Nerve #3
“I think,” Lucy said, less confident than she usually seemed. “I think you should try to find one. A relationship that has nothing to do with the rape. A new friend, a mentor. Someone.”
“Okay,” I said. Blankly, because I was barely entertaining the idea. I wasn’t sure how to make a friend. I wasn’t sure how to exist outside the people who were connected to the worst thing that ever happened to me.
“See you next time, Seren,” Lucy told me, and a few seconds later the screen went dark.
I sat in my bed for a moment, in that strange feeling of after. All the things we spoke about rushed through my mind. Zane, my dad, the hummingbird picture, Alex. There were so many things I did not know how to put them all away.
I shut my laptop with a soft snap, the sudden lack of glowing light plunging the bedroom back into the soft twilight of early evening. I sat there with my legs pulled up against my chest, the silence of the room rushing in to replace Lucy’s voice.
It always felt a little like decompression sickness, moving from the absolute exposure of therapy back into the regular grid of my life. My mind felt crowded. Too many ghosts, too many loose threads, all of them fighting for space under my skin.
The door handle clicked, turning slowly, and the door swung open.
Zane stood in the frame. He had shifted out of the heavy dark jacket he had worn on campus, now just in a plain gray t-shirt that showed the broad, solid line of his shoulders.
He didn’t say anything at first. He just looked at me, taking in the way I was huddled on the mattress, reading the room with that terrifying accuracy he had always possessed.
He closed the door behind him, the latch clicking into place.
He walked over to the bed, the floorboards giving their familiar, low creak beneath his boots.
He didn’t ask how it went. He didn’t do that careful routine people do when they think you’re made of glass.
One wrong shift and your existence shatters beyond repair and there is a mess of broken glass for everyone left behind.
He just climbed onto the bed, his legs shifting under the quilt as he sat back against the headboard, right next to me.
He smelled like the cool air from outside and the faint, clean scent of the soap he used.
He reached out, his large hand sliding under my knees, gently tugging my legs down until they uncurled, stretching out flat against the mattress.
“Come here,” he murmured, his voice low in the quiet room.
I slid over, letting my head rest against the center of his chest. His heart was beating beneath my cheek, a slow, rhythmic thud that felt like a pill for my messy brain.
His arm came around me, his hand settling flat against my lower back, his fingers warm through my shirt.
He didn’t squeeze or hold me so tight I couldn’t move; he just existed around me.
“You’re vibrating,” he said, his chest moving against my face as he spoke. “Whatever it is, let it sit for a minute.”
“It’s just a lot of noise,” I whispered, my hand resting against his ribs.
“I know,” he said, his chin resting lightly against the top of my head. “So let it go, toss it all on the floor. I’ll watch it.”
I let out a long, ragged breath, my shoulders dropping an inch as the tension finally started to bleed out of me.
I did not tell him about Alex. I did not tell him about the terrifying thought that I was only visible when I was breaking.
I just reached over to the nightstand, my fingers finding my phone, and unlocked the screen.
I held it up so he could see it. The grainy, sun-bleached picture of the hummingbird hovered in the dark between us.
Zane took the phone from my hand, his thumb brushing against mine as he pulled the screen closer to his face. He stared at it for a long moment, his eyes taking in the blurred wings, the feeder, the complete silence of the message thread.
“Your dad?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I murmured. “Just the picture. Nothing else. Lucy said I shouldn’t try to decode it. She said I should just let him reach.”
Zane set the phone down on the mattress, face down, the sudden dark returning to the room. He shifted slightly, pulling me closer until I was tucked entirely into his side, my face hidden in the curve of his neck.
“Lucy’s right,” Zane said, his fingers tracing a slow, absent line up and down my arm. “He’s not a guy who has a lot of words.”
“I was going to text him back,” I admitted, my voice muffled against his skin. “But I don’t know what to say. It feels like if I say the wrong thing, the bridge breaks.”
“It’s not that fragile,” Zane said, his grip on my shoulder tightening. “And you don’t have to fix it tonight. You’re exhausted from talking to a screen for an hour. Figure it out tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes, his warmth rising to meet the chill that always lingered in my bones after therapy. Tomorrow.
I could do it tomorrow. There was no rush. Tom was on his porch, the birds were at the feeder, and the text wasn’t going anywhere. I had time.