Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Eddie
Instead of calling my therapist, I schedule a session for us—Barret and me. A couple’s therapist, as he asked. I’m following the rules. It’s fucking hard, but no one can say Edgar Reznor doesn’t try. I’m actually doing it.
We take the call in the library room with those tall windows that frame the gray water beyond the cliffs.
The laptop sits on the broad oak desk beside the kettle I carried in because I don’t trust myself without something to pour.
Barret sits cross-legged on the Persian rug, back against the shelves of first editions.
His hair is still damp from a too-quick shower.
My shirt is yesterday’s. We look like people who collapsed exactly where the night left us. We kind of did.
Dr. Park appears on screen in a square of soft light.
“Thanks for meeting us today,” I say.
Barret nods in agreement.
I don’t know any other way to start. We have one rule—this is about us. Not Cleo. We can talk about how she affects the two of us later, but right now it’s about our relationship and whether there’s a future. Though that’s not what we should say to the doctor, should we?
“Where would you like to start?” Dr. Park asks. “It can be as simple as telling me how you’re feeling today—”
“I’m not feeling,” I blurt. “I didn’t sleep shit. Day . . . who the fuck knows. I lost count.”
“Yep, we barely slept,” Barret says. I can’t tell if he’s agreeing or softening my complaint.
“You know what would help me rest?” I blurt. “Sex.”
The room is quiet. I don’t know why I said it. Maybe my body is louder than my head.
Maybe it’s precisely what I meant.
I’m a sexual man and I haven’t had sex since . . . I turn to look at Barret, and the memory breaks in two: four months? The weekend after I told him about Cleo, we fought and then spent the whole weekend together having sex.
He regretted it later and went on a retreat to try to salvage his sobriety, first blaming me and then . . . well, here we are, trying to coexist, save our girl, and not lose what we have because it matters. At least he didn’t give me the finger and disappear. Hooray for small miracles.
“Okay,” Dr. Park says, like I’ve pointed out an object on a table. “Then why don’t we discuss that? Every healthy, loving relationship should include a healthy sexual life. Tell me what sex would look like tonight.”
“There’s no sex,” Barret cuts in, sharp as a truth. “We can’t just jump into bed without fixing us.”
Dr. Park looks at me. “How would you respond, Edgar? What do you think you need?”
“Sleep,” I say. “Regulation. Proof I’m not failing him.” I want to say her too, but right now is all about us.
Barret exhales, a long, thin sound that trembles at the edge of his words. “I guess we’re trying to connect at night,” he says, and it comes out like a question he’s been afraid to ask. “And regulation. And—if I’m being honest—permission. I want to feel chosen, not managed.”
The sentence settles under my ribs and refuses to move.
Sometimes I’ve been more of a manager than a lover in bed.
Years of caretaking slid into choreography: I booked his doctors, timed his calls, told him when to sleep and when to eat, primed the world so his fragility could keep functioning.
I convinced myself direction was love until it felt like we were reciting a script; we’d stopped checking for consent.
He handed me control once, and I took it because he asked. It was trust, not dependence. I never asked whether he still wanted me to hold those reins or whether he wanted to take them back and drive.
What he just named—wanting to be chosen—unspools into sex. He doesn’t want me to use him like a sedative, to shove my panic into his mouth and then call it intimacy. He wants to be wanted in a loud and specific way: someone who strips away my schedules and asks, “Do you want this?” and means it.
“And what scares you about sex right now?” Dr. Park asks.
“That we’ll use it as a sedative,” I say. “That it’ll be a shortcut instead of a bridge. When I was using, sex braided with escape. I don’t want to go back to that.”
Barret watches me. “Sex with him used to mean letting him decide for me—letting him manage me. But withholding to ‘be good’ feels like punishing us for being human.”
“I’ve been withholding because I’m terrified I’ll make it about me,” I admit. “Or use him like a grounding tool instead of loving him. Some stupid part of me still thinks penance will fix things.” I laugh, brittle. “It doesn’t.”
Dr. Park leans forward, patient and precise.
“You’ve both treated abstinence like safety and discovered it becomes deprivation.
Your system is starving for closeness and terrified of it.
That’s not unusual. We’re not choosing between no sex and reckless sex.
