“Play it out,” Stacy’s soothing voice said. “One thing at a time.”
Nodding, Naomi kept her eyes closed. The locks on the door tumbled open and Eric stepped into the room, dressed in his suit and a brown silk tie with a checkerboard pattern that reminded her of a chocolate bar. He was clean-shaven and smiled when he saw her. She returned the smile and let him approach her, his arms opening to take her into a gentle embrace. She hugged him, noticing the smell of garlic. Evelyn cooked with it so much the entire family smelled of it.
“You’ll stay?” he asked as he kept her in the embrace.
She looked up into his cold blue eyes that contrasted so sharply with his dark hair. She saw sympathy in his expression, and pain—deep, clouded pain. She opened her mouth to answer. It was always, “Yes, I’ll stay,” but this time she paused.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, her bottom lip trembling.
Eric tensed and pushed her away from him, blood rushing to his face. His eyes narrowed and darkened. “Not sure?”
She felt the space between them widening as she backed farther away. “What you’ve done is wrong.”
“What we’ve done is care for you when nobody else gave a shit about you. How is that wrong?” He marched forward and took her by the arm. “Answer me.”
When she looked up, she saw beads of sweat on his brow and his fist raised, ready to hit her.
“I’ll stay,” her voice cracked.
The smell of a forest surrounded her. She opened her eyes. Stacy was leaning forward in her chair, her eyes wide. “Something different happened, didn’t it?”
Nodding, Naomi clenched her arms around her legs, pressing her knees as close to her body as she could. “I told him I wouldn’t stay this time, but then he threatened me and I gave in.”
A smile spread across Stacy’s lips. “We’ve made progress. This method seems to be working well for you.”
“Yeah, I think so. I wish you’d get the beach wax smell again. I miss California.”
Laughing, Stacy glanced at her bookshelf. “They were out last time I ordered. I’ll check again if it’s that important to you.”
“It helps me think of home.” Not that she understood why that was the greatest comfort ever.
“I understand.” Stacy put her hands together and lowered her voice to her usual calm tone. “Let’s move on and talk about the past week. Did your memories impair any of your activities?”
Naomi winced. “My memories aren’t the problem. It’s Jesse.” She noticed a slight crease forming on Stacy’s forehead. “Not that I’m blaming him, but I hate school right now, and I’ve never hated school. I can’t concentrate on my homework. If I get bad grades again, I’m screwed. So it’s not my kidnapping that’s holding me back. It’s none of that. It’s ....” Her voice trailed off as she realized she didn’t want to tell Stacy about Jesse or Italy.
Stacy waited, the crease in her forehead disappearing.
“I’m worried about what I really want, that’s all.”
Keeping her hands together in her lap, Stacy nodded once.
Naomi narrowed her eyes and then let her shoulders droop. “I don’t know what I want. That’s the problem.”
“Yes, I can imagine. Let’s talk about school and your art.”
Naomi’s shoulders drooped even more. “I don’t like art right now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Stacy cocked her head and gave Naomi the, If you don’t try, I can’t help you, look. Naomi sighed and thought about the unfinished projects piled in her room and the countless photographs she had yet to download from her camera card. In her head, everything was a mess and no longer fun. Art had always been an outlet. Now it was nothing but a chore.
“It’s like when Jesse convinced me to read all those novels when I was captive,” she explained, pushing through the thoughts in her head. “He expected me to read them, just like when Mom expected me to read The Awakening. Now I’m expected to be creative here at school. I was fine at first because it was my choice, but now it doesn’t feel like my choice anymore.”
Stacy nodded. “You told me you were happy you read those books.”
“Yeah, I was. It wasn’t bad ... I felt pressured, is all. In the end, I was happy I read them.”
“And the book your mother wanted you to read? What of that?”
“She was trying to connect to me in any way she could ... because I shut her out.”
