“Yes. We’re staying.” Finally she takes off her coat and hangs it on the rack by the door. I ditch my own jacket on the back of the couch and walk into the kitchen.
“To answer your question, yes. About the shitty options. I’ve been there.”
“Right and maybe one of those options is the sane, smart option, but it comes with huge what ifs that you know will eat at you, possibly for years to come.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there before.” I grab two glasses and the pitcher of water from the fridge and bring them over to the couch. She sits down at the other end, leaving Titus plenty of room to jump up between us and make himself comfortable.
“God, he’s cuddly.”
“You can use him as an excuse to change the subject a few more times, but eventually we should really talk about this.”
“We’re talking,” she said with an offended laugh. “Anyway, Pushy. Okay. So one option, I stay home. I maybe find a new therapist. I definitely still dump my boyfriend, but I try to move on. I try to stop thinking of this hypothetical version of you I’ve created in my head based on the facts I was able to piece together after I suffered a head injury and a decent amount of blood loss. I heal?” She uses air quotes.
“What’s option two?”
“I come here.”
“And?”
“I tell you what’s been going on.”
“And you’re going to do that?”
“I guess so. We did make a deal. Okay.” She lets out a deep breath. “Option two is I come here and I tell you that I’ve been wanting to see you in this very specific, weird way. I think it's some sort of survivor’s thing. I mean I know it is. But I don't know how you enter into any interpersonal relationship that way. Like this super fucked up thing happened and we were both there. Wanna be friends?”
“You could say that. I wouldn’t think that was weird.”
Her head rolls back on the couch cushion and she glares at me.
“How did you come to your decision? This feels like option two,” I say.
“I tried option one for a couple months and it wasn’t working.”
“So you want to see if we can be friends? We can do that. What's the shitty side of that?”
“Also two-sided. I get here and you don't even live here anymore or you're like WTF bitch, leave me alone.”
I smile a little. “Well that didn't happen.”
“Right, but I haven't told you the part where I've been so fucked up that I think I've become obsessed with you. Things were so bad that sometimes I could only self comfort by thinking about you holding me.”
I swallow and look down at Titus with his head resting in Claudia’s lap. “Did you come out here because you want me to hold you?”
She sighs, loud, and runs her hand through her hair. I realize then that her bangs are covering up the massive scar that cuts close to her hair line. “Yes and no. Yes because yes, but no because I'm really afraid that something inside me is so...broken that I'll never be able to function again if you're not holding me.”
I nod. I understand. “Dependency.”
“Exactly. So seeing you, since you seem to be okay with that part, is fine. But then what happens? Did punching a tree help you? Maybe I should try that.”
“It helped for a little while.”
“Well what's your plan? How does Shep move past this?”
I pause for a moment. “I’ll...preface this with a disclaimer. I'm not trying to shock you and I'm not trying to sound cocky and I don't want you to think that I'm trying to talk down to you or impress you.”
She frowns and tilts her head a bit to the side. “Okay.”
“I have a coping mechanism and it is sexual—”
