“I did walk before I had the prosthetic.”
He laughs. “I remember you hobbling around the halls with your one crutch, nearly taking out nurses and aides with your recklessness.”
I felt my cheeks heat slightly. “It was one time. I almost ran into a nurse once.”
“Sit down, Jake. You’re looming.” He gestures toward one of the big leather chairs and I drop into it. “You care for this woman, which is wonderful, but I cannot tell you whether this other therapist is doing right or wrong without knowing more about your friend, without talking to her. It may be that she won’t respond well to aversion therapy at this point. My best advice to you is to listen to her. Be encouraging. Don’t force the issue. Everyone has their own timetable for healing.”
“That’s it?”
He stares at me and I stare back. I’m far better at this than Crist. He’s been out of the army too long. “Distractions are good. She can’t focus on two things at one time. If you distract her, completely, then she won’t be able to focus on her anxieties.”
I can do distractions.
“Thanks, Isaiah.” I stand and hold out my hand.
He rises, takes my hand but delivers a slow, disbelieving laugh. “I don’t think you heard anything I said but the last part.”
“You’d be wrong,” I reply cheerfully. “I heard it all.”
I just planned only to follow the last part. Once back in the car and armed with new information, I shoot off a message to Natalie.
Me: What would you like for dinner tonight? Rice or noodles?
Her: Noodles.
She answered immediately. I let out a long breath that I didn’t even realize I was holding.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
NATALIE
Good, I’ll be there with the food at six.
I’m having a date? Oh crap, I’m having a date. The first one in years. Although to say that Adam, the gaming software developer I’d slept with before my subway attack, and I had dated was a stretch. We were two individuals who spent a lot of time with one another who ended up in bed and decided it felt about as good as pizza and a beer after a long day at work.
But my stomach never filled with butterflies at the thought of eating with Adam. I never thought about Adam when I wasn’t with him. I never fantasized what it would feel like to run my hands over his chest or tangle my fingers in his hair.
I didn’t touch myself at night wishing it were him. I spent last night with my old vibrator, which had run out of batteries. I was too embarrassed to ask the doorman to run and get me new ones because it felt tantamount to asking him for tampons. I couldn’t ask Oliver because he would wonder what I needed the batteries for. I ordered a bunch off the Internet, so last night I had a dead vibrator but an active imagination.
And imaginary Jake did things to me that I’m sure are illegal in several states, and if they aren’t, they should be. He licked me and sucked me and spent hours running his hand all over my body. He took me hard and then gentle and then hard again.
I went to sleep excited and woke up hungry for him.
I still wasn’t convinced when I got up that yesterday wasn’t a mirage, that I hadn’t dreamed up the whole conversation, the flirting, the mere existence of Jake. But then he texted me and I couldn’t type my reply fast enough.
The only problem remains whether I can open the door. As I stand here looking at it, I think I can. I’ve spent hours looking at it and psyching myself up to open it. As I walk toward the white metal rectangle, I remind myself that the hallway is empty. I haven’t heard an elevator ding since this morning when everyone on my floor left for work. There’s no one out there. Not a clown. Not a faceless tormenter. Not even Jake.
You can do it. I tell myself. Just a step. Just one. Take just one!
But I’m frozen, three feet from the door as if there’s an invisible shield.
I steel myself to make a mental push, to break through that wall, when my phone dings, alerting me to another message.
I rush to read it, thankful for the reprieve.
Don’t open the door, it says. Or the curtains.
Me: Why?
Him: I’m going to install sensors on your balcony and after I’m done, I’m going to sit there and have dinner.
Me: On the balcony?
Him: Affirmative.
Me: Where will I be?
Him: Inside. Eating the food I bought you.
Me: That’s—
I don’t know what to type after that. Ridiculous? Thoughtful? Outrageous? All of the above?
He texts again before I can reply.
Him: Don’t stress over it. See you tonight.
I can’t let it go, so I call him.
“Natalie,” he answers.
God, I love the way he says my name. It sounds so seductive rolling off his smooth tongue.
“Is it because you think I’m not ready? Because I’m ready,” I tell him. “I can open the door or if not the door, at least the curtains.”
Thankfully no one is here to call me a liar.
“I know you can and I want you to open the door, sweetheart. I have plenty of ideas about the things that we could do once we are face-to-face. But there is no hurry. So no door. No curtains. No stress tonight.”
My entire body tingles at Jake’s words. Apparently I’m not the only one who has an active imagination. “You sound like Dr. Terrance,” I grumble, but inwardly I’m so relieved.
“As reluctant as I am to push advice on you from someone that you don’t like very much, I have to agree. I know you want to get out there and do stuff, but there isn’t any hurry. There is no time line by which everyone should be recovered from a trauma they’ve experienced.”
“You don’t think three years is too long a time?” I say in a small voice. Dr. Terrance has said the same to me for years, but I never believed him, not really. Hearing Jake say that is balm on a wound in my soul, one that I didn’t even realize was so painful and exposed until now.
“No, I don’t. I think the more that you press yourself, the harder it is to push past it because then your anxiety builds on your anxiety. That’s like a girl who can’t come. Every guy that she’s with becomes a new test for her, but because she puts so much pressure on herself, she can’t relax and enjoy the moment.”
His reference to other women and orgasms makes me scowl. “You sound like you have a lot of experience with women who’ve never had orgasms.”