Текст книги "Revealed to Him"

Автор книги: Jen Frederick

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Suitably chastened, I reply, “Right.”

“Oh, and Natalie, think about my proposition again, will you? I think it would be a wonderful service for the community.”

“Sure.”

Never happening in a million years, Dr. Terrance, I silently vow.

Hanging up, I stretch out on the floor and press one hand against the glass. Dr. Terrance wants to write a book about my experience. He says when I recover it will be a triumphant story of recovery and provide hope to other sufferers of extreme anxiety.

I don’t believe him, but partly because I don’t want it to be true. If it is true then repeatedly turning down his offer is super selfish of me because I should want to help other people, but it would mean laying my entire life bare; I had enough of the fishbowl three years ago when someone leaked that I was Natalie Beck. The unhappy trolls, who’d discovered that their favorite game had been written by a woman and not a man, made it their mission to uncover every piece of dirt in my past—who I’d slept with and how many times was of greatest interest. They read my innocuous tweets about cats and movies. Looked me up on message boards. They discovered my Facebook page and proceeded to comb over every status update as if they were the Watergate reporters.

Thankfully my connection to Oliver was never revealed. It was apparent early on in Oliver’s high school career that he was someone special. To prevent me from suffering abuse from nosy people on the Internet as he became more famous, we hid our connection. It was easier to do that now when we lived in the same building. Most of the people here were very private for one reason or another, and Oliver’s visits to my apartment or mine to his have never been remarked on publicly.

After my identity was revealed, he wanted to blast everyone who hurt me, go on talk shows and the like, but I begged him not to. I knew it would only make it worse. He’d been coming off a terrible season and his social media accounts were filled with hostility too. It would have been gasoline on a fire.

No, there won’t ever be a book written about me—at least not without my permission.

I roll to my side and stare out the bottom of the glass door. It’s all academic anyway. There’s no triumphant recovery. Not yet.

And after the note?

Maybe not ever.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JAKE

“Glad you could make it,” Ian says with sourness as I slip into my courtside seat.

“Work,” I answer. I’d spent the afternoon running down possible leads in Natalie’s case. Oliver provided me a list of her former coworkers, people they thought could have been behind the subway attack, and her ex-boyfriends—only one actually lives in New York City; the other two were from her hometown in Indiana. I put an investigator on the one who lives in Brooklyn. “How long has he been like this?” I ask Kaga, who is seated next to Ian. Their long legs are stretched perilously close to the out-of-bounds line. Anyone who thinks Asians are short hasn’t met Kaga, who tops me by an inch.

“Since the opening tip-off,” Kaga replies with a roll of his coal-black eyes.

We both turn to look at Ian, who apparently came from the office since he’s still wearing his suit. His collar is unbuttoned and his undoubtedly very expensive silk tie is hanging halfway out of his pocket. He invited us out tonight to witness the shellacking of the Knicks by the Atlanta Hawks. He flips us off but doesn’t take his eyes off the court.

The Knicks haven’t been good since Willis Reed¸ and I suppose it’s a measure of Ian’s steadfastness that he still pays good money for this type of torture. And if there’s anyone who has money to burn, it’d be him.

Ian Kerr is a billionaire. When he plays poker, there are only a few people in the world who can afford to sit with him. I’m not one of them. I only have a few million to my name, and unlike Ian, who transformed himself from a street rat who ran small cons on the Atlantic City boardwalk, my paltry millions are inherited from my grandfather. The Tanners have a long history of modest wealth based on the founding branch having manufactured and sold gunpowder during the Civil War—a decent work ethic interrupted by a few spendthrifts means our money has lasted but hasn’t grown.

Besides, a seven-figure net worth in the city is nearly a dime a dozen. One in twenty New Yorkers can lay claim to that.

“Watching the home team lose makes me thirsty,” I declare and hold up my arm to signal the beer hostess.

Kaga’s lip curls. “How can you drink that piss water?”

“Don’t have much choice here.”

Kaga’s one of those men whose fortune rivals Ian’s. His large Japanese conglomerate distributes everything from domestic beverages to some of the best brandy known to man. Kaga’s making inroads in the international real estate community as well. Soon half of New York will be owned by Kerr and the other half by Kaga. Since both pay me a lot of money to do investigative and security work for them, I’m completely fine with their impending takeover. Could be worse.

