Twenty-Two
Gillian awoke slowly, brain still foggy, limbs heavy and her chest weighed down.
It took a while to realize the pressure wasn’t metaphorical or existential as she’d grown used to, but rather the press of a person.
Taking a deep, slow breath, she registered the scent of Daphne, and her senses stirred fully.
Every synapse fired to life as awareness, or at least something close to it, overtook her.
She had no concrete memory of getting into bed, but she knew she didn’t want to move.
Daphne had wrapped around her, her head resting on her shoulder and one hand lightly at the center of Gillian’s chest. Her warmth seeped into Gillian’s skin, surrounding her like a protective force field, infusing her with peace and comfort.
It was a strange feeling. She wasn’t one to lie around, even in the wee hours of the morning.
If she was awake, she was ready to go, to move forward, to face the next thing.
Anticipatory thinking was her constant companion any moment her eyes were open, but she wanted nothing more than to sink into this total tranquility.
A memory rushed back, or rather, several of them, Daphne talking about the benefits of cuddle therapy to the brain, to the body, to the nervous system, and a new emotion threatened to shatter her.
Shame.
It wasn’t nearly as unfamiliar as the soothing sensation, but at least she’d had enough practice with recognizing its onset and pushing it back into place with open honesty.
She’d been wrong. It happened from time to time, seemingly more lately, but she could admit when she’d missed the mark, and clearly, she’d missed several of them with Daphne, going back decades.
This one may’ve stung more if she weren’t currently reaping the benefits of eating her words. Allowing this woman to cuddle her felt good enough to mostly override her embarrassment for turning up her nose at how amazing it would feel to accept such a gift.
Everyone deserved to feel this safe and warm and cozy.
The world would undoubtedly be a better place if everyone experienced this kind of comfort on a regular basis.
The logical side of her remained present enough to suggest none of this would offer the same kind of ease and complete relaxation without the other things she experienced in Daphne’s arms, but she would no longer deny a similar sense of closeness to anyone any more than she wanted to deny herself in this moment … or any moment going forward.
“Why did you tense up?” Daphne whispered in the darkness.
Gillian rested her chin atop her head. “You felt that?”
“I feel everything.”
The sentiment caused another surge of emotion to clog her throat, so she could barely manage to say, “I’m sorry.”
Daphne lifted her head. “For what? For tonight?”
“No.” She hugged her tighter. “Not for anything tonight or the things that got us to this point, but for the attitudes that held me back for so long. I’m sorry I couldn’t accept your work.
I’m sorry I didn’t bring forth the right attitude or curiosity.
I’m sorry I was scared and let my fear make me judgmental. ”
“Wow,” Daphne whispered.
“What you do is beyond me, but you’re clearly good at it.
Who am I to tell anyone else they don’t deserve to be held in whatever ways make them feel safe and calm?
You’re obviously good at helping facilitate that for so many people, or you wouldn’t have a job.
” Gillian paused, then corrected herself.
“A career. You’re a professional who cares as deeply as I do, and who holds the same ethics and professionalism I do, but you don’t get half the respect.
I hate that I didn’t give you your due.”
“Thank you.” Daphne sighed. “I’ve waited a long time to hear you say that.”
“And?” She kissed her forehead. “How’s it feel?”
“Kind of awful.”
Gillian pulled back. “What?”
“I want it to be true, but it’s not. And not because cuddle therapy isn’t a valid form of intervention.
It is, and it deserves better. It deserves the kind of person you are, but I’m not the same as you, Gillian.
I think a part of me wants to be, which is why I spent so much time around you, posturing and arguing and trying to convince you I was, in order to try to convince myself. ”
“I don’t understand.”
“Good,” Daphne said, then shook her head and sat up, pulling the covers with her. “I made a mistake.”
“Okay.” Gillian sat up, too. She could faintly make out Daphne’s features in the dim light of a streetlamp outside the window, but tension radiated from the forward pitch of her shoulders. “I’m listening.”
“I let a client get too close.” Daphne wrapped her arms around her knees. “She wasn’t a client at the time, but she had been. That’s how we met. She’d been through a breakup where a partner had said some horrible things about her body, her weight, how she was aging.”