We’re designing attuned sex: scheduled windows, named intentions, explicit consent—touch as a language you both speak on purpose. ”
Barret’s fingers find a guitar pick in his pocket and turn it over. “Give us a blueprint,” he says. “We—mostly him—are better with charts.”
“All right,” she says, a smile in her tone.
“First, a check-in script. Before anything sexual, you ask: ‘Is this for connection or numbing?’ Both of you answer out loud. If either one says ‘numbing,’ you pivot to nonsexual regulation—breathing, shower, music, holding—no shame. Second, a traffic-light system. Green means ‘yes and yes’; yellow means ‘slow, verbal, no surprises’; red means ‘hold me, not sex.’ Third . . . have you thought about a safe word?”
“Static,” Barret says.
“Good. Use it. Fourth, differentiate touches. Choose a comfort touch that never slides sexually—say, foreheads or palms. And a sexual bid that always requires a verbal yes—say, a thumb at the waistband. No crossing streams. You’ll build trust by keeping categories clean.”
I feel something unclench. Rules I can follow. “We can do that.”
“Fifth,” she adds, “post-connection repair. Two minutes or so: ‘What felt good? What missed? Anything to do differently next time?’ Repair within twenty-four hours if a miss shows up late. You’re not trying to make a perfect scene, you’re practicing rupture-and-repair like grownups.”
Barret exhales. “If we do sex like that, it stops being a cliff.”
“It becomes a room with a door you both can open and close,” Dr. Park says. “Now, Eddie—name a need without apologizing.”
I stare at the camera and go for the jugular. “I need you to touch me without making me earn it. I need to be chosen on boring days, not just disaster days. And I need permission to ask for sex because I want you, not because I’m melting down.”
Barret’s eyes go soft and fierce at once.
“I can do that. But I need you to name it when you’re white-knuckling.
If you’re asking for sex to self-soothe, say it out loud so we can decide together if we’re up to it.
And I need you to tell me when you’re about to call the pilot and abandon us on this forsaken island before you do it. ”
I blink at him. “Is that what you think? That if I leave, I won’t come back?”
“Not right away,” he says, and it lands with a truth I didn’t want him to know. “You left the band—and fuck, it took you years to come back to me.”
My chest tightens—not from shame, but from all the explanations I kept buried under the name of protection.
“It was for us. Not just for me.” I run a hand down my jaw, forcing the words to come slow and whole.
“I was slipping, too. Into the addiction, into the mess. I couldn’t keep both of us afloat if I was drowning too.
I needed to figure out how to be a man who didn’t break what he touched. And then there was Cleo.”
“What about Cleo?”
“She started showing up to rehearsals. She was barely eighteen.” I close my eyes briefly and drag the air in deep. “We were both starting to look at her. She deserved better than two men who couldn’t stay sober through a fucking Thursday.”
He nods, slower this time. It reads like understanding, but then—
“This is exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t just get to make fucking decisions and call it love. You have to tell me. You don’t get to disappear just because it sounds noble in your head.”“I will.”
“Deal,” I say. “And if the bottle starts whispering, you say it. Even if it ruins the mood.”
Dr. Park folds her hands together. “What agreements already exist between you?”
I rattle them off. “No competitions about caregiving. If one of us hits a nine, the other tags in—no heroics. We don’t turn crisis into a gold star moment. And we picked a reset word: static.”
“Good,” she says. “Add two more. One: Scheduled intimacy windows. Light candles. Close the door. Just the two of you. Not as a reward for good behavior—just because you’re partners.
Start with twice a week, adjust as needed.
Two: a sixty-second hug every day. Full body.
Breathing in sync. It sounds small. It resets the nervous system. ”
She glances off-screen. “Your homework tonight: no sex. One sixty-second hug. Comfort touch only. Name where you are—green, yellow, red. Tomorrow, schedule your first window. Put it on an actual calendar. Let it matter. Let it exist beside all the other things you care about so this—you—doesn’t live on scraps. Questions?”
“Just one,” I say. “What if one of us panics mid-kiss?”
She smiles, warm but not soft. “Stop, breathe. Three full ones. Then decide—shift to comfort touch or stop entirely. Panic isn’t failure. It’s information.”