It was Ian’s and my mutual interest in cars that led to our first meeting at a Long Island body shop that worked on foreign sports cars. I was getting my tires rotated on my Audi A8, one of my few extravagances, and he was eying a custom remake of a 1970s McLaren F1, which cost about as much as an apartment on the Upper East Side.

When he found out what I did for a living, he had me investigate a couple of principals in a company he’d wanted to take over. It worked out well, and after that the acquaintance grew into a sort of friendship. Through him I met Kaga, who’d done a few deals with Ian, and I’d connected with these men, despite our varied backgrounds.

Kaga and I had watched with bemusement as Ian fell hard for Tiny, just a year earlier. He’d seen her on the sidewalk and told me she was the one.

The one to what? I’d asked.

She’s going to either remake me or break me, he’d answered.

I’d been remade and broken and I wasn’t interested in going through that again, but I won’t deny that seeing Ian and Tiny together has made me feel . . . restless. Maybe that’s why my thoughts have been lingering on Natalie. She’d been bent by a rough hand but was fighting back. That’s intriguing to me in a way that the popular supermodel who has been gazing longingly in our direction isn’t.

“You should take her up on her offer,” Kaga says, dipping his head toward the model.

“I think you’re the one she’s trying to consume with her eyes.”

“No, I don’t think she’s that discriminating. Any one of us would do.” He nudges me as the beer arrives.

“Not interested.” I take my beer with my prosthetic and give the server a twenty. “Keep the change.”

Her eyes widen in surprise that I can hold the plastic cup, but holding things isn’t an issue. Gross motor tasks are fairly easy for me. It’s the fine motor skills that are problematic.

“I thought you had finished with your journalist friend.” Kaga makes a shooing gesture toward the waitress and she scurries away.

“I did. What about the girl over there don’t you like?” It’d be nice if he started seeing someone. That way Sabrina could move on.

Kaga weighs his response carefully, his tension visible. Finally, in deference to our friendship, he says, “I am not interested either.”

He wants to say that he has interest in only one woman and, to give him credit, I haven’t seen him with anyone in recent memory. Granted, he is not in New York for great swaths of time, so he could be fucking a dozen different women in different cities, but Kaga’s too decent for that. It’s his honor that keeps him from Sabrina as long as I disapprove. But it’s also his honor that has gotten him into his current predicament.

I take a long draft of the flavored water that the Garden serves as beer. A shift reveals Ian’s interest has been drawn away from the game. Both of them look at me expectantly.

“You have to clean house first,” I say in answer to the unstated question as to when I’ll give my blessing.

“Maybe I will,” he responds quietly. Ian nods in satisfaction and turns back to the game.

I hide my surprise by lifting the beer again. It looks like I’m not the only one unsettled by Ian and Tiny’s pairing.

“Sir, would you like to come out at halftime and be honored for your service?” A dark-suited young man with a lanyard around his neck proclaiming his position as Entertainment Staff appears at my side.

Kaga covers his face to hide a smirk, while I try to summon a smile to soften my emphatic response.

“No. I never served. I lost my hand in an unfortunate meatpacking incident,” I lie.

The young man colors and his gaze flicks behind him. “I must have been mistaken then. So sorry to have bothered you.”

As he leaves I scan the crowd behind him, only to see my old therapist, Dr. Crist, in the mix.

I give him a one-fingered salute with my prosthetic, which he acknowledges with a wave and a laugh.

“You know him?” Kaga asks.

“Isaiah Crist served in the army during the first Gulf War, and suffered a hip disarticulation.” At Kaga’s raised eyebrows, I elaborate. “His amputation is at the hip instead of below the knee like mine.” I tap my lower left prosthetic. “After he was medically discharged, he went back and got his head-shrinking degree. He’s expensive as fuck and has a clientele list that would make your head spin, but I met him when he was doing pro bono work down at Bethesda.”

“What was that all about then? I know you do not enjoy being on display.”

“He’s just fucking with me. It’s an army thing.”

Kaga looks unimpressed. “Did the nosy journalist turn you off women?”

“The game must really bore you if we’re delving back into my personal life.”

“Yes,” he says with a grin and an expectant look. I’m not ready to talk about my surprising attraction toward Natalie. I can’t explain it to myself yet, but I’m honest enough to admit it exists.

