Chapter 5 #2
I was choking on sobs now. I hadn’t cried for months until last night, and now I couldn’t seem to stop.
I brushed the tears away and forced out what I knew was the truth.
“It does change things. I told you the truth that night on the phone when I said you were like a glimmer of light to me that night. You changed things for me. I’m not sure I would have even come out of that house alive if you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t done what you did—that night and for the eight months before it. You changed things for me.”
He made a rough sound and pulled me into his arms, and I cried against him for a minute. I don’t think the embrace was just to comfort me. I think he needed it too.
I pulled away when I’d mostly composed myself. “I’ve never blamed you, Gideon. You know that, right?”
He nodded. “I know. But that’s because your heart is… so sweet.”
I didn’t think my heart was sweet. Not anymore, if it had ever been. But I didn’t object to his words because I liked how they sounded. I sniffed and said, “No. It’s because I know what happened. Because I know who you really are.”
He gazed at me, his eyes deep with naked emotion I couldn’t fully identify. Then he finally said, “Thank you.”
I nodded and sniffed and wiped my eyes. “Thank you—for telling me that, I mean.”
He nodded, his expression changing. Like he was waiting for something.
I suddenly knew what it was.
I was the one who had told him—who had thrown the words out to him like a challenge—that if he ever opened up to me himself, then I would open up to him.
Just a week ago I’d said it. Being absolutely certain it would never happen.
But he had, after all. Which meant it was my turn now.
I was tempted briefly to tell him that it wasn’t fair, that he was manipulating me by twisting it around like this. But he didn’t deserve that. He was being good to me now, just like he always had.
I wanted to be good to him too.
“I’ve been doing that a lot. On the elliptical trainer, I mean.” I stared down at my empty coffee cup, feeling exposed and so young.
His voice was incredibly mild, as if he didn’t want to spook me. “For how long?”
“Since I moved out here.”
“How often?”
“Every day. For hours and hours.”
I heard him take a jerky breath. “Can you tell me why?”
“I don’t know. Not completely. I think it just hurt so much that it clouded all the other stuff. It was almost satisfying. Like I wanted my body to hurt.”
He reached out and took my hand, gently rubbing the palm with his thumb.
It felt unexpectedly good, which immediately made me want to jerk my hand out of his. I forced myself not to though. He wanted to help me, and I wasn’t going to rebuff even that small attempt.
He didn’t say anything, so I just went on.
“I knew what I was doing. I knew it wasn’t good.
I knew I had to hide it from you. From everyone.
But I couldn’t seem to stop. I would feel the demons start to come, and I’m not always strong enough to hold them back.
So, when I couldn’t hold them back, I would do that instead. ”
“Do you think…” He trailed off, his thumb still stroking my palm.
The little touch kept sending pulses of pleasant sensation up my arm, all through my body. It was so disturbing that I panted a little.
Gideon began again, “Do you want to stop doing it?”
I nodded. “I do. I just don’t know if I can. I have to do something with the demons when they come.”
He seemed to understand what I meant, despite the metaphorical language. “Maybe… I don’t know much about this, so I might be all wrong. But maybe the demons wouldn’t be so strong and overwhelming if you didn’t try to force them back so much.” His little caress had moved up to my wrist.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Just maybe if you didn’t try to hide from them so much, they wouldn’t be so hard to manage.”
I felt a surge of defensive anger but didn’t let myself indulge it. So my tone wasn’t sharp when I said, “It’s not that easy.”
He closed his eyes. “I know it’s not easy. I’m sorry.”
I made myself consider what he’d said. “I can see what you mean. And it’s kind of like what Dr. Jones and the other counselors told me too.
But I don’t know how I cannot try to push them back, to hide from…
all of it. I can’t stand to even think about it.
I don’t want to remember. I want to just forget. ”
“I know. I can’t stand to remember that night either, and I didn’t go through nearly what you did. I just don’t know what you should do.”
Strangely, it made me feel better. That he didn’t have an easy answer, a thing to be done that was supposed to make me better. That he was just as lost in this as I was.
