Chapter 40
NOW
Paloma
“I’d like to talk about your relationship to intimacy.”
My eyes don’t move from the torn-up section of the carpet where the roller wheel of Dr. Sutton’s office chair has pulled at the threads over and over. Brow furrowing, I bite down on my lip.
“You mean sex?” I blurt.
“Sure.”
I shrug, playing with the end of my sloppy braid. “It’s not a big deal to me. You can just say sex, it’s whatever.”
Watching her expression carefully, I can’t help feeling like I’m revealing my cards without meaning to.
“What do you mean? Do you enjoy sex?” she asks bluntly.
A flash of ocean-blue eyes, a scratchy voice asking me to look at him. The feeling of hands in my hair. “Sometimes.” I shake my head, attempting to double down. “It’s just . . . it’s not important, really. It’s just sex.”
Not with Bennett. I shut the thought down before it shows across my face.
“Right.” She nods.
“I’ve been having sex since I was fourteen, so it’s not that big of a deal, okay?” I say, feeling the defensiveness rise but unable to quell it. “We don’t even need to talk about it, really.”
Lies. Lies. Lies.
“Did you feel ready for that at fourteen?”
No. I shrug.
“I guess.”
Dr. Sutton nods. “And when you lost your virginity, was it something you wanted? A boy you liked?”
Slowly, I shake my head, dipping my gaze toward my fingernails as I pick at them. “No.”
She doesn’t ask anything else for a moment, and I roll my eyes.
“Sex is fine. I’ve had times where I liked it and times where I didn’t—is that enough?” I blow a breath heartily through my lips. “Can we talk about something else?”
“We can talk about something else,” she says, voice calm. “Does something feel more important than this?”
My irritation with her only ratchets higher.
“You wanna know everything? Fine—when I was fourteen, I lost my virginity to a thirty-eight-year-old man. I had a relationship with him for almost three years. And then—” A ragged exhale.
I close my eyes, trying to center my suddenly swirling thoughts.
“And then, I had a boyfriend. My age. He was the first person who made me feel . . . I don’t know, good? But I fucked that one up, too.
“And since then”—I shrug, half lifting my hands in the air with a smile that feels wrong and twisted along my face—“sex is just sex . . . I don’t enjoy it. It hurts most of the time—I don’t know what you want from me.”
It’s only when she hands me the tissue box that I realize I’ve been crying.
“Let’s take a breath,” Dr. Sutton says, voice soft and calm over the harshness of my hiccupped breathing. I take my time, breaths slow, deep. “Everything is okay. You’re safe here.”
I want to roll my eyes, but I can’t. Because the words are making me feel calm and safe. Slowly, but it’s happening.
“Why do you think you choose to have sex when it hurts or doesn’t feel good?”
My stomach sours. I try to shrug again. “I don’t know.”
Dr. Sutton nods. “Try to think. You know yourself and your body better than anyone else. Think about those moments. Think about the times when it felt good, with your boyfriend. What is the difference for you?”
“It didn’t feel like he was taking anything away from me.”
“Who?”
“Bennett.” His name pours from my lips before I can stop myself. I watch her vigilantly, but she doesn’t write it down, just watches me back—steady in the torrent of my inner turmoil.
“And with others? When you choose to have sex now?”
My eyes feel waterlogged again, and I dip my chin. “It’s . . . I don’t know how to explain it. It feels better in my chest when I do it, even if I hate it. It’s like . . . like I’m getting relief from something.”
“From what, do you think?”
The word comes out before I can stop it. “Guilt.”
My stomach churns.
The truth is that I feel like I’m paying some sort of penance. Like punishing myself feels better than allowing myself to sink into Bennett’s arms—though I indulge in that more often than I should. But saying that out loud feels too raw. I’m just not ready for it yet.
“Paloma,” she says, her voice firmer and more intense than it has been since I got here. “Sex is important, and it’s complicated for you.”
I shake my head.
“I wasn’t attacked. I wasn’t—”
“You were fourteen, Paloma,” she says. Still that same firm voice, but it isn’t harsh or scraping, though the words feel like knives all the same. “He was an adult. You didn’t choose that.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say, shaking my head. “He helped me. We were together. It wasn’t like he forced me. It was fine—even if I didn’t always like it. That’s just how relationships are sometimes.”
“So, when you were with Bennett, did you have sex when you didn’t want to? Did he force you to?”
The words make me flinch, desperate to defend Bennett, to separate the two in my head.
“No, no—he didn’t—”
“Relationships shouldn’t hurt you. Sex should be your choice. It’s your body, Paloma.”
I shake my head. “I know.”
“You didn’t want that, Paloma,” she continues. Her voice is steady. Not soft anymore, but firm and clear. “You were a fourteen-year-old girl. A child. You didn’t choose that. You didn’t have a choice. You need to understand that.”
That little version of me that I keep deep inside peeks around the corners she lurks in, peering up. Even if I can’t trust Dr. Sutton’s words, that part of me wants to, desperately.
“What is intimacy?”
My brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“What is intimacy to you, Paloma?”
There’s still a part of me that wants to roll my eyes and shrug, but this feels too important.
I know my answer. I know what intimacy is to me. I feel it like the waves lapping over my toes across a beach I’ve spent every birthday laying on. Like the rainfall water of a shower I feel safest in.
It’s hands in my hair, soothing, never painful. It’s homemade food and the taste of salt air on my lips. It’s hands on my waist only after asking Is this okay? It’s eye contact with Bennett Reiner across a crowded bar top. It’s him.
Him.