SEVEN
“I DID IT AGAIN.”
“Did what?” Jacob asked.
His voice had come to comfort her. Something about it was wrong, though she didn’t have the gumption to ask if she’d conjured that up in her own head.
“Made an idiot of myself.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. What happened?”
“I had dinner at my boss’s house. Our prize for the bake-off.”
“You didn’t have a good time?”
“The meal was wonderful,” she said, lying on her couch, coiling the cord around her hand. “I’ve never had food like it. In a restaurant, like even the toppest, poshest restaurant I’ve ever visited. They had staff too. Servers in their actual house.” She sighed, her eyes closing as her cord wrapped fist bumped on her forehead. “They can’t really live there.”
“Why not? What’s wrong with it?”
“People like that, in a home like that, it’s a palace. Can you just imagine what kind of carnage I could cause?”
“It may look different, but there’s no reason to think they’d be less at home there than you are in your apartment.”
“Bad example.” She squinted, though her eyes stayed closed. “The tougher I find it to sleep, the less I like staring at these walls.”
“You could visit a doctor. He could give you something to help you sleep.”
“Medication?” She shook her head at no one. “I’ve seen that path and it’s not pretty. No, I’ll be fine. I just need to kick myself out of whatever this funk is.”
“Seems the root of that is your trauma.”
“Why did I call it that? Why did I choose the trauma option?”
“Because being held hostage is a traumatic event. Why do you struggle to acknowledge that?”
“I had a boyfriend when I was fifteen. Not exactly a straight-A student, but I was acting out, I guess. I wasn’t the best student.”
“And the boyfriend?”
“His thing was tagging any weird place he could find.”
“Tagging? Spray paint?”
“Yeah,” she said and sighed. “I followed him around like a puppy dog, him and his crazy posse. It’s weird, isn’t it? How teenagers gravitate toward the kind of people we try to avoid for the rest of our lives? Maybe we don’t try, but we should try. Bad boys might equal great sex, they don’t equal reliable partners.”
“Sometimes it’s the labels that provoke the connection.”
“Maybe.”
“Why are you thinking of him?”
“Oh, uh, we were out one night, way past curfew, in the woods. At the time I thought he was the coolest person to ever breathe. I’d have followed him anywhere. We started in the group. One peeled away, one went home, then another, our numbers dwindled until we were alone. Just him and I. I knew he wanted to get to the witch’s house. That’s what we called this old abandoned building deep in the trees. We couldn’t find it. I thought we’d be there all night searching, maybe we’d never find it, maybe we’d die there, in each other’s arms like Romeo and Juliet, forever locked in our love.”
“It didn’t work out that way?”
“We found it, eventually, it was raining, freezing cold, but I stood in my rapture watching him leave his mark on the wall that once meant something to someone.”
“That’s true. It may have been abandoned, but someone must’ve called it home at some time.”
“He used to let me put an X under his mark, like my love underlined his genius.”
“That’s nice.”
She snickered. “Nice I was a co-defendant in his crime.”
“You got caught?”
“No, if only. On my knees doing this X, he wouldn’t let me get back up, not until I… Let’s just say, he got his happy ending.”
“You didn’t want to?”
“I’d never done it before. It’s nothing like you think, but… he was so adamant. We were out in the middle of nowhere, if I hadn’t opened my mouth for him, we’d probably still be there.”
One way or another.
“Did you tell your mother?”
“God, no,” she said, that was funny. “She didn’t even notice I was gone. Her and her boyfriend were having their own fun when I got back.”
“Did you see him again?”
“I went out with him for another three months,” she said. “And every time there was an X…”
“There was a happy ending?” he asked. “That’s a difficult thing for anyone to go through, especially someone so young.”
“But that’s the thing. It wasn’t a big deal, I got over it.”
“Did you?”
Did she? Life was a series of experiences tacked onto each other. Once the train started moving, there was no slowing down, no stopping, no getting off. People had to get on with it, couldn’t dawdle over processing and interpreting emotions on every little thing.
“Teenage boys like sex. All men I’ve met do.” The lingering silence got her checking the line was still active. “Hello?”
“It’s interesting that you put it that way.”
“Put it what way?”
