Not to a "I'm a sick submissive who gets off on men coming on dead bodies" support group, because those don't exist.
To a divorced women's support group.
They don't check ID at the door, and no one asks follow-up questions when you say you're "going through something" so I sit in the circle of folding chairs and listen to the stories.
Margaret's ex-husband emptied their bank accounts and moved to Florida with his dental hygienist.
Sharon's fighting for custody of her kids even though she supports the family and her ex hasn't worked a job since he made sandwiches in college.
Linda just wants to know if it's normal to cry every time she sees a couple holding hands at the grocery store.
I like the stories.
I'm ashamed of this.
I'm ashamed that I sit here, pretending to belong, harvesting other people's pain like research notes for a book I'll never write.
But I come back anyway.
I have a whole list of them set up all across the city. This and the yoga was the whole reason I bought myself a new Jeep. Black, lifted, aggressive muddy tires the size of small planets. Something that screams "I belong here, I'm one of you, I've always been local"—which is technically true, but also the most pathetic kind of lie. Because I don't leave town. I don't venture into the Tetons for hikes or climbs.
I hoard support groups like they're gold and yoga classes like they might save me.
I've attended every 'Anonymous' group within twenty miles over the past six months. Depression groups. Illness support circles. Grief counseling. Addiction recovery. Trauma survivors. I don't discriminate.
If it eats hours in my day, I'm in.
When the session ends, I slip out before anyone can ask how I'm doing.
Home again.Third shower of the day.
I stand under the spray until the water runs cold, then wrap myself in a towel and crawl into bed.
I pull up the Ivy and Logan scene from my head… maybe tonight it'll work.
Maybe tonight my body will remember how to want something.
I slide my hand between my thighs.
Nothing.
I try anyway. Force myself to focus on the scene—Logan's fingers inside Ivy, the strangers watching through the curtain, the humiliation and desire tangled together.
I give up after five minutes and blank my mind.
This is my life now.
Coffee shops, and gyms, and yoga classes, and support groups I don't belong to.
Running from nothing. Toward nothing.
Pretending I'm fine.
Pretending I'm normal.
Pretending I don't spend every night trying to masturbate to fantasies that don't work anymore because the only thing that gets me wet is the memory of a man ejaculating on a corpse.
I turn off the light.