Naomi was surprised how quickly she had answered the question. Her arms relaxed even more as she realized how much she had learned to accept in the past few years. When she had first started seeing counselors, she hadn’t been able to say the word kidnapped. It was such an ugly word. She could say it now, but there was still a long way to go.
Stacy unclasped her hands. “You feel pressure to do what others expect of you, and you find that difficult to work with.”
Naomi stared ahead, her vision blurry. “Yes, so what should I do? Quit?”
“That would be a drastic course of action, but not unheard of. Only you can decide.”
Stacy wasn’t the type of counselor to give magical nuggets of advice. Naomi nodded and leaned her head on the back of the sofa. She didn’t want to decide anything.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she said, staring at the ceiling, “if I’m a totally normal person and I’m using my kidnappers as an excuse for all my problems.”
A long pause, and then Stacy said, “If you can go through an entire day without feeling impaired by what happened to you, I’d say that’s the case, but judging from what we’ve discussed today, it’s clear you’re still suffering from something outside of your immediate control. It’s going to take more work to get you to a place you feel happy, content, and safe.”
She lifted her head and looked at Stacy. “What if I’m fine the way I am? What if I don’t want to try to fix myself anymore?”
Looking her straight in the eyes, Stacy asked, “Are you happy right now? Are you functioning the way you’d like? Those are the things that matter.”
Naomi sighed. She wasn’t going to pretend nothing was wrong, but a part of her wanted everything to stop so she could think. She thought about Finn’s secret spot on the train tracks and how everything was so quiet there. If only her life could settle into a space like that. Maybe it could. There was Italy. Then again, she wondered if staying with Jesse meant she would never recover. Or, if she did recover, if that would mean she would lose herself in the process—who she was at the core. Closing her eyes, she imagined herself in the bedroom once again. This time, she walked to the door before Eric could enter. She pulled on the handle, twisting it as hard as she could, but the door wouldn’t budge. For a moment, she thought she heard weeping on the other side. Concerned, she tried the handle again, and the door swung open. On the floor, curled into a ball and weeping, was herself.
XIV
November
JESSE WAS SCHEDULED TO FLY INTO Cambridge a week before Thanksgiving. To distract herself until he arrived, Naomi buried herself in school. She caught up on her art assignments and spent every afternoon in the library reading textbooks. For a brief moment, she felt normal, as if nothing was amiss. It didn’t last long. She knew as soon as Jesse arrived her world would turn upside down.
The day before his flight, she went to the Java Lounge and sat in her usual spot. Finn was nowhere to be seen, so she ordered her tea and cake and pulled out her sketchbook. It was the same sketch she had been working on when Finn started talking to her back in April. She hadn’t touched it since then. The pencil lines were smudged in a few spots. She held her pencil poised above the woman’s head, afraid to make any marks whatsoever. After a full minute, she flipped to a clean page and started sketching a deep valley filled with licking flames and smoke. When that was outlined, she moved to the sky and sketched four dragons, each one monstrous and scaly with magnificent wings. They circled the valley, as if waiting for something to appear. It was the first time s
he had ever drawn something from her dreams. At the house, she had never asked for sketch paper, but she hadn’t drawn a lot back then— only doodles like her mother did at the foundation office. A class here at Harvard was what had awakened the new art form in her, and as the terrible image from her dreams blossomed across the paper, she regretted not drawing more often. Maybe her art didn’t suck as badly as she thought.
She had sipped most of her iced tea by the time she finished, but her almond cake sat untouched. Setting down her pencil, she pushed the sketchpad back a few inches and stared at the drawing. Those dreams had been so vivid during her captivity. The dragons represented her kidnappers, and in the end, she had hopped onto the scaly back of one and flew away into the distance. She wondered now if that dragon was Jesse.
“No more women walking into the ocean?” Finn asked.
Naomi looked up to see him standing over her, a smile on his lips. She hadn’t seen him in over two weeks, not since she had shown him how to make the pasta dish. Warmth spread through her when she met his eyes.