Barret leans toward the camera. “And if we stumble—”
“You will,” she says gently. “Leave each other notes. Something simple, like: ‘I missed you a minute ago. Can we try again at seven?’ You’d be amazed how much love can live in words that small.”
We say our goodbyes and agree to meet with Dr. Park again next week. Barret stays cross-legged on the rug, knees drawn in, staring at the laptop like it might still be listening. I lower myself onto the floor before him, knees mirroring his. For a long second, nothing.
Then we both say, “Static,” at the same time and laugh, surprised by how easy it feels.
“Green, yellow, red?” I ask.
He thinks. “Yellow. Want, with training wheels.”
“Same,” I say. “Yellow.”
He scoots forward until our shins press together. “Comfort touch,” he murmurs, and leans in, his forehead tipping toward mine.
I meet him halfway. Forehead to forehead. Breathing the same air—not stealing it, just sharing it.
Sixty seconds is longer than you’d think. At thirty, my shoulders start to drop. At forty-five, I feel his pulse syncing with mine where our wrists touch. At sixty, neither of us pulls away.
“Repair?” he asks, his voice quiet.
“We didn’t miss,” I whisper. “But—” I breathe in, slow and full. “Earlier, when I said sex, I didn’t just mean the act. I meant you. I didn’t want release—I wanted you. I still do.”
“I know,” he says. “And I don’t want abstinence to become some righteous performance. I want you, too.”
“Tomorrow,” I say. “We schedule it like grown men who aren’t afraid of how badly we need each other.”
“Tomorrow,” he echoes. “Candle. Closed door. Traffic light on the nightstand.” A grin tugs at his mouth. “No sulking.”
I grin back. “No sulking.”
He sits back on his heels and offers both hands, palms up. I slide mine into his. We stay there, quiet, warm. Simple.
Footsteps pass in the hallway—soft, quick, fading. Neither of us moves. Neither of us startles. We stay where we are, in this square of carpet, in this moment we swore we’d show up for.
“Connection or numbing?” he asks, one last time.
“Connection,” I answer. “Every time we can.”
He nods, a soft resolve blooming behind his eyes. “Then let’s make tea. And do the hug again in an hour.”
“Bossy,” I murmur.
“Partner,” he says.
I rise and reach for him. He comes without hesitation, he pushes up, eyes never leaving mine like he’s already said yes to something bigger than either of us.
I cup his face—not urgently, not out of panic, but like I’ve finally remembered what softness tastes like. My thumb grazes the edge of his jaw, tracing the heat that lives just under his skin. He leans in, exhales once, as if he doesn’t breathe now, he won’t survive what’s coming next.
Then I kiss him.
An intentional, slow, no choreographed kiss. Just the quiet collision of two people who’ve spent too long pretending restraint is love.
His breath catches at the seam of it. Mine stutters. The air shifts. My fingers slide into his damp curls, and he sinks into me like he’s been holding tension in every bone and just found permission to let go.
When I pull back, it’s barely an inch. “I needed that,” he whispers, voice wrecked and raw.
I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling the beat galloping under skin and ribs. “Tomorrow, we want. Tonight, we keep choosing.”
He doesn’t answer with words.
He kisses me again—deeper this time. Slower, like he’s carving the shape of me into memory.
His hands cradle my jaw, thumbs brushing under my ears, holding me like he’s terrified I’ll vanish if he lets go.
I feel his mouth move with more purpose now, tasting, pressing, dragging a low sound out of us.
There’s no urgency to get to anything else—just this, lips and breath and emotion tangled in a rhythm only we know.
His tongue touches mine, and everything inside me answers. Want, yes—but not the wildfire that scorches and vanishes. This want moves deeper, rooted in something earned. It lingers in my chest, curls in my stomach, holds low in my spine like it’s preparing to settle, not burn out.
This is the want that waits at the door and knocks.
The want that stays even when the lights are off and the promises are hard to keep.
We kiss like we’re building something brick by fucking brick. His hands tighten in my hair, and mine find the slope of his back, pressing him closer until there’s no question of where he belongs.
We pull apart, but barely. His forehead rests against mine. His breath is in my mouth, my name is still in his.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “Still here.”
He nods. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
We don’t move, at least not for now.