4. Oli
Oli
Second Life
“ I t’s bad today,” I say to Dr. Langley.
Our sessions are bi-weekly, for one hour.
I’d coughed up my therapist's name to Phoenix’s boyfriend because I feel like he’s the best guy for people like us. He just understands in a way that other therapists haven’t. And it’s why he knows all my secrets but one. Every fucked up thing I haven’t told another soul besides him.
“In what way?” he asks, setting his notepad down to give me his full attention.
I scrub at my face, then run a hand through my hair. I’m debating cutting it off, but Jorge mentioned once that it looked nice, so I’ve just let the strands grow like weeds. “It’s Jorge,” I admit to my shrink. “He’s confusing me. And because he’s confusing me, it’s bringing up… everything. ”
He hums in thought. “Does he know about your aversions?”
“To an extent. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Are you struggling with his unrequited feelings? Or the touching?”
“Both,” I say easily. “And he’s been so weird since he came back from tour. He called me bebe ,” I emphasize the word.
“Perhaps you should set some boundaries between you two. The progression of your friendship is becoming codependent.”
He’s right. It has become that way. Which is something addicts like myself can do when they find a person who’ll give them what they want. And Jorge gives me almost everything I want without even trying. But I don’t view what we have as unhealthy. “I don’t know what else to do other than separate myself from him. I don’t want to do that, though.” No, the thought is physically painful.
I finally have him revolving around me, and I don’t want him to find a new star to orbit.
“If he can’t respect your wishes—”
“He is,” I cut him off. “He is. ”
Dr. Langley merely nods, knowing not to push me too hard. I don’t handle pressure well. “Okay, let’s circle back. Why do you feel he is the reason you are struggling today?”
“That’s easy. I’m in love with him, but he doesn’t view me that way. He’s my brother’s best friend, whom I refuse to speak to, and on top of it, even if he magically developed feelings for me…romantically, I can’t stand being touched. It would never work.”
“Well, that’s just not true.”
I blink, not sure which part he’s disagreeing with.
“I’ve seen you with your sister, Nyxia. She has hugged you, and you reciprocated.”
“That’s different,” I whisper. “You know why.”
“Perhaps removing the gender from the equation will help you overcome this issue.”
“I have before.” I snap. “It didn’t work. And it’s worse because it’s him . How am I supposed to just forget that Jorge is a man?” I hiss, clenching my fists over and over.
“Do I frighten you?” he asks gently, smoothing some of my hackles.
“Of course not.”
“Why is that?”
I think about it, calming down more. “I trust you.”
“Do you not trust Jorge? The man who’s become something of a best friend despite your romantic feelings for him?”
I swallow hard.
The question is sitting funny on my chest.
“I don’t know.”
T hat session left me more exhausted and emotionally twisted than I was before I went in.
Sometimes, life just weighs on my shoulders, and my feet feel too heavy, like I’m walking through endless sand.
Shouldering into my little studio, I check on the boys, put water in their bottles, and then strip. Crawling into bed, I clutch my phone tightly and blink at the ceiling. My heart races, my mouth feels dry, and I’m shaky.
The urge to numb myself is strong, but I don’t have any of my old dealers' numbers anymore. And Jorge helped me find the ones I’d had written down, stashed away in the boxes Mom had put in storage. We burned them all. I’d been so scared to, but his presence gave me strength, and I lit the match. He gives me strength most of the time.
But in moments like these, I just want to disappear.
I want to cease to exist.
If I close my eyes, I still see everything so clearly. The excruciating pain, the grout, the trickle of water down my forehead. That insidious voice in my ear. Firm, angry hands on my waist.
My breaths come in faster and faster while adrenaline shoots through my veins.
I grip my sheet, peeling it off the mattress with my fist. My eyes are shut, but the visions don’t stop. It’s like I’m there all over again. I’m fucking frozen, stuck in this loop of viciousness with no way out.
And all because I thought it might be okay to let Jorge touch me.
To try and trust him with the most fragile part of me—the part no one even knows is damaged.
The hours tick by while I stay paralyzed. Tears stain my cheeks, and small puddles form on my pillow. There’s nothing to be done. I have nothing to get rid of this.
When I’m triggered, no amount of breathing techniques or sense work will help. I don’t give a fuck what I can see, touch, or feel. I don’t want to see, touch, or feel anything.
At some point, the tension slowly leaves me as I crawl back inside myself, the nightmare over for the moment. My body whole once more.
I suck in a deep breath and lift my phone.
Jorge texted two hours ago…
Hey.
What you doing?
Want to hang out?
Either I’m too tired to panic, or I simply lack emotion. But we never leave each other on read, so I push through the murk. I push through for him because he stayed. He continues to stay.
Give me an hour?
He writes back instantly. Like he’s been waiting for me.
Of course.
See you soon.
See you soon.
I let my phone slip from my fingers, knowing I need to get dressed and get out of bed, but I can’t seem to do it yet. There’s no life in my limbs; the energy zapped from my blood. I fall into some strange haze, and before I know it, Jorge is here, knocking at my door, and I’m still in my fucking briefs.
Shooting upright, I fumble around my bed to find the pair of sweats I know I have in here but come up empty.
“Oli?” he calls.
“Coming!” I yell back, panicking now.
