Chapter 32
32
“Do you think the soulmate thing is true?” Next to me, Dawne waited for an answer, blinking her plush eyelashes.
“Huh?” I paused, the homemade pizza halfway to my mouth. We were having dinner, but I was lost in trepidation verging on panic. I’d always had stage fright, and this felt like the worst possible version: pouring out my issues in front of an audience. I’d been remembering a grade school talent show in which I was supposed to recite a poem, but ran off the stage instead.
“I don’t know if you saw this, but that’s the guarantee. That if you come here you’ll meet your soulmate after.” Dawne speared a forkful of salad, looking thoughtful.
“I did see that.” Being here, I was even more skeptical of the claims.
“I mean, I’ve done all this work,” she went on. “I’ve been to so many retreats. I’ve read so many books. Podcasts. Therapy. I really don’t know what else I can do.” Her eyes became shiny, and she pressed a hand to her chest.
“You’ve done a lot,” I acknowledged. I understood her frustrations, all the pain that came from constant dating disappointments. Feeling like something was being kept from you—something that could make you feel so much better. Before Ryan, I’d made two other relationships “official,” but they’d both crumbled quickly, burning out in around six months.
“It will happen at the right time,” I went on. “And it’ll be better than you could’ve imagined.” It sounded like something she’d like to hear.
“You’re totally right. It will. Thanks.” She gave me a tiny, relieved smile.
Jonah caught my eyes once across the table. He was also on the healing docket, and I wondered if he felt nervous. He’d claimed he couldn’t act his way through a session—so what was he going to share?
I was the first to arrive at the yoga pavilion. Inside, Grace was setting dozens of small electric candles around the perimeter, which gave off a cozy glow. Moon and Sol conferred quietly on cushions.
As I sat, nerves—no, terror—reared up. As with the talent show, I wanted nothing more than to race back outside. Grace sat next to me, smoothing a few stray orange hairs. Interesting—she hadn’t been at the other sessions. The others filed in, and I was also surprised to see Steven take a seat.
“Why the extra people?” Jonah asked. His voice sounded tight.
Moon smiled at him. “You’ll see.”
Mikki sat on my other side. She reached out to squeeze my forearm.
“So.” Moon clapped her hands on her thighs. “Let’s begin. We have a very special session to look forward to tonight. We weren’t sure if this was the case, but after meditating today I’m feeling pretty confident. We have two attendees here whose patterns overlap.”
What?
Moon gazed at me. “It’s quite rare. Which tells me that Thea and Jonah were brought here for this specific purpose. To co-heal their patterns together.”
Jonah and I glanced at each other, our faces mirroring confusion. Every time I thought I had a grip on what was happening here, something shifted, throwing me off-balance.
“So what does that mean for our session?” I asked. “Will it be different?”
“You don’t have to worry about it. I just ask that you let me lead, and keep an open mind.” Moon brushed her air-dried waves over her shoulder. “We’re going to start with you, Thea. Could you stand, please?”
My heart galloped in my chest. Sol took my empty seat.
“Let’s walk.” Moon slipped an arm around my waist. She led me in slow steps around the circle of cushions, like a horse. “Where have you gotten stuck with relationships?”
“Um…” I cleared my throat. Let’s start with the obvious. “Well, relationships have always been tricky for me.”
“In what way?” Her sharp rose scent filled my nostrils.
“It’s just hard to get them to last,” I said. “But I think that’s pretty normal in New York.”
“Who was your last lover?” We were walking a little faster now. There was no ominous drumbeat, just silence, but I heard it underneath her words anyway.
“This guy Ryan. We dated for a little over three months.”
“What happened?”
I glanced at the others watching me from the cushions. Their eyes followed us in the dim room. Now that this was actually happening, my breath came easier. Waiting had been somehow worse.
“We broke up,” I said.
“Why?”
I pictured his shocked face. Maybe I could offer something just right of center. “I think he was scared of intimacy. Of really knowing me.” That sounded good. Maybe I’d be able to survive this after all.
“But something happened. Right?” Moon tightened her grip. “Something to set him off.”
Damn. She really did have a sixth sense. She could smell it, like a shark detecting blood in the water.
Internally, I steeled myself. I was going to have to throw her some meat.
“I told him about a fantasy I had.” My voice faltered, and I cleared my throat. “He didn’t like it.”
“Good.” Moon loosened her grip. “What was the fantasy?”
I hesitated.
“Thea, whatever it is, it’s been fantasized about a million times before.”
I forced myself to say the words: “Well, it’s less a fantasy than a memory. Something that happened when I was thirteen. I actually don’t like thinking about it, but… I have to. In bed.”
She looked at Sol, a glint of triumph in her eyes. What had I said to cause that?
“Go on,” she said.
“It’s a little complicated.” I exhaled. “But basically it was my first sexual experience. First anything—I hadn’t even kissed anyone before. And it was with this guy who bullied me. Well, a lot of people, including me.”
“There was a man involved too.” Moon’s tawny eyes glowed. “Not just the bully. Right?”