“But I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself,” he said, his thumb stroking up the inside of my forearm, lighter than the massage he’d given me the week before. “I know that can’t be right.”
“I know it’s not right.” I finally had to pull my hand away since the sensations his little touch was generating were too distracting, too troubling. “But I can’t seem to always do the right thing.”
* * *
To my surprise, I started to do a little better. The demons still came, but I managed not to kill myself on the elliptical every time they did. Sometimes the only thing stopping me was how worried and disappointed Gideon would be if he found out, but that was a better reason than nothing.
I went back to Dr. Jones too, increasing the frequency to twice a week, and that probably helped too.
I started to call Gideon more often. Before, he’d almost always called me.
But now I called him sometimes myself when I started feeling desperate at night.
It wasn’t like he always knew what to say.
Sometimes he said things so clueless that I had to snap at him.
But I would often feel a little more capable of facing the night after I’d talked to him.
I even started seeing my old friends. I’d talked to them on the phone periodically for the past few months but kept telling them I needed space. But I had a couple of them over for dinner, and I had lunch with one or the other of them sometimes too.
And then, one evening about a month after Gideon had found me on the elliptical, I agreed to go out for a girls’ night with several of my friends.
It was the first time I’d been for an evening out since I was kidnapped more than five months ago.
It started okay. We went to a restaurant near my old apartment—one we used to go to a lot. We got a good table in the bar area, and we ordered frozen drinks.
It was loud and crowded and rather chaotic, and there were a lot of men hanging around, drinking beer. But it was a Thursday night, and it wasn’t unusual. I focused on my friends, who were all excited and happy that I’d joined them again. Everyone was in a celebratory mood.
I had a decent time for about an hour, but then I started to get jittery and anxious. There were so many people, and my head was spinning a little even though I’d just had two drinks. And there were men behind me. I could hear their voices. I kept turning around to make sure they weren’t too close.
They never were. But I got more and more nervous just the same, and I tried desperately not to flash to memories of that other night, when men had been behind me in a different way.
One or another of my friends occasionally asked me if I was all right, and I always smiled and said I was. But it was getting harder and harder to hide my responses.
I finally got up and went to the bathroom, having to convince one of my friends not to come with me.
I stood over the sink and tried to breathe.
I’d made an effort with my appearance tonight, which wasn’t something I often did anymore. I’d dried my hair straight and shiny, I’d put on makeup, and I was wearing a cute top with a dark pair of jeans. I thought I looked almost pretty. And unfamiliar.
I was telling myself I was fine and that I wasn’t going to blow the whole evening by being stupid, when my phone chirped with a text.
It was Gideon. How’s it going?
Okay.
Really?
Fine. Getting a little nervous with so many people. It’s hard with men behind me. But fine.
Tell them you want to go somewhere else.
I’m fine.
Don’t force yourself to suffer through it. It will just make it harder to do it again.
I’m fine. What are you doing?
Just leaving work. Where are you?
Marley’s.
Try to have a good time and leave if you need to.
I’m fine.
I actually felt a little better after the texted interaction with Gideon. He’d worked late tonight. It was almost nine o’clock.
It bothered me unduly that he’d been at work so late into the evening when he’d gone in early that morning, and I was distracted by those thoughts as I headed back to our table.
I wasn’t as nervous for the next twenty minutes although I did have to keep glancing over my shoulder occasionally to make sure there weren’t any strange men too close behind me.
I happened to be looking at another table of women when I noticed a couple of them focused on the entrance to the bar area. I recognized the expression on their faces—an easy expression to recognize—so I turned to see what man had just entered who had captured their attention.
The man was Gideon.
I had no idea what he thought he was doing here, but he’d spotted me and was heading my way. For some reason, out of the normal context in which I saw him, he seemed somehow more handsome and compelling than usual.
He wore a suit, and his tie was pulled loose, and he looked tall and lean and confident and worldly. Women were looking at him. Obviously, women would be interested in him.
I really didn’t know why, but he seemed different. Not the man I knew so well, the one who came over every Friday evening and tried so hard to help me recover.
I was disoriented and a little upset by the realization, so my greeting was scattered when he said hello and introduced himself to my friends.