We’ve never been this exposed around each other before. Not even shirtless. I’d wear a T-shirt at the gym and rinse off at home. He would do the same.
Something about it makes me feel exposed and raw, making my skin crawl. Like I’m tempting a wild animal with a bloody carcass, and if I let my guard down even for a second, it’ll rip me apart. I can not open my door without clothes. But then I remember he has a key.
He has a key.
No, no, no.
“It’s okay, I got it,” he chirps happily, shoving through my front door.
I watch in horror as he pauses at the threshold, eyes locked on me while I’m on my knees, holding my blanket in search of my pants. With all the nonchalance in the world, he comes inside, shuts the door, and ignores my nudity. Instead of gawking like I assumed he would, he treats me like I’m invisible and goes to the rats.
Relief swirls inside me, along with something bitter like rejection. It’s a fucked up combination that I have no desire to go into right now. So, I just hustle out of my bed, rip open a drawer, and put on the first things I grab.
A tank top with too big armholes, and a pair of orange basketball shorts.
Grimacing and raking a hand through my hair, I wander over to him, keeping a healthy distance, and clear my throat. “Better?” he asks, like he fucking knows . Does he?
Shit, would things change if he did?
“Yes,” I rasp, throat dry from the hours of panting on my bed, crippled by some fucking episode.
“I was thinking,” he starts, “let’s do something different. Maybe go hit up the beach?”
“The beach?” I repeat.
He nods. “Yeah. It’s warm out, and I really want a cheese stick.” His dark brown eyes flutter at me like he does when he wants something. I love that look. It’s one of my favorites.
“Okay.” I offer him a small smile, and his olive skin darkens around his cheeks.
Oh, that’s new.
Wetting his lips, he briefly flicks his gaze over me and then giggles. “Those shorts are god awful.”
“Nyx bought them when I got out of rehab.” I shrug. “I’ll change.”
“Sure thing, now let me play with the bebes.” He makes grabby fingers at my rats before opening the doors and snatching Turbo out of his hammock.
E verywhere I look, people are touching.
It’s not that I’m not aware of how strange I am compared to everyone else, but it’s getting harder to ignore. Admittedly, I don’t let Jorge often drag me out of the house. I guess it's because I prefer to keep us in our little bubble of easy companionship. Out here, there’s no mistaking the weird tension bouncing between us. It’s been there from the beginning.
A strange dance around each other while also never wanting to stop.
Eventually, one of us will grow tired of it, though.
I caught Jorge’s hand hovering in the air a few times as if he wanted to reach out and guide me by the small of my back. And earlier, when he’d been eating his cheese on a stick, and I’d gotten a corndog, he looked almost desperate to swipe away the drop of mustard on my chin.
I’d think it meant something more if it were anyone else besides Jorge. Deeper, perhaps. But this isn’t anyone else.
This is Jorge. And he shows how deeply he cares by how frequently he wants to touch you.
I hate it.
I love it.
I wish I could handle it better, but I simply can’t.
Not for the first time today, I scold the universe for doing this to me. Taunting me with such a tempting carrot that I’m practically allergic to. The thought of him touching me makes me want to catapult into the ocean, while images of me reaching out for him seem doable. If only he’d stay perfectly still so I could explore…
“Yoohoo,” he sing-songs, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Sorry,” I mutter and tear my eyes away from the couple snuggling on a bench at the edge of the pier.
“They look snug as a bug,” he comments, nodding to them.
“Yeah.”
“Want to go down to the sand? I want to stick my feet in the water.”
Not really. But what could it hurt? Maybe it’ll distract him enough not to realize how conflicted I am. “Sure.”
He beams, bouncing on his heels, and gestures for me to follow him.
Without meaning to, I glance down at his outstretched fingers, my chest thudding as, once again, I’m letting an opportunity slip away due to this crippling fear. I could be holding that hand. Jorge wouldn’t shy away from it either. He’d welcome my simple act of affection. I’m sure he’d preen like a peacock, showing me off down the pier without a care in the world.
Fuck, what it must be like to be a ray of light.
I don’t think I’ll ever know.
We get to the sand, trekking through piles of seaweed and down to the murky water. Redondo Beach isn’t the cleanest, but it’s nearby and familiar to both of us. SoCal locals ‘n all. The smell of salt and fry oil fills my lungs, seagulls sound in the distance, and some loud music blasts through a speaker a ways down. I’m half aware of the football soaring through the air over us.
And just like that, clouds darken all around me.
Football.
The pain. The grout. The trickle of water down my forehead. The rough grip.
“Oli?”
My eyes slam shut, intensifying the visuals. Hot breaths in my ear. Fingers bruising my skin. I shudder. “Hey,” Jorge’s voice breaks through.
“Sorry,” I swallow. “I think the corndog was bad,” I say. A clammy layer of sweat forms over my scalp, and the corndog sits funny in my stomach. I shiver as my skin pebbles with goosebumps.
When I get brave enough to open my eyes again, Jorge is tearing off his leather jacket full of patches and studs—eerily similar to the one Phoenix has—and gently sets it over my wide shoulders. It’s too small to wear, but the gesture is not lost on me.
I allow his scent to fill my nose. Strawberries and mint. Always the same. His vape and then his body wash. “There you go,” he says softly, adjusting the collar but never touching me.
“Thanks.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
“Okay.”