“Well… kind of.” A flash of confusion: Had I told her? Told anyone here?
“An authority figure?”
“Do you mean Pastor John?”
“Yes.” She nodded.
The answer focused into clarity: she’d seen my diary. This was how she knew. Instead of anger, I felt sudden calm. Moon would draw it out of me, slowly but surely. All I had to do was follow her lead.
“What happened with him?” she asked.
Now she was playing dumb. “Well… I don’t know if he was ever planning on trying anything physical with me. But it felt like an emotional affair. Totally inappropriate on his end. Abusive, really.” I shook my head. “I wish I could’ve realized that back then.”
“He knew how to draw you in,” Moon said. “By seeing you, paying attention to you.”
“Exactly. We’d have these long conversations in his office and… yeah. No one had ever listened to me like that before. It felt… intimate? And then he started telling me things about his life too. Including, at some point, issues he was having with his wife.”
Moon snapped her fingers at Sol. “Where would you like John to stand?”
I felt startled. How had Moon known to ask Sol? After all, I could’ve named Jonah or Ramit or even one of the women. But somehow she knew Sol was the right one.
“Thea?” Moon sounded impatient, as if we were on a deadline.
“Um, right there is fine.” I pointed to the other side of the impromptu stage.
“Good. And where would you like to stand?”
“We can stay here, I guess.”
Moon broke away from me and went to stand behind Grace, touching the two orange braids overlapping on her crown. “Who is she?”
“What do you mean?” Now I felt thrown off.
Ignoring my question, Moon asked: “Gracie, where would you like to stand?”
“By him?” Grace indicated Sol. A flicker of excitement shone in her eyes as she joined him.
Moon turned back to me, hands on hips. “Who is she?” she repeated.
“Jamie.” As soon as I said her name, a heavy feeling settled in my gut. “Pastor John’s wife.”
“Good.” Moon went to stand behind Jonah. “And he’s the bully, yes?”
A shudder went through my body. Just a second ago I’d been in control. But now, I’d stepped into an empty elevator shaft and was in free fall.
Because Jonah looked like Adam. Somehow, I hadn’t noticed it before. The same glossy, curly hair, the same dark, watchful eyes. The same cruel curve of his lips.
Grace didn’t look like Jamie, who’d been—and still was—blond and voluptuous. Grace, with her candy-corn hair and guileless eyes, would be my anchor to reality.
“Who is he?” Moon insisted.
“Adam,” I said faintly.
“Adam.” Moon turned to Jonah. “Where should you go?”
“Maybe here?” Jonah took a step towards me.
“No!” I cried involuntarily. “Don’t come near me.” My chest squeezed with fear, like it really was Adam.
“Good.” Moon touched my arm. “Where would you like him to go?”
“Over there.” I pointed to the far end of the pavilion. “The others too.”
At a nod from Moon, the three of them backed away.
“Thea.” Moon pulled me in and down so that our foreheads were nearly touching. “We’re going to enter the memory. Where are you? What’s going on?”
I stared at Sol and Grace, standing side by side. They were holding hands. The image brought tears to my eyes.
“It was an accident,” I said softly.
Trees grew in the space around us, stretching high above. It was a clear night, stars glinting overhead. I’d run away from the group, from the campfire, where Adam had taunted me in front of everyone. Where Mrs. Iona, our teacher, had as usual pretended not to hear.
Melissa, by this time 80 percent into Ashley’s group, had also heard. She hadn’t laughed like Ashley and the other girls. But she’d still smiled mechanically, staring at the ground.
I took off, jogging into the darkness. I felt a desperate need to find Pastor John, the one person in my life who actually gave a shit about me. I couldn’t tell him that the taunts were about me and him together, but just seeing him, just seeing him see me , would ease this horrible twisting feeling in my gut.
He and Jamie were staying in the main building, like all the adults, while we students were in cabins scattered around the campground. This was the end-of-eighth-grade graduation trip that everyone talked about since the start of junior high.
I burst through the front door and looked for #4.
Wasn’t that interesting, that he’d given me his room number? Told me to come find him if I needed him?
Of course I hadn’t planned to actually take him up on this offer. But Melissa spurning me at the campfire had broken the fragile arch holding everything up.
I did need him.
I raced through the hall, past the cheap faux-wooden siding and crookedly hung deer antlers and pulled at the door of #4, forgetting in my desperation to knock…
This was the part that burned to recall, that lived behind a wall in the back of my mind.
Why hadn’t they locked the door? If so, it never would’ve happened. But they’d forgotten. Or maybe they liked the risk. Whatever the case, what I’d seen had momentarily baffled me. They were on the floor, and the view of their naked bodies was like the late-night channel I’d come across while babysitting at a neighbor’s house.
They turned to me. Jamie’s nipples were pinker and larger than the woman I’d seen on TV. She shrieked, trying to pull the edge of the rug over her. He’d pulled back from her—out of her—and I stared at his erect penis, which he quickly covered with one hand.
