“That’s a really nice way of saying I turned him into a piece of meat in my mind, a sexual conquest,” I said with a harsh snort. God, to think I was that much of a pig toward him. “But he turned me down, and I wasn’t going to push it. I mean, I was willing to make jokes and let him know I was still interested, but he just ignored it and, for whatever reason, decided I was worth knowing even though I was constantly acting like I wanted in his pants.”
“Perhaps he saw something in you that you yourself miss when you look in the mirror,” Dr. Ramirez offered.
“Maybe,” I grunted doubtfully. “Or maybe he was just doing what he does, put someone else before himself, I don’t know. What I do know is that I started noticing more than his body. I liked his smile; it’s a little secretive, you know? Like he knows something big that he’s not telling. And he’s funny; it’s kind of quiet, and usually poking at me, but hell, everyone does that. And he pays attention. Hell, he could probably give you a run for your money in being able to figure out what people need.”
“I imagine his previous line of work afforded him a great many opportunities to hone those skills, though I don’t want to make it sound like he didn’t already have the propensity for it,” he said, setting the pen down and watching me. “But what I’m hearing is that you started to see him not as a sexual conquest, but as a person...a friend.”
“Right up until I had a whole ass freak out and the next thing I know, we’re sleeping together...and have been for a few weeks now,” I said with a frown. “And it feels like we’ve been doing it a lot longer. Well, like, in a good way, I mean. It hasn’t been so horrible that time feels like it’s stretching on and on.”
He chuckled. “I would hope not. I think you’ve been punishing yourself long enough. It would be upsetting to hear you were trying a new way to torment yourself by sticking to a relationship that causes you harm.”
“It feels like it is, though.”
“Causing you harm?”
“Yes.”
The admittance came out so soft that I don’t think he actually heard, but instead, could tell what I was saying from the movement of my mouth. It was the first time I’d said it, hell, it was the first time I had actually come right out and admitted it to myself.
“Because…” I continued before I lost the courage, “it feels like I’m rushing, or I’m flying ahead and leaving everything behind. Like I’m trying to be happy when I know I shouldn’t be. Like I’m being someone that’s sort of like I once was, but can’t be anymore, but I keep trying. And no, before you say anything, that’s not because Isaac expects me to be that way, or demands anything. Hell, he doesn’t demand anything of anyone, and it sucks, because I wish he realized this whole thing between us is stupid and going to get us in trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“One of us getting hurt,” I said with a sigh. “Himgetting hurt. He can’t be happy with someone who can onlyrememberwhat it’s like to be happy and whole, but not be that way.”
“Have you spoken to him about it?”
“What? God no,” I said with a sudden laugh, shaking my head harshly. “He already deals with my shit enough as it is. And he’s got his own shit.”
“A burden shared is a burden halved,” he said, and then smiled. “Often, we misjudge how much our troubles will weigh on someone else. If anything, the greatest weight someone else can bear on your behalf is knowing the person they care about is suffering, but being unable to help because they’re being shut out.”
I thought of Cade and how much I wanted to help him, and he wanted to help me, but at the same time, we kept each other at a distance. Less than we did with other people, but that distance was still there; we still felt it. We acknowledged it in our own ways without actually saying it out loud, but I knew he knew it just as surely as I did. That was the nature of our friendship, being there for each other as much as we could be and in ways no one else could be because they didn’t have the same level of understanding.
“You’re saying I should talk to him,” I said with a sigh, staring down at my hands and closing them into loose fists. Maybe it would be easier if I...wasn’t a problem anymore. It was like I’d said about Louis earlier, by the end of the book, he was as broken as I was now. He had still taken his wife up to that burial ground, just as I had been carrying Gina and Mikael with me for years. And he accepted his own death when it came, and maybe?—
“I’m not going totellyou to,” he said gently. “But I think it would do you both some good. I think it would help, if only to grant you both a little clarity.”
“Right,” I said, feeling drained as I sat there staring at the floor, taking a deep sigh, and looking up to see the clock over the door. “I think we went past the hour.”
“I don’t stick to a traditional schedule. Here at Arete, I believe it’s more important to give people the time and space they need to feel comfortable enough to talk,” he said, and when he saw my doubtful look, he chuckled. “It doesn’t hurt that I’m paid for my time here, whether I talk to you for an hour or three hours. But I tend to stick to the hour with some give and take; few people can sit and talk about their inner world in detail for longer than that.”
“Tell me about it,” I said with a huff, slapping my knees and standing up. “I feel exhausted.”
“I advise that you do something that brings you happiness, or at least comfort. Whether that’s reading, exercising, or spending time with the people who matter to you,” he said, standing up as well, holding out his hand. “A final piece of advice; remember that even with a physical wound, healing can be painful...and itchy. It’s no different with emotional and mental wounds. If you ever feel like this process or these sessions are hurting you more than they’re helping, please promise you’lltryto tell me rather than dropping the sessions.”
“I’ll...try,” I said hesitantly, reaching out to shake his hand. “And, you know, thanks.”
Leaving his office, I took the stairs rather than the elevator down to the main part of the resort. That exercise was enough to jog some of the stuff jumping around in my head, but I knew it was going to take a lot more than a few flights of stairs to make me feel better...if I could ever feel better.
When I exited the stairwell, I turned and tried to make up my mind where I was going to go. I stopped short when I saw Isaac sitting near the windows, a book in one hand and a steaming cup of something sitting in front of him. It could be tea, but I knew his coffee addiction, as quiet and subtle as it was, meant it could be his fifth cup of the day. How he slept after so much coffee was a mystery, but he slept like a baby.
He looked up and saw me, smiling gently, and I realized he’d been waiting. I hadn’t told him I was going to see Dr. Ramirez, but he knew, of course, he did. Just like he’d known so many other things about me, things I didn’t think anyone would ever know without being told. So, he had known I’d come here for my first real one-on-one session with a shrink, rather than the one everyone had to go to their first time being admitted to the facility.
Isaac didn’t move, but his brow crept up slowly in a gentle question, and I thought he might be asking if he was needed, ifIneeded him.
Yes, God yes, I did need him. I needed to drag him back to my room, where I could curl up on the bed, my head in his lap while he stroked my hair in the way only he could. I wanted to scream and cry and hear him tell me he was there, and though he’d never say things were okay, his presence would make me think it was possible.
I flashed him a smile, pointing at myself, and then pantomimed lifting weights and pointing in the direction of thegym. He nodded, and for a moment I both wanted and didn’t want him to follow me. He gave me a wink and settled back into his book, and I knew then he was letting me have my space and didn’t seem the least bit bothered that I needed it.
Feeling like the entire Jenga tower of brittle glass and fragile bone I had crafted inside myself was starting to crumble, I turned and headed toward the gym before I did something stupid. There were several weights I needed to abuse to get my head on straight.
