17. Then
SEVENTEEN
then
Gray
Ella? It’s been two days. Can you just tell me you’re alright?
Look, I got an invitation to a gallery opening. It’s a public place where I won’t be able to tackle you again.
What do you think?
“So.”
I’m sure the décor was intended to help people feel calm. The sandy walls, the warm wood floor, the deep blue couch. A little fountain bubbled on the table next to the door while I fidgeted on the sofa, bouncing both of my legs in turn.
The woman sitting across from me was more relaxed than I ever had been in my life. She settled back in her worn leather armchair and nonchalantly reached for the mug of tea on the table beside her. I eyed the dove-gray notebook in her lap, wondering exactly how many pages it would take for her to document my particular brand of lunacy.
At least Dr. Laura Dawn didn’t seem cold or severe. When I scrounged together half of my savings and half of my paycheck to pay for one therapy session, I could only hope I’d chosen someone decent to spend the money on.
Tall and long, her soft green kimono-maxi billowed whenever she moved, emphasizing just how thin she really was. Even though her body was slight, she had a naturally soft face without any lines or angles. Her hair matched—loose, easy curls of short, dark hair that bounced when she tilted her head to the side, assessing me.
When I didn’t speak, she smiled kindly. “Your name is Ella?”
I nodded one jerky bobble. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her smile grew, changing shades from amused to encouraging. “You can call me Laura,” she said. “Or Dr. Laura, if you prefer that.”
She slid a slip of paper out from the pages of her notebook. “I see here that you’re a student, and you paid out-of-pocket to see me for a one-time session. I can also see that you’re anxious and normally, I would give us each some time to get to know one another, but I’m sure you can’t afford for me to waste a second.”
My head bobbed again.
Her brown eyes softened. “You must be very upset about something,” she went on, “to pay to come here. Do you want to tell me about it? ”
And, oddly, I did . I’d been holding so much in for so long; her offer was irresistible.
“I met a guy on the subway,” I muttered while I bit my lip. “Last month. And he’s… he’s perfect . I mean, I’m sure he’s not really perfect, but he feels perfect to me. For me. Maybe I’m not for him , since I’m basically a hobo compared to the girls he usually dates, but—I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to care about that. Or even notice it, really.
“He just… likes me. Wants me . And I know—I know —I sound surprised, and that’s self-deprecating because I should think I’m great and any guy would want to be with me and all that. But, seriously, if you saw this guy, you would understand that him wanting me is like… a miracle. Especially after the way I’ve acted around him.”
Dr. Laura wrote something short in her notebook. “What’s his name?”
I blinked, surprised by the simplicity of her question. “Gray.”
She gave a small smile. “So you came here to discuss Gray?”
“No.” The word jumped out before I could stop it. “Well, yes. Sort of. I need—I need to know if I’ll ever be able to be with him.”
Dr. Laura’s brows drew together. “Surely that’s a question you should answer for yourself. Do you feel you could be happy with him?”
I thought about lying in his arms last week. When he held me, everything else melted away. When he kissed me, I believed I’d never think straight again. My body still hummed from the memories alone.
I thought about his laugh lines, his little rueful looks. The way he rolled his eyes but smiled when he talked about his parents. The way he listened, even when I started talking nonsense.
“Yes,” I whispered.
She nodded like she trusted me. “He clearly means a lot to you if you came here today to talk about him.”
I knew she was right. I’d been living with what happened to me for a year and a half. I found my own ways to cope with it. I only wanted to confront the issue now because it affected Gray. “I’m worried that I’ll hurt him, and I don’t want to.”
Sympathy saturated her features. “Do you feel you’re a hurtful person?”
“Normally, no,” I sighed. “I’m not doing it on purpose. He wants to be close to me, but every time he tries, I have a panic attack.”
Her eyes widened while she jotted down another note. “Have you always had a panic disorder?”
My stomach clenched into a fist. “No.”
“So, did they develop over time, or was there an event that prompted the attacks?”
There it was. The reason I was there. I had to say the thing I had managed to avoid for so long. The words I could never scrape out, even when I tried to report what happened to the campus police.
My breath shuddered out of my lungs. “I went to a—I was?—”
I almost burst off the couch and ran. But as my legs twitched, wanting to bolt, I remembered Gray’s face each time I turned away from him. And, for just a second, I felt… angry . No one got to make him feel that way, not even me. Not because of something that someone else did to me.
The blast of fury gave me one brief, brilliant moment of bravery. I pushed the truth out on an exhale.
“I was raped.”
I’m not sure how I expected her to react. I figured a psychologist who specialized in young women’s mental health probably dealt with assault victims day in and day out. I anticipated questions about exactly what happened—the usual probing, dissecting sort that determines whether a girl is exaggerating or delusional.
