Chapter 7
Gideon came back over to my place first thing the following morning.
It was early for a Saturday, but I’d been awake all night and was relieved to get moving on the conversation when he texted at seven to see if I was up yet. Maybe he wanted to get it over with too. Either way, a couple of hours later, he was sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee in his hand.
My head ached, and my eyes burned from brooding all night, and three cups of coffee that morning had done nothing to clear my head.
I didn’t know how to begin, so I just watched Gideon take a sip. His eyes were searching my face in the way they used to all the time, but they hadn’t done as much for the past several weeks. Wary. Like he was probing for signs of a mental collapse.
Finally I said, “You’re the one who wanted to have this conversation.”
He let out a breath and put down his mug. “I think we need to have this conversation.”
“So start.”
I know I sounded rude, but I felt like I was already on the verge of tears. The thing is, I already knew my final word on this topic. I’d figured it all out last night. I wanted to just burst out with it and get the whole thing over with, but that wouldn’t be fair to Gideon.
He needed to say what he wanted to say too—even if I didn’t want to hear it—and then we could get to the conclusion I already knew.
He cleared his throat. He must have spent time last night thinking through how he was going to approach this too because he clearly had a careful strategy planned.
I could sense it just from the precision of his words.
“I know you’re scared by what happened last night, but I don’t think we should let fear make decisions for us. ”
I looked down at my hands. “Sometimes it has to.”
“Temporarily maybe. But not forever.”
“I haven’t changed my mind about what I told you last night. I can never be with you that way. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“Don’t you? It’s been coming for a while.”
“What?” My head jerked up, feeling a wave of betrayal, like he’d turned into an entirely different person. “What do you mean? So all this time, you’ve been… you’ve been plotting about how to get me in bed?”
His face tightened, like he was offended or angry. Or maybe just impatient with me. “No. You know better than that. Everything about our relationship has been real. From the very beginning.”
“But you said—”
“I said it’s been coming for a while. That’s what’s been happening to our relationship. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time, but this thing isn’t one-sided. Last night, you wanted to kiss me too.”
My skin had felt cold and pale all morning, but now my cheeks burned with a flush. I ducked my head again. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it means something. If we both want to be together that way, then why the hell shouldn’t we be?”
“Because I don’t want to be together that way. I can’t be together with you that way. With anyone. It snuck up on me last night, but it was just a physical reaction. There’s more of me than that. And none of the rest of me wants it.”
My voice rose as I spoke, but it was out of an urgency to get my point across and not out of any desire to hurt.
I could see the words hurt him though. I could see it in his face for just a moment before he controlled his expression and took on again the calm, reasonable demeanor he’d worn all morning. “I don’t believe you,” he said very slowly.
My throat ached so much I could barely swallow. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, looking down at my hands again. “I’m so sorry. But it’s true.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said again, this time sounding more confident. “I believe you think it’s true, but I don’t believe it’s actually true. It’s the fear that’s making you think that’s the way it is.”
“Of course I’m afraid. I have every reason to be afraid. This thing could destroy our entire relationship.”
“It’s not going to destroy—”
“It could! You don’t seem to hear what I’m saying. It’s nothing personal about you. You’re the best guy in the world, but I can’t be with anyone like that. That part of my life is completely over.”
“But that’s—” He obviously rethought his initial exclamation, which would probably be to call it stupid or ridiculous. Instead, he said, “That makes no sense at all. You’re saying there’s no possibility of healing for you, but we’ve already seen that you can heal, you are healing.”
My eyes burned, so I closed them for a minute.
The tears I’d felt earlier were completely gone now, dried up into a barren desperation.
“Yes, I can heal in some ways. But I can’t transform into a person who didn’t have this happen to her.
Just the thought of sex…” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Gideon. I can’t do it.”
“I’m not expecting us to jump into bed. We were just kissing last night, and it wasn’t going to go any further than that.”
“But that’s where kissing leads. That’s where it would ultimately lead. And I just can’t do it.”