“I guess not,” she said, motioning for him to join her. He sat in the chair across the table and picked up her fork by the almond cake.
“Not in the mood for this, either?”
She laughed. “I was too busy drawing. Go ahead and eat some if you want.”
“Great, thanks.” She watched him take a bite and set the fork back down. Then he ran his finger along the plate, sweeping up some powdered sugar.
“So,” he asked, putting his sugar-coated finger in his mouth, “have you decided about Italy? I’ve never been there.”
“That’s a sin, since you’re Italian,” she said with a mock gasp. “No, I haven’t decided. Jesse flies in tomorrow.”
Finn paused, pulling his finger out of his mouth and wiping it on his jeans. “Are you excited?”
“Yes, though I keep trying to forget he’s coming.” She looked at her sketch again and her palms began to sweat.
“There’s something I need to tell you, Naomi.”
She looked up and spotted a smudge of powdered sugar on his bottom lip. “What is it?”
Picking up the fork again, he tapped it gently on the plate. “I’ve been meaning to tell you for a week now, but I keep worrying you’ll get upset.” He dropped the fork, and it clattered across the table. He didn’t bother picking it up. “Not that you’ll get upset. You have Jesse. I don’t know.”
“Just say it, Finn.” Her heart was beating fast now as she anticipated what he could possibly have to tell her.
He met her eyes. “I’ve started dating someone. I was excited to tell you, but then, I don’t know, it seemed weird to tell you.”
“Oh.” She remembered watching Finn through the window as he talked with the cashier. Glancing behind her shoulder, Naomi saw her helping someone at the counter, her hair streaked with lime-green now instead of blue. “Her?” she asked, turning back to Finn.
Finn’s eyes widened. “Yeah, you don’t miss a beat, do you?”
“I guess not.”
He picked up the fork again. “Her name’s Carly. She likes drawing stuff, like you do. She’s an art major. Sorry if that’s weird.”
Naomi laughed, but it came out weak. She knew everything would fall back into place when she saw Jesse tomorrow, but for now, knowing Finn was dating a girl with colored stripes in her hair was a stab in the chest. Maybe it never would have worked between her and Finn, though. Now they could both have someone they loved and still be friends. Maybe. Then again, that just seemed strange. She looked at the dragons circling the valley. Maybe none of it mattered anymore, if she was going to Italy. The whole idea was suddenly more appealing.
“So, I guess Carly is cool with you hanging around me?” she asked as Finn took another bite of cake.
“Yeah, she is. We’re honest with each other. She knows I’m telling you about her right now.”
“Does she know about me and Jesse?”
Finn stopped chewing. “Yes,” he said through his mouthful of food.
“And you told her about my kidnapping? Who Jesse really is?”
Swallowing, Finn nodded and set down the fork so softly it didn’t make a sound. “Only about your kidnapping, but that’s something anyone could figure out.”
Naomi felt her jaw tightening. She remembered her professor’s words. It’s not classified information. He was right. It wasn’t—but she wanted it to be. She didn’t like Carly knowing. It felt like an invasion.
“Please don’t tell anyone else,” she whispered, leaning forward after a quick glance behind her shoulder. “I’m not comfortable with people knowing unless I want them to know.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently, the whole art department at Harvard knows.”
Finn stared at the table. “I’m sorry for telling Carly. She kept asking me questions about you. She was jealous because I was acting all secretive about who you are.” “And now that she knows, I’m not a threat. Got it. Listen, if I’m going to be a problem, you can stop talking to me.”
He lifted his attention from the table. “No, that’s not what I meant. She understands we’re friends.” He let out a heavy sigh. “I was afraid we’d argue about this. I was hoping once you were back with Jesse, we could hang out together, the four of us. Id like to meet Jesse, if you’re okay with that.”