“Sounds like a real charmer. Can’t imagine why their relationship didn’t work.”
“Yeah.” Daphne didn’t laugh. “We met for several months of sessions, then when she felt secure enough to start dating again, we went our separate ways.”
“Okay,” Gillian said evenly.
“Six months later, she bumped into me again. It seemed random, though I know now it probably wasn’t.
” Daphne shivered. “We were in the same coffeehouse. We ordered the same drinks. It took forever for them to come out, and we sat talking. Then when our orders arrived, we sort of kept talking. It felt natural. We had a lot in common, or she made it feel that way. And it wasn’t just the one time.
We started bumping into each other a lot. ”
“Uh-oh.” Gillian’s stomach clenched. “She cultivated a sense of casual familiarity.”
“Boy, you got there fast.” Daphne sighed.
“I did not. About a month later when she mentioned she and a group of friends were going to a show I’d mentioned really wanting to see, I didn’t see the harm in joining.
We’d be in a group, in public, just like all these other times we’d bumped into each other. ”
“Except it was different,” Gillian supplied.
“So different. She held doors and pulled out chairs, and the ‘group’ turned out to be just two friends who were a couple and treated us like a couple. Then at the end of the night, she kissed me, and this is where I’d love to say I pumped the brakes, but I didn’t.
Fuck, Gillian. I didn’t, not right away.
I’d had a good time, and it was a decent kiss, and it had been so long I sort of stumbled and said, ‘good night’ and let myself enjoy it for a bit.
I even tried to convince myself I hadn’t broken any rules, because my field doesn’t have the same kind of rules you have.
But then she called me the next morning to say she was outside my house with donuts. ”
“Your house?” Gillian asked, aghast, then caught herself. “Sorry. She found your home?”
“My office was at my home.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“I know. It seems self-evident that in a job requiring hard and firm boundaries, perhaps bringing clients into your home isn’t a great start, but I wasn’t working full time.
I was still building a business, only a few appointments a week, so we set up a space in my apartment in Syracuse.
It felt separate enough right up until the moment it didn’t.
And when I told her I was uncomfortable, she …
I don’t know the clinical term, but she lost her ever-loving shit. ”
“Daphne,” Gillian said softly, “are you okay?”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what.”
“Don’t use your therapist voice on me. I made my bed quite literally, and I paid the price.
She wouldn’t leave. Izzy heard her and came out.
Then I lost my shit, because there was my daughter, and this woman was saying she was my girlfriend, and I led her on.
She said I owed her an explanation, and I tried to give her one, but she was beyond reason, and it didn’t stop there.
She kept coming by. We’d come home to find her in the driveway.
She’d say she just wanted to talk, but then she’d snap again.
Soon Izzy got scared of all white cars, because that’s what she drove.
Hugh installed security cameras. She called my cell phone constantly at all hours of the night.
Eventually, I had to go through the grueling process of getting a restraining order. ”
Gillian’s muscles were in knots, but she fought to keep her voice even. “That’s horrendous.”
“I felt guilty because I’d never suspected anything of this magnitude from her.
I’d held her in my arms and soothed her and affirmed her, and I’d never seen a single red flag.
No vibe check until hindsight, and I know you’re probably having a field day with that because isn’t that the reason we have boundaries in the first place?
So we don’t need to rely on gut impulse or intuition?
But my field doesn’t have the same kind of guidelines or strict regulation yours does, which absolutely feeds your suspicion that we’re all a bunch of out-of-control hippies who—”
“Hey,” Gillian whispered.
“Don’t you dare be nice to me when you just got confirmation of everything you always wanted to believe about my job and my professionalism and probably my intelligence.”
“You didn’t confirm anything,” Gillian defended. “I don’t feel superior or gratified in any way.”
“What are you feeling then?”
She paused, running a quick scan through her body to make sure she got this right, and met Daphne’s vulnerability measure for measure.
“I feel sorry for making you fear my judgment rather than expecting my compassion. I feel fear at the idea of someone threatening you or your family. Mostly, I feel rage at the person who did this to you.”
“I did this to me.”
“No.” She scooted forward and placed a hand gently on Daphne’s knee. “We are not responsible for someone else’s actions.”