He let out a hoarse sigh and leaned back in the couch. “Okay. Okay. If you’re so convinced that’s your final answer, can you at least explain to me why? Why you’ll never be able to heal enough to allow sex back into your life.”
I’d known he’d ask that question. I’d tried to think of a clear, honest response to it all night, and I still had no good answer for him. “I don’t think I can.”
His expression was still carefully controlled, but his eyes were so aching I could barely look at them. “This is the thing that’s taking away what… that’s taking away something very important to me, and you’re not even going to tell me what it is? You don’t think I deserve to know why?”
“Of course you deserve to know why!” The words burst out loudly. “Of course you deserve to know. You deserve—” I broke off what had almost come out, hugging my arms tightly to my stomach, trying to hold in more emotion than I could possibly contain.
“I deserve what?” he asked very softly.
I shook my head. “You do deserve to know. I’m just not sure I can put it into words.”
“Can you try?”
I took a few shuddering breaths, watching my hands twist in my lap, and I remembered how much Gideon had done for me, how completely he’d been there for me over the past several months, how little he’d ever asked in return.
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to even begin to shape the mass of pain inside me into words. I was absolutely sure they would rip me apart.
But I had to do it anyway. For Gideon.
“You know how you feel when something bad happens? When you humiliate yourself in front of people you want to impress or when you have a bad breakup? Every time you think about it afterward, it kind of shudders through you. Not just the memory, but all the feelings it conjures up.”
I wasn’t looking at his face, but I could tell he was listening carefully. “Yes.”
“You move on afterward and think about it less and less. You make yourself push the thought away when it crosses your mind at first, because you don’t want to feel it all again, and then eventually the memory isn’t really dangerous to you.
If you just humiliated yourself, it doesn’t take long.
You might even laugh about it eventually.
If you had a bad breakup, you might eventually be able to see that it was for the best. Even if not, it gets to the point where it doesn’t make you rage or cry. ”
“Yes. I know what you mean.” I could tell he was trying to figure out where I was going with the circular explanation.
“Just imagine that what happened is so much worse than either of those two things and it doesn’t go away.
It doesn’t go away. It’s always there in your mind, ready to rise up at the slightest provocation.
And every time it appears, you don’t just remember.
You feel it all again. It all happens to you again.
Even in your sleep, it keeps happening to you. ”
He reached over to cover my hands with one of his, and I had to fight not to pull my hands away. “I understand that, Diana. I really do. But I thought…”
When he trailed off, I looked over at him questioningly.
“I thought, slowly, you were starting not to feel it all the time. Was I… was I wrong?” His expression was different, not controlled, like he was torn up by the idea that I wasn’t getting better like he’d believed.
“I can go longer now without feeling it. It is getting better. But every time I think about sex, every time the word is mentioned or I see a couple making out or the vague idea of it flashes through my mind, then I’m back there in that house. I’m back there.”
Gideon raised a hand to cover his mouth, rubbing his jaw as he gazed at me.
“Do you understand? Do you see why I just can’t ever have that part of my life again?”
He leaned forward. “I see why you think so. I see why you’re so scared. But don’t you think that you can get to the same kind of healing with that part of your life too? It will take longer, but look at how far you’ve come already.”
“I don’t think so. I can’t even begin. There’s no way I’m ever going to work through it. I just can’t have anything about sex in my life because it will throw me back there with those… those…”
“What happened to you wasn’t sex, Diana.” He reached over and cupped my face, holding it like he treasured it although I couldn’t possibly understand why. “It wasn’t sex. The way we would be together wouldn’t be anything at all like what happened to you.”
I swallowed hard. “I know it wasn’t sex. I know you wouldn’t be anything like them. But it was still my body, being used that way. And I’m telling you the truth, Gideon. I just can’t.”
There was a long stretch of silence, and I thought he’d finally heard me. Heard that this was my answer, and I wasn’t going to be talked out of it. Maybe it was my imagination, but I sensed something get crushed in his face, in his posture.
It broke my heart, but I couldn’t stop it.