Chapter 8 The Part of Me That Might Want to Know
The knock comes just as I slip into a T-shirt for bed. I open the door for Issac, smile up at him. “Delayed flight or did you forget something?”
He doesn’t speak. His eyes crawl the length of my legs, lingering at the flesh exposed below the hem of my shirt before traveling to my face. My breathing turns sharp, sure that the hungry look in his eyes isn’t normal. This isn’t how he’s supposed to look at me. He takes a step, then another, until he’s close enough to brush a strand of fallen hair from my shoulder, giving him a view of my neck. When he lowers his head and places a soft kiss on my skin there, a stunned sound escapes my lips.
“I forgot to do this,” he whispers, the words giving way to small waves of pleasure as his mouth moves against me. “Forgot to show you what it can feel like if there’s kissing involved in our plan.”
“Issac,” I breathe out, my brain winning the battle over my body, “we can’t.”
“Why not?” he asks, leading those kisses up, up, up, before catching the lobe of my ear with his teeth.
A moan slips when he tugs softly, my back bends. “Because…”
He pulls away to tilt my chin, runs his thumb down my bottom lip, watches as I shiver. “Tell me you don’t want me. That there’s not a part of you that’s always wanted to know what it would be like.”
“I…But we…” He’s too far now, my body begs for him to come closer. And then he does. The kiss isn’t soft and sweet, it’s urgent: tongue and sucking and biting lips. His hands roam my backside, fingers grazing right below my ass, pulling me in until I can feel him hard against my stomach. He groans into my mouth when I arch into him, needing the friction. And then he leads me backward through the door, slams it shut behind him, and cups both of my ass cheeks before lifting me off the ground. My legs wrap around his waist, I’m wet and warm between them, anxious for him to take me right here.
But we’re moving, kissing and moaning while making our way to my room, and then I’m on the bed, squeezing my breasts through my shirt and Issac’s watching with heavy breaths while sliding his pants down and…
I wake gasping for air. Somewhere behind the frantic thumping of my heart is the sound of my alarm. I clutch at my shirt, searching for him in the room. But Issac isn’t here. He left last night. He wouldn’t say what he said to me. Hasn’t kissed me, not even once.
Dust particles float near my window when I kick the covers off, but I’m still trying to catch my breath, so I lie there, ignoring the insistence of my alarm and feeling delirious.
Did I really just have a dream of Issac doing ungodly things to me?
When my chest stops heaving and the denial fades, it leaves room for blame. This is because of the plan. It’s already putting toxic fantasies in my head. Actually, Katrina started this. She’s the one who planted the seed, and then Issac watered it and gave it sunlight, and now my subconscious mind is imagining what his tongue feels like. And discounting my ridiculous decision to say yes to Issac’s idea, am I really to blame for my hormonal delusions? Wouldn’t it be normal for my body to begin feeling things it shouldn’t feel once he starts touching me like he’s my boyfriend? The dream was just my taunting brain and a bodily reaction driven by three different hormones that I have little control over. Because if I’m being honest…when Issac called me his baby, when he did all of that without asking me, some traitorous part of me might have liked it just a little bit.
But it’s downright maddening when I’ve worked hard over the years to lock away any attraction that may have existed when I was younger. When I didn’t know what I know now. That Issac is my very most favorite person in the world, and I won’t mess our relationship up over some damn desires. Not even now that I’ve potentially unleashed those untapped urges and surviving the summer of being Issac Jordan’s girlfriend while wondering what his hands would feel like on my ass might be nearly impossible.
Right now, he’s sleeping peacefully across the country while I’m trying not to hyperventilate, and I’m tempted to wake him, tell him to have Bernie do damage control over his post and for us to forget about our arrangement.
Or…I can grit my teeth and silence any urges that may come because I am a grown woman, and eight weeks go by in a flash when you’re adulting. Soon, Issac and I will go back to being platonic in every way and I’ll remember freaking out and laugh like I was silly.
I finally silence my alarm and pick up the ibuprofen on my nightstand to ward off an impending headache for the day ahead. If I don’t get out of bed now, I won’t be on time for my doctor’s appointment, which will make me late for my four-hour shift at the hotel. Mom and Lex will be at the shop unpacking boxes and trying to make it more presentable again, but I won’t be able to help them until the afternoon. A fact that makes me more relieved than anxious. I’m not sure I’m ready to face customers yet, or to have a possible showdown with paparazzi.
One might think that after having a sex dream about someone who needs to be in the friend zone, the brain would naturally fail to store it like it does 80 percent of all dreams. But my brain flashes to the finest of details while in an extremely inappropriate setting. Take for instance the way Issac unbuckled his belt while staring into my eyes. Such a minute detail that has no business being the culprit of the warmth between my thighs while I’m at the doctor’s office.
