going to kiss him. Then I’m going to sleep with him. Because I want him.”
The stark truth, coming out of her own mouth, so unambiguously, was not quite what she expected. But it was true.
“I have wanted him. I ... But it’s so scary. At every stage of my life, it’s been so scary. I’ve been playing this game where I try to prove to myself it’s not that. Especially since I married Ben. He’s my husband. If I was married to somebody else, if Ilovedsomebody else, then I couldn’t love Sam. He was safer, because he was off-limits.”
“He wasn’tsafer,” Soraya said. “Because you love him, with or without Ben in your life.”
“But just talking about it is breaking us into pieces.”
“No, because you didn’t talk about it. He threw all of that at you, and you didn’t tell him how you felt.”