I like her taste in books, her plucky attitude, and her unwillingness to be cowed by her fear. She’s interesting in a way that the other women I’ve been with since I was discharged haven’t been. That may be a bigger reflection on me than the women of New York, though.

“When I have something to share, I’ll be sure to call you up right away,” I reply.

“I’d share my own personal female woes, but I suspect it would make you uncomfortable.”

“You’d be right.” The last thing I want to hear is what he wants from my sister. But I like Kaga, so I add, “Sorry.”

Kaga shakes his head slightly. “Your devotion to your family is one of the things I admire most about you, so there is no apology necessary. But you realize it is in my best interest to see you helplessly in love like our friend Ian.”

Ian gives a nod of acknowledgment, though he doesn’t turn away from the game. “He’s right. You need to pair up so that Tiny has someone to do shit with when we go out to dinner. She’s tired of your single asses. If you aren’t going to give Kaga and Bri your blessing, then you need to step up.”

“Oh well, then I’ll get right on that for your wife. Hey, single lady, want to hook up for an unspecified period of time? My buddy’s wife is tired of talking to penises when we go out.”

“I’d phrase it slightly differently,” Kaga offers unhelpfully.

“What if I had an agoraphobic girlfriend who couldn’t leave her apartment?”

Ian scoffs. “That’s your excuse now? How’d you meet this agoraphobic person if she doesn’t go out?”

“I’m extraordinary,” I say, in hopes that the ridiculousness of my reply deters further inquiry.

But Kaga looks at me thoughtfully. “This is happening in large numbers to young people in Japan. It is called hikikomori and means a withdrawing or pulling inward. They do not socialize with anyone but their own families and retreat to their bedrooms. It can last for a few months or even years.”

Surprised, I gesture for him to continue.

“I don’t know much more about it,” Kaga admits. “I have only heard small pieces. Supposedly it affects at least one percent of our young male population. It is a concern. As time passes, the withdrawal feeds upon itself. Social abilities atrophy and even the desire to escape is eaten away.”

“She’s not like that,” I find myself saying. Kaga merely nods—his perceptiveness is eerie at times.

“I thought you were joking,” Ian says. He’s abandoned the game, probably because the massacre is too painful.

Sighing, I give in.

“I’m looking into something for someone.” I hold up my hand to forestall further questions from Ian. He shuts his mouth and slides back in his chair. “I met a woman who has severe anxiety, but she’s not withdrawn. She’s actively trying to get better—she’s suffered a setback and I’m investigating some circumstances that might have adversely affected her recovery.”

“She’s a fighter, then,” Kaga muses.

“That’s right.”

“Of course,” he says. “You, as a soldier, must not only admire that, but respond to it as well.”

Ian makes a gun with his fingers and points them at me. Is he saying I’m dead or down? I’m neither, but I might be falling and it doesn’t seem to be painful at all.

CHAPTER NINE

NATALIE

I allow myself to have a brief pity party that my wonderful progress has been halted and then peel myself off the metaphorical floor. Daphne is correct when she says my best writing comes from torment. But as I stand and type out an entire chapter, I find myself inserting a tall, potbellied space ranger. He’s got a wry smile and good hands that capably manage his phaser.

I work for hours until I forget the outside world exists and my fingers are cramped and my own shoulders ache. When the sun becomes just a thought on the horizon, I put my computer to sleep and fall into the darkened bedroom, asleep before my head hits the pillows.

Somewhere around noon the phone wakes me up. I try to ignore it because I’m having a very nice dream involving Jake. He’s under the covers with me, nuzzling my neck. My hands cling to his broad shoulders as the coarse hair of his legs rub against mine. His hands move down my sides and I start aching in places that I didn’t know could ache.

His head follows the direction of his hands, pausing to lick on my tightened nipples and then lower still. The first touch of his tongue is so tender, I almost weep. He draws his tongue in slow, long movements until I tilt my hips forward in an unspoken plea for more. He palms my butt and rocks me toward his mouth. I’m shaking with pleasure and desire, desperate for more. I beg him to stop tormenting me. He rises to his knees and drags me down with hungry hands until my wet heat presses against his hard erection. He leans forward, all two hundred and sixty pounds of fierce need, sinking on top of me, but the stupid phone will not stop ringing. I shut my eyes tighter, but the heavy pressure of his body dissipates and I’m left clutching my sheets.