“Men like sex. Implies women don’t. You don’t.”
“I like sex.”
“That was a kneejerk response. Instinct. Maybe you tell yourself that or you’ve said it to others…”
She sighed. “I like the idea of sex. The intimacy, and I love climaxing, who doesn’t. It just so happens that…”
“That?”
“The climaxing thing only happens when I’m alone. Most of my sexual experiences are… not like the movies.”
“Hollywood movies or the one-handed scroll at three a.m. kind?”
Her expression warmed. “You know, you have an amazing way. You’re good at this.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry I talked about sex.”
“You can talk about anything you want to talk about. Didn’t I say that already?”
“I want to talk about you.” Another silence, only this one wasn’t tense, just expectant. “Do you like sex?”
“I do.”
“Do you think it can be like the movies?”
“Movies are fake,” he said. “Scenes are set up, choreographed. I prefer something more spontaneous, something more tailored to me and my partner’s wants.”
“So much of life is about sex, isn’t it? It’s on the TV, in the books we read, on billboards, talked about in the break room, the doctor’s office. It’s a part of our everyday lives, even when we’re not getting any.”
“Do you feel that would help? Getting a release with a partner?”
“It’s my own fault.”
“What?”
“That I can’t come with a guy.”
“Something Jeremy told you?”
“No, because I’ve never told anyone about Jimmy, about what happened between us at that house. I don’t trust people; I don’t talk to people. How can I truly give myself to a relationship or a moment, if I can’t trust the man I’m with?”
“That’s a good point,” he said. “Sex is better with intimacy and that’s a lot more than the physical. But I don’t think that difficulty translates to any fault on your part.”
“You have to say that.”
“I don’t have to say anything,” he said, a laugh in his voice. “I can hang up any time too.”
True. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“I have no intention of doing it.”
“You’re not paid to be there,” she said, curiosity about him growing. “Why do you do it? Why give your time like this? You don’t know me, you don’t get anything out of this. Are you paying a penance?”
“Guilt? You think the only reason one person would help another is if they get something from the deal?”
“I think I’m one of many people you work with on this line.” Her mind drifted deeper. “The stories you must hear… How do you keep it from traumatizing you?”
“I’m here for the long haul. I have clients I’ve spoken to for years. Hearing someone else’s experience is nothing to them going through it.” He cleared his throat. “And I have a strong support network. I’d never break a confidence, but if I need a break or someone to keep my mind off it, my family are always there for me.”
“I can’t even remember the last time I talked to my mother.”
“You’re not in regular contact?”
“Unless she needs money, not really. We tried to do the holiday thing a couple of times, but it was a joke really. It’s hypocrisy in obligation. Just because we share blood doesn’t mean we share values or ambition.”
“What is the difference between you?”
Licking her lips, she didn’t have a good answer for that one. “Just like I said with guys and sex, it’s as much my fault as theirs. I’ve never spent any time digging into my mother’s pathology. I’ve never got to know my sisters, especially as adults. We’re blood, but strangers. To love someone, you have to know them. You have to show your love in what you do, not just say the words.”
“True.”
“I could spend that time.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because my inability to trust came from somewhere.” Shifting onto her side, she pushed herself against the back of the couch, imagining the support was more than inanimate. “It’s harder to say the words and not be heard than it is to just not say them at all. When you open yourself up to someone, you want to think it means something.”
“It does.”
“Not in my family.”
“You’re protecting yourself.”
“And so the cycle continues,” she said. “Sorry, this is… I didn’t mean to get heavy.”
“Heavy is kind of the point,” he said. “You can trust me. It means something to me to hear you talk, to listen to your burden.”
“It’s not a burden, it’s just life.” She exhaled. “Thank you for listening, for your time.”
“Any time,” he said. “And I mean that. I look forward to your calls.”
She smiled. “Goodnight, Jacob.”
“Night.”
Opening her mouth, speaking, it did help. She still wasn’t sure exactly what it was that she wanted to say, but being heard meant something. If only there was a way to show the man who’d become her confidante how much she appreciated his patience. Trusting a man she’d never meet in real life, who’d never lay eyes on her, that was easier than witnessing him absorb her words. Someday she’d figure it out. Someday.