I was momentarily stunned: Hadn’t he just told me they weren’t having sex? How was I seeing what I was seeing?
He was shouting something, and finally I tuned in.
“SHUT THE DOOR!”
I closed it.
My chest, my stomach, everything was churning, and I could barely get a breath. I just stood there for a moment, immobile. And then I heard it: a laugh.
Jamie was laughing .
Woodenly, I turned and walked down the hallway. Out the front door.
“Hey.” Someone was walking up out of the darkness with a flashlight.
It was Adam.
“What?” I managed to say.
He pointed the beam at me, and I threw my hands in front of my eyes. “Damn, Thea. Did you tell on me? Did you run to your boyfriend and tell him what an evil sack of shit I am?”
“No.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.” He paused. “I was just kidding, you know.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You really can’t take a joke, can you?”
“Guess not.” The inner storm was calming. The hurricane energy froze into numbness.
I kept seeing the look in Pastor John’s eyes. The horror, the anger, the undeniable implication: Get the fuck out of here . Jamie’s laugh. She wouldn’t be laughing if she knew what he’d told me about her, in addition to the lack of sex: that she was controlling. Nagging. Constantly complaining. I’d actually felt bad for him, this kind, loving, and patient man, having to contend with a wife like that.
But all of that was over now. He’d never be able to look me in the eyes again. I knew that, as sure as if he’d warned me. The long conversations, the secret smiles. Gone like they’d never happened at all.
I turned and walked towards the lake.
“Where are you going?” To my faint surprise, Adam followed.
“I don’t know.” I stumbled over a branch.
“Here.” Adam shone the light in front of both of us. “You know, I can’t figure you out, Thea. I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
“Why do you care?” I was strangely grateful for this conversation. If it weren’t happening, if I were here alone, I’d peel off the face of the earth and float off into space.
“I don’t.” He scoffed.
We approached the dock. The waves lapped below us, a soothing sound. I sat at the end, wrapping my arms around my knees. The sliver of moon reflected in the black surface of the water.
Adam clicked off the flashlight as he settled beside me. “You’re shaking. Are you cold?” Without waiting for an answer, he put an arm around me. It felt warm, solid. I wanted to cry, but all I felt was a deep, black nothingness.
This void had always been there. When I was on the bus, or sitting in class, or trying to finish my math homework at the kitchen table. It had even been there when things were better with Melissa, peeking out after she’d fallen asleep and I was still awake in my sleeping bag.
I’d never had such direct access to it, though. Now, it vibrated, a gaping hole in my chest.
“You know, I joke about you and Pastor John and everything,” Adam said quietly. “But I see the way he looks at you. It’s not, like, normal.”
“Hmm.”
“Whenever he comes in the classroom he always looks for you first. He finds you and his eyes light up.”
It was nice, I guessed, for someone else to validate it. To know I wasn’t just making everything up. On some level I’d known, but it had also felt confounding. How was I to understand what attraction looked like?
“One time he was talking to you and I think he even got a little bit of a boner. I think he thinks you’re hot.” Adam’s hand moved to the back of my scalp, massaging. I tensed and then relaxed. It actually felt good. How could it feel good coming from someone I hated?
“You are kind of hot.” His hand tangled in my hair, he turned my head towards him and kissed me. I kissed him back. My first kiss. Huh. His tongue snaked into my mouth, but it was gentle, with more finesse than I would’ve expected. His breath was faintly minty. He shifted and pulled me closer. The kiss felt nice, distracting. Then he pulled me down onto the dock, pressing his body to mine. The hardness of his erection poked into my thigh.
Suddenly, I was flooded with desire. It filled the void, pulsing and urgent. I kissed him harder, pushing myself into him.
“Whoa.” He pulled back. “You really want it, don’t you?”
I didn’t know what I wanted. But when Adam stood up and held out his hand, I took it.
“Come on.” He led us confidently to the shed by the dock. To the floor, where he set down a musty, crumbling blanket. He was fourteen, but he must’ve been having sex for a while. He knew exactly what to do, how to set me up, where to touch me, how to get me to touch myself. And I couldn’t have been the first girl he’d said those kinds of things to:
You’re so fucking ugly.
You’re such a slut.
Say you’re my bitch.
Pretend I’m him. Say it.
It was all over quickly. I sat on the blanket for a long time after he left. It was all so much: my first kiss, my first make-out, my first fuck. And all interlaced with Pastor John’s eyes, so appalled, so alien. Shut the door!
Eventually, I’d gotten up, noting the pain between my legs. Adam had left me the flashlight—a kind act, or maybe he’d just forgotten it. I used it to examine the swipe of blood on my thighs. I got dressed. Folded up the gross blanket. Left the shed. Went directly to the shower building, where I scalded my skin and got back in my clothes.
They were singing campfire songs. Those fucking idiots.
I went back to my cabin, to my bunk, which was directly over Melissa’s. Still wet, I got into the damp sheets, pulling them up to my chin. I felt wide awake, but within seconds, I fell blessedly asleep.