She scoffed. “Boy, you’re good at your job. If I didn’t know you, I might believe you mean that.”
“I do,” she said firmly. “I am good at my job, but I’m not working right now, and I don’t think it takes an advanced degree to know, on a core level, that no woman is ever responsible for abuse, and that’s what you suffered.”
“Yeah, well I—”
“You were getting a business off the ground and working from home because you had to, and you were parenting an amazing kid and trying to have a social life.”
“And I failed on every count.”
“No, someone contrived and schemed to use all your best qualities against you with a great deal of thought and predatory ambition. You were preyed on, Daphne, and that’s not your fault.”
“It wasn’t Izzy’s fault either, but she paid the price.
She saw her, and she saw me flounder and get scared, and it shattered her faith in me, which shattered my faith in myself.
Even after I got the restraining order and it all stopped, we weren’t the same.
That’s why after about eight months Hugh pushed for this move.
It’s why he got me the office, and why Izzy’s at a private school.
I think it might even underlie her decision to take up fencing. ”
“I’m not sure a preteen girl needs any extra motivation to play with swords.” Gillian gave her leg a little squeeze.
“Maybe not,” Daphne admitted, “but I still worry about the effects of it all. I worry I’m a bad mom in ways no amount of movie nights and toboggan rides can make up for.”
“Absolutely not,” Gillian said. “I’ve been watching, captivated by the family you created with grace and creativity and love. And even when I wanted so badly to believe your job was insane, I could always clearly see that you’re a great mom.”
“You mean that? In your clinical opinion?”
“And my personal one, too, if it means anything.” Gillian laughed.
“I’m serious, Daphne. You’re a good parent and good co-parent, a good friend, and a good addition to our waiting room.
You’re also a good kisser with a good sense of humor who’s good at arguing your point even when it’s wild.
You’re good at so many things because you are a fundamentally good person.
No woman should ever have the power to shake that knowledge from you. ”
“But I should have—”
“No.” She cut her off again, this time unfolding Daphne’s arms and taking both her hands in her own.
“No. Any woman willing to break boundaries like that would do it whether you sat at her table in a coffee shop or not, and whether your job had written rules or not. Plenty of therapists have had clients step way out of line, and we have all the rules in the world. If Brooke Metcalf isn’t safe, then no one ever truly is. ”
Daphne cocked her head to the side. “The story about why you lock the door?”
“Yeah.” Bile rose in her throat, but she pushed on.
“And Brooke hadn’t led him on. She hadn’t opened doors or shared coffee.
She’d even seen him coming, eyes wide open.
The woman is a human lie detector, and she still couldn’t stop him from coming in one night and pinning them in the room, intent on not leaving until he hurt someone. ”
“But they made it out.”
“And you did, too,” Gillian said emphatically.
“You’re the one who told me to trust that Brooke and Tegan had survived.
Now look at yourself. You didn’t just start over.
You made something better. From where I stand, you’ve had the most beautiful reset.
You didn’t let a major bump in the road derail you.
You bent the road to your will, and this path suits you.
You’re thriving in the aftermath of upheaval.
So is Izzy. That’s life, that’s humanity, that’s something to be proud of. ”
Daphne leaned forward and kissed her.
“What was that for?”
“For continuing to surprise me.” Daphne scooted closer so they sat side by side. “Thank you for being perfect.”
“I thought my perfection annoyed you.”
Daphne rested her head on her shoulder. “Most of the time it does. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you still shared a story about Brooke in a boundary-busting situation rather than one about yourself.”
“My boundaries are unassailable.”
“There it is.” Daphne sighed. “The rest of us are allowed to be human, but you get to remain above it all.”
Gillian wrapped an arm around her. “You said I was perfect. I merely said my boundaries were. There’s a price to pay for that, and I’ve paid it on many levels.”
“What about this?” Daphne kissed her on the mouth, slowly, deeply. “Looks like the boundaries between us are getting pretty blurry. How will you pay for that?”
Gillian returned the kiss, slowly easing Daphne back onto the bed and crawling over her prone body before admitting, “I don’t know, but I’m certain of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You are worth whatever the cost will be.”