The campus police had a million of those questions, and my answers, apparently, did not pass muster. Particularly when I couldn’t supply them with the name of the vicious stranger who attacked me .
Instead, though, Dr. Laura dropped her pen into her journal and met my eyes. “Ella, I’m so very sorry,” she said, utterly sincere.
Adrenaline drained from my body and left me shaking. “It’s fine,” I rambled tightly, “Really, I?—”
“No,” Dr. Laura interrupted. “Ella, it’s not fine. Now, I may not know the details—and, if you’d like to tell them to me, we can do that. But I do know that what happened to you is creating problems in your current relationship. You must have survived a horrible ordeal to feel echoes of it when you’re with a man you clearly want to be with. And that is not okay. Or fair.”
I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat, but that only made my eyes water. My voice rasped. “I need to know if I’ll ever be able to… be with him.”
“Sexually?” she inquired, ignoring the blush on my cheeks. “There are a lot of factors that go into that equation, but generally, I would say yes. Most sexual assault survivors are able to be intimate again. There may be triggers they avoid indefinitely, but, Ella, what happened to you does not have to disqualify you from having a fulfilling sex life with a man you desire.”
While I chewed my lip, she asked, “Have you had panic attacks when you attempted intimacy with other men? Or just Gray?”
A tremor straightened my spine. “There haven’t been any other men,” I whispered. “Since… what happened. That was eighteen months ago.”
“I see.” She made another small note. “And how long have you been with Gray?”
Chagrin made my face flame more. “We aren’t really together yet. He keeps asking me out, and last Saturday, we had our first?—”
Dr. Laura smiled softly. “Sexual encounter? It’s okay, Ella. You won’t offend me.”
My blush deepened again. “Right. Of course not. Yes, we were kissing and… touching. And I wanted him…but then something happened, and all of the bad memories rushed up. I had to physically run from him to get to a trash can and throw up.”
Dr. Laura made a pondering sound. “So you can tolerate—and even enjoy—being with him until a certain point. That would suggest a trigger of some sort. Do you remember what changed in the moments before you panicked?”
I wondered if my face would permanently resemble a beet. “Not really… he was doing all of the same things I liked… before…”
“Did he maybe change positions?” she inquired. “Some survivors have trouble with any position that may resemble their attack.”
Closing my eyes, I tried to picture what happened in Golden Swan Garden. “He kissed me and… got on top of me.” Queasiness settled over my stomach, twisting my expression.
Her voice was soft. “Was your assailant on top of you?”
I juddered, squeezing my eyes shut even harder. “I was drinking… and drugged. I try not to remember.” But suddenly, I could feel the weight of him again, pressing me into the damp frat house mattress, suffocating me while his palm crushed my mouth and nose.
“Ella?”
I couldn’t open my eyes. I bent forward and put my face in my hands. “I think he was on top of me,” I gasped. “I couldn’t move. Couldn’t get any leverage. He had his hand over my mouth.”
Silence engulfed the room for a long moment. “We can take a break,” Dr. Laura finally offered. “You don’t have to push yourself.”
It took me several minutes to catch my breath. When I sat back up, wiping tears from my face, Dr. Laura’s compassionate expression nearly sent me back over the edge.
“I think you’re very brave to do this,” she told me. “Gray is very lucky, to have someone care about him so much. But is this what you want, too? It’s important to be certain you aren’t forcing yourself into a sexual relationship you don’t really want. ”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “I want him. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone else this way.”
Her face broke into another grin. “That’s wonderful. In that case, we should use our remaining time to work on your triggers. If we can identify them, you two may be able to avoid them altogether.”
The thought made me cringe; laying out a list of no-go sex stuff for Gray sounded mortifying. “And we would have to avoid them forever?”
She gave a noncommittal shrug. “Some couples do, others prefer to push the boundaries. It’s a personal choice. I would recommend sticking to your limits until you’re very comfortable within them. When and how to approach expanding them? Those are decisions you can make with Gray.”
I only had one more bomb to drop. “He doesn’t know. And I don’t want him to know.”
For the first time in our session, Dr. Laura’s face betrayed a hint of disapproval. “That’s your choice, of course,” she acquiesced diplomatically. “It will make it much harder to discuss boundaries honestly. And, without that information, he’ll be at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to understanding you.”
I recalled the way he watched me—the way his green eyes shifted between lust and tenderness. I loved that look too much to see any pity in it.
“Do I have to decide right now?”
Dr. Laura smiled again. “Of course not. It’s a very personal decision. In the meantime, let’s identify your triggers and make a plan to work around them.”
“Hold on.” I pulled my phone out and swiped open the message from Gray that I’d been dying to answer for days.
Ella
I’d love to go.
For the first time in a week, I felt hopeful.
$320 poorer, but hopeful, nonetheless.