I smooth over the hospital gown I’m wearing, tempted to reach underneath and touch myself right before a knock comes on the door. Guilt laden, I clear my throat. “Come in.”
Dr. Rotondo greets me with his signature smile. Mom came with me to his office once and said he’s got a slick smile, the charming kind that can make a girl forget her own needs. He is handsome. In his early forties. With startling blue eyes and a clean-shaven head that fits him right. We exchange quick pleasantries before it’s straight to joking about the tan line he got from wearing sunglasses on the beach. He asks me if he looks goofy.
“Only a little,” I tease, thankful for the distraction from my dream. “Just a tad.”
He says he’s satisfied with my answer. We laugh. But then he asks what brought me into the office, and even though he’s charming, when I remind him about the headaches and fatigue I’ve been feeling he acts like it’s the first time. I’ve talked to him over the phone twice.
When he asks if I’m under stress, I smile and say, “Show me an adult who isn’t.”
“Fair enough,” he says. “But I am wondering if they’re tension headaches.”
I’ve already considered stress a possibility with problems at the shop, but there’s still a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something feels different with my body. “Yeah, it could be,” I tell him. “But what about my blood pressure? It’s been pretty high lately.”
Dr. Rotondo looks at my chart again, and says, “Not higher than it usually runs.”
“But I’m taking my meds,” I say, struggling to keep frustration from my voice. When I was eighteen, I went to the emergency room for bronchitis and left with a hypertension diagnosis. The doctors also found a small amount of protein in my urine, but it was just above normal limits and they weren’t concerned about it. Everything’s seemed steady until recently.
My doctor sits on the stool and moves closer to me. “Honestly,” he says, “high blood pressure doesn’t cause headaches unless it’s at a life-threatening level, and I promise you’re nowhere near that. Maybe you’re just nervous to be here today. Sometimes when people are nervous, it temporarily elevates their blood pressure. We see it frequently in our office, actually.” A pause, and then: “Are you nervous to be here for some reason?”
I’ve been my doctor’s patient for five years. We joke, talk about his family and mine, but I can’t deny my sweaty palms or how quickly my heart jumps when he walks into the room or the way it’s racing now at his proximity. Maybe my mom’s right. He’s good-looking, possibly a little flirty, and it could be the charm about him…or maybe it’s just me. Heart failure took my dad from me, and knowing heart disease can be genetic, that I’ve had high blood pressure for a while now, always sits at the back of my mind.
“I am a little nervous,” I admit.
“There’s a term for it,” Dr. Rotondo says. “We call it white coat syndrome, and maybe you feel it when you’re around me.”
I chew the tip of my tongue, avoiding his eyes as he continues.
“What if I told you there’s nothing wrong with you? Will that make you feel better?”
Part of me wants to agree so that he doesn’t think I’m paranoid or needy, but if I don’t ask this next question, I’ll be stressing about it for weeks. Until I finally give in and call him anyway. I take a breath, say, “I know you told me that the protein in my urine wasn’t a big deal before but…do you think it has anything to do with what’s going on with me now?”
A fleeting look of confusion flashes across his face, causing me to wonder if he remembers saying that to me or if he didn’t remember I had proteinuria at all. I wouldn’t blame him for forgetting, he is human, but I feel better when he opens his laptop, taps on a few keys, then gives me a reassuring glance.
“I doubt it has anything to do with that, Laniah. I’m guessing this is just stress. Anxiety. But we could get you some new lab work and adjust your blood pressure medication to see if that helps.” I’m instantly relieved I didn’t have to ask for blood work myself. I thank my doctor, and he touches the stethoscope around his neck. “Of course,” he says, “but before we mess around with your meds, you should take your blood pressure every day for the next few weeks, write it down, and call me with the results.”
“Will it be okay being high for that long?”
There’s an award out there somewhere for the slick smile stretching his face, but his tone is gentle when he says, “It’ll be just fine. And after we get the results back, we can talk about possibly putting you on something for your anxiety. I know you haven’t wanted to take anything for it in the past, but you worry a lot.”
“I probably worry enough for this whole office,” I say with a laugh. “But I wanted to try to manage the anxiety on my own through meditation. Exercise. I should get on that.”
He drops the smile, and suddenly I wonder if I said something wrong.
“Even a small dose of Prozac can do the trick and fix all of this for you,” he says. “Think about it.”
An uneasiness settles in my stomach, though I’m not sure the exact reason why. I shift and the exam paper under my butt crinkles. “I will,” I tell him.
“It’s always a pleasure seeing you, Laniah,” he says.