Chapter 4 #2
She laughs suddenly, a sharp sound that sends a hot wave of shame washing over me, until I’m burning up in my own skin.
“That’s so arrogant to think that you can solve my problems when you don’t really know anything about me.”
“It’s arrogant to assume I can’t, when you don’t really know anything about me either.”
She inhales sharply. Maybe no one has challenged her on this bullshit. I doubt that’s true, but why aren’t people helping her? She mentioned she isn’t close to her family. Is this why? Did they get tired of trying to understand this and just give up on her? Did they let her drive them away?
“You’ve seen doctors, I assume?”
She nods, surprising me with how readily she volunteers the information.
“Online. Yes. I’ve talked to regular doctors.
Psychologists. Specialists. I’ve been put on every medication you can think of, but nothing has been a good fit.
I can’t just numb myself out to the point where I can’t work. If I can’t work, I won’t get paid.”
“Have they got you to try any exercises to get through this? Maybe locking yourself outside. Stepping out the door and pitching the key so you have to go a certain way to get back?”
“I’ve tried to take steps outside. I’ve tried to count them.
I’ve tried medication, rationalizing it all away, picturing myself in a different place, deep breathing, meditating, army breathing, all the yoga you can think of.
I’ve tried to mentally talk myself down for days before I take that first step outside.
I’ve even tried sinking into the panic and just letting it ride until it can’t anymore, but it can.
It always can, and it always does. Just imagine holding your own head under water.
” Her eyes flash, darkening to a deeper blue.
“There’s only so long that you’re going to be able to do it before you have to come up for air. ”
She unfurls suddenly and gets to her feet.
She snatches back the bag of coffee grounds and pours some of them into the little handle of the espresso maker.
She jams it forcefully back into place. After she puts a small cup underneath, she hits the button, and a stream of steaming coffee pours out.
The dark almost burnt aroma fills the tiny kitchen.
I get myself off the floor while she busies herself steaming milk in a little metal pitcher. I don’t want to sit. I don’t want to stand. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I watch her add the froth to the top of a mug. She holds it to me. Her whole demeanor is resolute. Decided. She’s certain that I’m going to be just like everyone else in her life who has probably failed her.
“It’s not fair to ask you to come here all the time. I would never expect someone to share their life with someone who—” Her throat bobs as she swallows loudly. “Someone like me. I’m so sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint you.”
“That smacks of self-pity.” I sip the coffee, even though it’s scalding hot. It burns my tongue, but it does taste amazing. It’s the best thing I’ve had in ten years, I can say that for certain. “But the coffee’s good.”
A strangled, angry sound tears out of her. “That smacks of a lack of compassion,” she snaps. “I’m sorry, but if you’re going to be unkind, then I’d like you to leave.”
Her hand twitches at her side as though she’d like to smack me.
I wish she would. She needs to do something to excise all the shit that’s crammed down deep in her, rotting her, making her sick.
I’m no doctor, but I think that maybe a little bit of alternative advice would help if all the other stuff didn’t.
She can’t keep her face from crumpling. She has to quickly turn and start dumping out the grounds.
Nothing in her body says that she wants me to leave. If she truly did, I’d go.
“I know about the world,” she says harshly.
She refills the holder and shoves it into the machine.
“I wasn’t like this until- I- I had two decades out there.
I have a phone, a laptop, and the internet.
I know what’s happening locally, nationally, and internationally.
I haven’t seen regular doctors. I’ve seen naturopaths and homeopaths.
I’ve tried hypnosis. Books. Videos. Podcasts.
Phone calls. I want to get better but want has very little to do with it.
” She steams the milk, then the machine hisses as she drains it off.
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
She whips around, thankfully not with a cup of coffee in her hand. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not just going to leave you here. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself. I want to be your friend, and I want to help.”
I feel the heaviness of her living like this, straight down into my bones. Anger curdles the pit of my stomach. I want to know what happened to make Loreena this way. She said she had two decades out in the world.
Something hurt her.
Someone.
I spent a decade behind bars, but I’ve never wanted to do physical harm to another person the way I do when I think about someone harming this woman.
I want to destroy them. I slam back a large gulp of the rich coffee and let the bitterness trickle down my throat.
I focus on that, instead of the murderous impulses that unnerve the hell out of me.
Loreena’s sharp inhale tells me that more of my emotions are showing than I want, including the thoughts that probably just passed across my features in all their horrifying brutality.
She darts away, snatches up her coffee, and shifts to the kitchen doorway.
“I understand that you want to help, but if you truly don’t want to accept no, and you still want to be friends in some capacity, then please do some research before we talk about this again.
If you find something that I haven’t tried, I’d be open to it, I truly would.
” She stares at the door, a direct indication that she’d like me to go now. “I appreciate your concern.”
I gulp the rest of the coffee and set the cup in the sink. I have to brush past her to get to the door. She doesn’t freeze up at having me so close. If anything, a faint blush creeps into her cheeks.
“If I found something… you’d honestly try it?”
The flush fades, her skin pales, and her eyes get flinty. “Within reason.”
I have to fight against all the urges inside of me that tell me to grab her, take her out of this place, and fight for her. I know that one person can’t fix another, but I also don’t know if that’s completely true. One person can help. I can help. I will.
I know how cold and degrading years of oppressive loneliness can be. I know how it erodes you down to nothing, until you could just vanish.
I won’t let that happen to Loreena.
Even if we hadn’t exchanged a single letter and we had met somehow, I think that some part of me would have been drawn inexplicably to this woman.
It would have been more than just her beauty.
The call of who she is at heart would have wrapped around mine like ivy, twisting and growing all along the bricks of my foundation until they undermined my resolution.
But we do know each other. I have no resolution except my iron will to break her free of this life that she’s living.
I open the door and step out into the hallway. I’m afraid that she’s going to follow through on what she said. That she’ll never answer her door, my texts, my calls, or my letters again. I don’t want to be cut out of her life. I don’t want to lose her.
It’s no understatement to say that it would half kill me.
“I’ll see you,” I say casually, but there’s no hiding my conviction.
“Yeah.” She’s unsure. Confused. She doesn’t really believe that I won’t abandon her.
She closes the door and I’m relieved to hear her locking it up behind me. This building’s security is shit. It’s old and even I know that it’s not in what’s considered the good part of Seattle.
By the time I reach my beat up truck parked in one of the visitor stalls in the back parking lot, I’ve already determined that not only will I not abandon Loreena, I’m going to break her out of her own prison.
I’ll never take one single free breath for granted again, and I’m determined that she won’t either.
I don’t know how I’m going to free her yet.
I only know that I’ll do anything to make it happen.