It’s probably Oliver. Unhappily, I stick my hand out and fumble on the nightstand without emerging from the covers. If I don’t lift up the sheets, maybe the dream will come back.

“Hullo?” I mumble.

“Did I wake you?”

It’s Jake and he sounds amused. My heart gives a silly pulse as I scramble to answer him. I feel off-balance, as if he somehow knows I was having a naughty dream about him. “I went to bed at four in the morning. It’s still early for me.”

I run a hand over my hair, smoothing the wild strands down, and then laugh silently at myself. Jake can’t see me. If he could, he’d hang up and never call me again because I know from experience my bed head is frightening. My ex used to say that for someone with thin hair, I was able to create an alarming Medusa-like cloud after only a few hours of sleep. Although seeing my hair is the least of the reasons he should run away. The first and foremost is that I’m using him as fodder for my sexual fantasies.

“Were you having trouble sleeping?”

“No, I was working. The words kept falling out and I didn’t want to stop.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“I’m not,” I answer with frank eagerness. I don’t want him to hang up. Talking to him feels good, like spring in my heart after a long dark winter.

“Then I’m not sorry either. I called about some security ideas.”

Oh, I like that he called me and not Oliver—that he thinks I’m capable of making decisions like this. “Thank you,” I murmur, huddling deeper into the covers. I wish he was here with me. We could discuss this over coffee, still in bed, our limbs tangled together. I barely remember the last time I slept with a man. Daphne’s stayed over a few times, but she sleeps in my pull-out in the living room, and as much as I love her, she’s no substitute for a warm male body.

“For what?”

“For treating me like an adult.”

“You look like an adult.”

Is that . . . an innuendo? I want to tell him that I’m very adult. That I just had a grown-up sex dream he starred in, and would he like to come over and act it out in person. Of course, I don’t because rational people don’t go around telling strangers that they are spank bank material, and even if he is okay with that, what if he showed up and I couldn’t bring myself to turn the doorknob. That would be a humiliating experience.

Abruptly I sit up, tossing the covers aside and banishing my foolish thoughts. Jake is not flirting with me; he’s being kind and I need to start acting like the adult we both are pretending I am.

“What are your ideas for improving the safety of my home?” I ask with brusqueness.

He picks up my cue and responds in kind. “I’d like to place proximity sensors around your doors—the front and the balcony. The alarms are outward-facing and wouldn’t be triggered by opening the door from the inside or even walking onto the balcony.”

“You can do that?”

“Technology is pretty great.”

I guess it is amazing. It’d be great if we could implant a device in my brain that would turn off my fear, but then I’d probably walk into traffic and get myself killed. “That sounds good. You wouldn’t have a proximity sensor for an individual, would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, let’s say I fell. Could you have a proximity sensor that could detect the motion of falling and then a period of, say, thirty seconds of no movement?”

“I don’t have anything like that, but it’s possible it could be rigged up. A proximity sensor can detect certain motion, like the deceleration of mass, but it’s not a system I stock and could bring over today. Why?”

I blow out a stream of air and then decide what the hell. He already knows I have issues. “I’ve been trying to force myself to go outside, leave my apartment.”

“Is that safe?”

“It’s how I won before. After—” I don’t even like to bring up the attack, but I force it out. “After the attack, I got scared of everything and everyone, but after like six months of solitude, I started going a little stir-crazy, so I tried to leave. I got as far as the stairs—I lived on the second floor—and had to turn around and go back. But I kept going back and I’d mark down in a little journal how long I stood there. After a couple of weeks, I looked at my log and saw I had stood five minutes outside my door. That was . . .” I try to find the right word to describe my triumph that day. “I felt like I’d won the Pennant and the Super Bowl all at the same time.” Please don’t find this pathetic, I cringe.

“I understand,” he says. “When I took my first step with the prosthetic, it felt as good as when I’d passed Ranger School.”

Okay, he did get it. Wait, did he say prosthetic? “You have a prosthetic?”

“Yes, left hand, left leg, below the knee.”

“Wow.” I didn’t know anyone who had a prosthetic. A couple of my characters in the Dark Worlds series had biomechanical limbs, but I’m a science fiction writer, so I can write any kind of thing I please, within the rules of the world I’d built. While I’d done some research, I had no idea what it meant to have a prosthetic.

“Is that a problem for you?”

