“Zoe, dear?” Mom’s concerned voice snaps me out of my thoughts, and I look up. She’s standing in front of me, her face so worried that it makes my heart clench. She’s holding out a steaming cup to me.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking.” I take the cup, and she sits down next to me on the sofa. She looks tired. I’m not used to seeing her like this. She’s dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt, with her hair in braids and no makeup. There are dark circles under her eyes, and I know she hasn’t slept much in the past few days. Because I haven’t slept much either. Every time I woke up in the night and went to the bathroom or to get something to drink, there was still a light on in her study, and I could hear her voice. I think she was on the phone with her lawyer. Because of me. It reminds me of last year, and I hate it. It’s all about me and what happened. I want it to stop. I want to turn back time and make everything normal. Why can’t I do that?
“How do you feel?” she asks gently and pushes my hair off my forehead.
I shrug and take a sip of tea. Lavender and honey. Calming. I don’t know how to answer that question anymore. I feel too much.
“Do you want to talk to Dr.Somers?”
“What good would that do?” I say, sinking deeper into the sofa. “She can’t change what happened.”
“I know. But she can help you deal with it. She helped you last year too.”
I don’t answer, because she’s right. Dr.Somers helped me convince my parents to let me apply to dance school if I got my panic attacks under control. She worked with me for months. She was patient, even though I behaved terribly sometimes. Deep inside, I know that she can help me now.
But I don’t want to talk about it all again. I just want to leave it behind me. If only it were that easy. Nothing about this situation is easy.
“I’m afraid it will start again... the stuff about touching,” I say quietly. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to think about it. In the last few days, I’ve been refusing to acknowledge it. Because then it might be true. And that would be unbearable.
“Why do you think it might start again?” Mom’s voice is soft, and tears well up in my eyes.
“I don’t know...” I falter, hesitating. I cling to the cup a little more tightly. “It started again the first time I had to dance with Jase. I don’t know why. The panic just came back. And now... how can it not happen again?” I take a shaky breath and wipe the tears off my cheeks. “Jase can lie next to me in bed, and it feels good. It really does. But I wonder all the time... whether it will stay that way. And what will happen if it doesn’t.”
Mom sighs. When I look at her again, tears are running down her face. She wipes them away and smiles at me lovingly. “I don’t think any of this makes sense. As long as it feels good and right to you, itisgood.”
“Since I found out, we haven’t... you know.” I turn red, but now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. Maybe it’s strange that I’m talking about this with my mom, of all people. Who wants to talk to their mother about sex? But I have to get this off my chest.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.” The word comes as a soft sigh. “But I don’t know. Somehow, I’m afraid that it won’t work after everything we’ve been through. But I want it to.”
God, I want so much for it to work. I want to be touched byhim, to lose myself with him. I want his hands on my skin again, to feel his weight on me. I wanthim.
“Have you talked about it with him?”
“Not really.”
We haven’t talked about it at all. But I know I can. I know I can tell him everything. I just haven’t been able to so far, and I don’t know why.
“Are you going to talk to him?”
“Yes. But I don’t know how. It’s all so... I don’t know. I’m confused.”
“I’m sure he feels exactly the same way,” Mom says.
“Probably.” I sigh. “This is all so damn hard.”
“I know, dear. I wish it were different.”
“Me too.” I lean against her, and Mom puts an arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head.
“It’s going to be all right. I’m sure of it.”
I hope so.
* * *
It’s late afternoon when the doorbell rings. I assume it’s Jase, even though he should still be in class. It wouldn’t surprise me if he skipped theory class to get here earlier. But it’s not Jase standing on the porch. It’s Mr.Pearson.