Naomi wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or annoyed, but as she stared at her drawing with the dragons and thought about all the times she was weak enough to give in, annoyance won. She picked up the fork and stabbed it into the almond cake. “We sure do have a strange relationship,” she said, gathering up her sketchpad and pencil and shoving them into her bag. She took the last sip of her iced tea and stood up.
Finn stayed in his chair and watched her. “Why are you upset? I told you, I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand what you want, Finn. We can’t stay friends like this. It’s awkward and stupid. I don’t see how it can possibly work.”
“Sure, it can work.” Finn glanced at Carly, who was eyeing them as she counted back a customer’s change.
Naomi watched her for a moment and then looked at Finn. Panic spread across his face.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “You don’t want to be friends anymore? What if things don’t work out with Jesse? The whole thing with him getting off parole so fast and then wanting to move to Italy right away feels wrong to me. I want to make sure you’re okay.” He hesitated for a moment. “You don’t have anyone else who really understands you.”
Everything clicked into place. “So that’s it? I can’t possibly make things work with an ex-con, right? The whole idea is ludicrous and I’ll end up alone and crazier than I am already.”
He looked away, unable to meet her eyes.
“I knew it. You don’t want to feel responsible because you’ve found someone else now and I could end up alone.”
Her face was hot and she took a long breath to calm herself down. Her shoulders drooped.
“I’m sorry, Finn. I’m sorry I’m such a crazy, freaking mess. See you around.” She dropped two dollars onto the table for the waitress and marched to the other end of the café. Carly closed the till and looked up. She was pretty, with a heart-shaped mouth and a dainty chin. For the first time, Naomi noticed a swirl of tattoos snaking up her left arm. She was probably a real artist, not some hack like Naomi.
“The usual?” Carly asked. Naomi nodded as she dug through her purse for the exact amount. The faster she could leave the better.
Carly punched a few buttons on the register and Naomi handed her the money and left. When she looked back, Finn was gone.
WAITING BY the baggage claims, Naomi twisted her hands together as she watched the escalators leading to and from the terminals on the second floor. She was sure she would be able to spot Jesse in a heartbeat with his red hair. It wasn’t bright, but it was unique enough to stand out. As she waited, she let her mind wander to yesterday and her argument with Finn—if it could be called an argument. Fo
rcing her friendship with Finn around undefined boundaries would lead nowhere except to trouble.
Her heart jumped when she saw Jesse. He looked tired but excited, especially when he spotted her. There were people in front of him, so he waited until he was off the escalator and could walk quickly to her. He dropped his carry-on bag and took her into his arms. He smelled faintly of cologne, the same spicy scent she remembered he used to wear at the house.
“Finally,” he whispered into her ear.
Naomi snuggled her face into his neck. She wanted to absorb everything at once. The feel of his skin, the smell of him, the way he held her as if he would never let go. Of course, he had to let go. Pulling away, he kept hold of her arms and looked at her, studying her face. Naomi wanted to kiss him, but held back.
“Want to get out of here?” he asked, smiling.
“Yes. Do you have luggage?”
“Yeah, on number four.”
Once they had his bags, they headed out to the parking lot and found Naomi’s car. She turned off the alarm and opened the trunk. “Toss your stuff back there,” she said, and got in the driver’s seat. She fastened her seatbelt and wrapped her hands around the steering wheel. She had to breathe. She felt warm and weak, like she needed to eat something. He was here. With her. As if they had always been together and were going to drive home and live a normal life. But Becca would be there. She would see him and judge him. Naomi hoped she wouldn’t have an issue with him staying there. She had never asked if that would be okay. She hadn’t thought through a lot of things.
Jesse closed the trunk and came around to the passenger side. Once he was settled in, Naomi started the car and drove out of the parking lot as she took long, deep breaths.
“Are you alright?” Jesse asked once they were on the freeway.
“No,” she answered, determined to be truthful with Jesse every step of the way in their relationship. “I’m having a hard time believing you’re here.”
Pieces (The Breakaway #2) Page 11