There’s a hint of defensiveness behind his strong voice. If he only knew how exponentially more attractive he just made himself, he’d be frightened. He’d suffered a terrible blow to his body and probably his self-image, yet he had started his own business and is clearly very successful or Oliver would have never hired him. He is someone who’s overcome. Basically the person I want to be someday.

“No, not at all. I was just thinking how amazing you must be.”

“How do you figure?” He snorts.

I shrug, but he can’t see me. “Because you’re a bad-ass at protecting other people. Not to mention you can go outside whenever you want.”

“Are you saying you would give your left arm to be able to walk in Central Park?” It’s a joke. At least I think it’s a joke, but I’m not sure, so I don’t respond right away. He clears his throat. “Bad gimp joke. Anyway, let me know when I can come over and install the system.”

I chew on my lip. I’d like him to come over right now. I’d like to look at him, his tall frame, his prosthetics, what I presume to be a sweet and decent face. But then if I puked, passed out, or did anything embarrassing, I could kiss all my dreams good-bye. Actually, no, that’s all I’d have left of him—those dreams. “This will require you to come inside, right?”

“It would.”

“I . . . I just don’t know.”

“Can I help you in any way, honey?”

It is the endearment that does me in. Whatever defenses I had against him, and I didn’t think I had many, tumble down. I want to impress him, but more than that, I want to know him.

“I don’t get you.”

He doesn’t answer right away and I like that. Maybe I read more into it than I should but his hesitation makes it seem like his response is important enough to him that he’s not going to throw out a glib answer. “I like the sound of your voice.”

“Really?” I’m skeptical and thrilled all at the same time.

“Really.” Sometimes his responses are so dry I think he must be making a joke. “Why don’t I bring some food over?”

“Why?” I ask like a fool.

“So we can share a meal. Get to know one another.”

“What if—what if I can’t open the door?”

“Then I sit on one side and you sit on the other.”

“You’d do that for me?” My heart pounds frantically at the thought—half in panic and half in excitement.

Another of his long thoughtful pauses follows before he answers. “You’d be surprised what I’d be willing to do for you.”

For the next few hours, I write and then take breaks to practice opening the door. I visualize my portly fellow with the receding hairline—I added that detail because it fit with my safe image of him—outside, wearing khaki cargo pants, tennis shoes, and a white polo. No flannel. I shake my head and remove the receding hairline and replace the white polo with a dark blue polo, otherwise he looks too much like the cable repair guys on television. By the tenth time, I’m able to make it to the doorway and twist the knob. I don’t open it yet. While my palms are sweaty and my knees are weak, I don’t feel bile at the back of my throat and I’m still standing up.

Success. I can do this. I can let him in. I shut out the little voice in my head that chirps Dr. Terrance would not approve.

Excitedly, I call Daphne and tell her about my impending date. “Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never seen?” I ask as I straighten my hair. The wispy brown locks usually have a slight curl in them, but I want to look older and sophisticated.

“Sure. Isn’t that how Internet relationships are? You email someone or chat with them and then just confirm your lust in person. Why? Is this about the winky face person? The lumbosexual?”

“The lumbowhat?”

“That’s the type of guy who is spending thousands of dollars to look like he’s in a back-country camping ad, but he doesn’t camp. He just looks like he does, and he’ll cry if you show him a picture of a cute puppy. Hence the flannel and the inappropriate use of emoji.”

“No. He is definitely not a lumbosexual.” Jake didn’t seem like the crying type.

“Should you even be talking to this Jake guy? Have you cleared it with Dr. Terrance?”

“I don’t have to have permission from Dr. Terrance to make a new friend!” I exclaim, affronted.

“I’m just saying that so soon after your meltdown at the elevator, it doesn’t seem wise to invite some stranger into your apartment.”

“He’s going to sit on my balcony. He’s not even coming inside to act on my lust,” I point out.

“He’s bringing food and wants to get to know you better. That’s what guys do when they want to get in a girl’s pants.”

She’s right, but I’m okay with that because if all he wants is sex and I can actually follow through, that would be it’s own small miracle. “True, but what if I’m not pretty enough for him? Because for a guy to take on a basket case like me, he must either have no other options or he thinks I’m supermodel pretty.”

“You are very pretty,” come the words of a best friend.

“I’m not a dog, but I’m no model.” And model types are everywhere in New York. A guy like Jake who owns his own business and his own home would be attractive to them. Hell, he’d be attractive to 99.9 percent of the single heterosexual ladies in the city and half of the married ones too.

According to the little information that the Internet reveals, Jake owns an Upper West Side townhouse worth at least five million according to some real estate site. His mother was a lawyer and his father was a banker. Both are retired. He holds a degree in business management from Columbia, plus there’s the added benefit of a touch of danger. He was a soldier and wore a uniform. I found a picture of his platoon—or what I think might be his platoon—on Google but I didn’t know which of the dirty-faced, camo-wearing guys with guns was him. There isn’t much else that Google coughed up about him. “It’s all academic. I’ve not made a new friend or acquaintance since, you know, before.”

“There’s a first time for everything. By the way, the pages you sent me today were brilliant.

Whatever you are doing, keep doing it and keep sending me pages. You’ll make your deadline if you keep at it. If flirting with Paul Bunyan makes you write like this, then I approve.”

“So I should keep my door shut and my feelings repressed and regurgitate all the emotional mess on the page.”

“If that’s what is keeping your creative engine motoring . . .” She lets the unfinished statement dangle there.

“Maybe there will be lots of romance in this book.”

“Everyone likes romance,” she agrees. The phone beeps and it’s Dr. Terrance.

“Dr. T is on the line,” I say.

“Go,” she orders. “I’ve got work to do. Keep writing!”

“Yes ma’am.” I snap off a salute she can’t see and switch over to Terrance.

“Hello, Natalie, did you get the delivery today?”

Guiltily, I cringe. “Um, I haven’t called down for it.” I’ve been too busy flirting with the sweet security guy my cousin has hired to worry about taking drugs. Besides, now that I’ve got a date with Jake, the last thing I want to do is take some antianxiety medication that will dull all my feelings and turn me into a walking, talking, monotone zombie. That will really impress him.

“If you don’t take your proper medication, then we can’t move forward.”

“But Dr. T, I felt really good today and I was thinking—”

“Natalie, when is the last time you were able to leave your building?”

My fingers curl in anger so I take a second before I respond. “A while.”

“Two weeks and three days, if my calculations are accurate.”

You know they are, I say silently. Out loud, I try to convince Terrance I can do this without the medication. “I think we should just try, maybe once, without the medication.”

“How did it feel the last time you tried?”

“Not good,” I admit. “But I met this guy—”

“A new person, Natalie? Why haven’t you told me about him?”

“I meant to, but it was just the other day.”

“And who is he?”

“Oliver hired him to look into my situation, to give me some additional security.”

“Oh dear, Natalie, I’m going to talk with Oliver. I don’t think introducing a new person into your life at this time is good for your fragile state of mind. Now I want you to take the medication, and then I’ll call you tomorrow after I’ve spoken to your cousin.”

“But—” I start to object, but the dial tone tells me he’s already hung up. I’m about to call him back when I get a buzz on my phone from the doorman downstairs.

“Hi, Jason,” I say. “What’s up?”

“You have a visitor. Should I send him up?” He sounds confused—I never have new visitors.

“Is he six foot three and two-sixty?” I ask wanting to be sure it’s Jake.

“Um, I’m a doorman, not a doctor.”

He’s earlier than I expected, but maybe he’s just as excited as I am. I resist the urge to clap. “Sorry, send him right up. And thank you, Jason.”

“No problem. Let me know how you enjoy it!”

I raise my eyebrows at this. Jason and I have a friendly relationship over the phone wherein I call and ask for packages and he leaves them outside my door after ringing the doorbell, but we certainly aren’t at the stage where I’d tell him dirty details from any intimate encounter I had.

The door rings and my heart starts pounding. I flex my fingers wide and take deep, calming breaths. I move slowly toward the door, pushing hard through the anxiety that is threatening to drag me under. “I’m coming,” I call, in case he’s worried that I’m not home. Ha, I’m always home. He murmurs something that I can’t quite hear.

The doorknob looms large and my wet palms have a hard time turning it, but I do, slowly. “It’s Jake,” I tell myself. “He’s sweet. Kind. He will not hurt you. He will not hurt you.” I repeat it over and over as I turn the knob, as I take each breath, as I open the door.

And when it’s wide enough for me to see outside, I scream. I scream and scream and scream. My breath seizes and oxygen becomes a memory. Stumbling forward, I hit my head on the door and then black out.