“I have to have you. I have to have you right now” Daniel murmured, the desire in his voice evident.
“Oh yes! Oh God yes!” I exclaimed as his mouth moved down to my neck, his hands finding my sports bra. I could feel the tingling all over my body. My blood felt like lava, boiling inside of me, like I was going to combust if Daniel didn’t take me right away.
Suddenly, there was a noise like a door slamming nearby and we pulled away from each other, both of us realizing what we were doing.
We stared at each other for an instant before I quickly reached for my discarded shirt and threw it back on.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” I muttered. I knew the rules. If Daniel and I were caught here, we would both immediately be kicked out of the center.
“We can’t do this, can we?” Daniel asked. I could hear the pain in his voice, the frustration in his tone.
I shook my head. “No. Not without getting kicked out. And I don’t think either of us can afford that. I’m sorry, Daniel” I told him, before getting up and practically sprinting to the women’s change room, hoping he wouldn’t see my tears.
I turned on the shower, leaving it as cold as I could stand and sat down on the floor, my tears mingling with the water. What the hell was going on with me? I had been so happy with Daniel. He made me feel complete, he made me feel whole, he made me feel something for the first time in a long, long time. I wanted him more than anything, and yet I knew I couldn’t have him. Not without getting kicked out of here, and I knew I wasn’t ready for the real world yet. I also knew Daniel wasn’t either. He had just started here, he needed to heal. I couldn’t take that away from him.
* * *
I don’t know how long I sat in the shower for, letting the water rush over me, but when I finally came out again Daniel was gone. I was alone in the gym. I went slowly back up to my room, hoping not to meet anyone along the way. I didn’t think I could handle human contact right about now.
These last few days had been so confusing. Here I had thought I would wallow in depression for the rest of my life. I knew I was never going to be happy again. I didn’t deserve to be happy, and I didn’t want to be happy. And yet, when I was with Daniel, my heart felt like it was going to burst with elation. I felt an unimaginable bliss just being with him, just being able to talk to him.
I didn’t know his entire history. I had gotten a glimpse of it when he told me about his knee injury. I hadn’t told him my entire history either, but I knew there was a connection there. Daniel understood me, and I understood him. I knew exactly where he came from when he told me the fire in him had disappeared.
And yet, we couldn’t be together. Not like that, anyway. Maybe it was better for me. After all, I didn’t want to be happy. I didn’t want to have those feelings of passion, of desire taking over me whenever I saw Daniel. But another part of me, I guess the human part of me, did.
I spent the next few days doing my best to avoid Daniel. I ate breakfast before anyone else was up and dinner after everyone else had gone to bed. I spent my days in my room, on the computer, reading, anything to avoid the common areas. For the first time in a while I pulled Gray’s Anatomy from the shelf, trying to read as much as I could about the human knee. I knew Daniel needed surgery and there was nothing I could do for him, so I wasn’t really sure why I did it, but it made me feel better somehow. I knew Daniel couldn’t come and visit me here, visitors of the opposite sex weren’t allowed in each other’s residential areas. In a lot of ways this center felt like high school all over again, where boys and girls weren’t really supposed to interact privately.
Unfortunately for my plan, however, there were still mandatory activities to attend. The first for me was sports. I had skipped so many sports sessions, making up so many excuses as to why I didn’t want to join in with everyone, that this time Doctor Emma wouldn’t accept it when I asked for yet another reprieve.
“Kylie, I know you’re going through a lot. But these sessions, this sports work is good for you. It’s designed to help you in every aspect of your life. Unless you have a physical problem hampering you from attending, I’m afraid I can’t let you skip yet another session.”
“It’s not physical, Doctor Emma. It’s a mental thing.”
“Sports are good for the brain. There’s a ton of science proving that. Please give it a shot Kylie. You aren’t going to heal if you don’t try.”
That’s why I ended up still having to take part in the group sports for the first time in nearly a month. Daniel was already there when I arrived, and again as soon as I looked at him I felt that pang of desire in my chest. He was so sexy, standing outside in the grass with the sun shining down on his face. Everyone else on the field looked so incredibly inferior, Daniel was like an Adonis, standing alone on Mount Olympus, his beauty and strength dwarfing that of the mere mortals standing around.
I had planned on ignoring him, on hoping Daniel wouldn’t come and speak with me, but I knew my body was going to have none of that. On top of that, when he saw me, Daniel came over.
“Hey, sorry about the other day,” he told me in a low voice so no one else could hear.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Can we talk after this? Maybe I can join you at dinner?”
“Yeah, sure.” I tried to keep my voice calm. I knew at dinner I was going to have to tell Daniel this wouldn’t work. That we couldn’t be together so long as we were in this situation, that neither of us could afford to get kicked out of this program. The thought of saying no to a man like that, a man who elicited such delicious reactions from my body absolutely devastated me.
We played soccer as our exercise for the day. It was fun enough, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the day I had spent with Daniel in the gym. The entire time I could only focus on Daniel, who ran circles around everyone else in the group, until finally the trainer Adam banished Daniel to playing goalie so that the teams could play more evenly. Not that it mattered, Daniel had scored eleven goals for his team compared to the one we had managed to get through. I noticed him wincing with pain once or twice, and I wanted to scold him about refusing to get the surgery that would heal him, but I kept my mouth shut.
When the game finished and everyone headed, exhausted, back to their rooms, Daniel caught up with me.
“Hey, see you at dinner tonight? I’ll be down around 7 or so.”
“Ok, for sure,” I replied, trying to smile. I could smell the slight aroma of his sweat and musk on his body and it sent shivers running through me. I wanted to grab Daniel, take him to my room, rip his clothes off and have him ravage me on my bed. I wanted his hands to discover every inch of my body, I wanted his shaft inside of me, pounding he harder than anything I’d ever experienced, I wanted Daniel to bring me to realms of pleasure I could only imagine.
As I watched him walk away towards the men’s residence area, my legs felt weak. Oh, how I wanted him. And yet, at the same time, I didn’t want him. I tried to force those thoughts to the back of my brain. I wasn’t going to be happy. I didn’t get to be happy anymore. Being with a man like that wasn’t in my future.
Nonetheless, I was sitting down with my dinner at the same table at which we had eaten the last time at ten minutes to seven. Daniel was right on time, sitting across from me, a smile on his face as I looked at the monstrous pile of food in front of him once more.
“Why do you keep working out if you’re never going to play hockey again?” I asked as he sat down, not sure why the question had suddenly popped into my head.
“Well... you know, I think it’s just a force of habit now. I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s become a habit. Exercise is my release, too, I think. It’s my way to escape the world, to just focus on myself for a little while.”
“Ok. Thanks, I was just curious.”
“Hey, no problem. Have you been back down to the gym since our day there?”
I shook my head. “No, I had fun that day, but it’s the sort of thing that I just don
’t think would have been the same without you.”
“That’s too bad. You should try it. But hey, I wanted to talk to you. It’s pretty obvious you’ve been avoiding me, is that right?”
“Yeah. It is.” I decided to be honest. “After we made out in the gym, I knew I had to avoid you. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and I don’t want to act on them. If it’s discovered that we even did what we did we will both be kicked out of the center. We both need this place, you especially, and I don’t want to screw it up for either of us. So yeah, I’ve been avoiding you, for the good of both of us.”
“I completely understand, Kylie. I don’t want us getting kicked out of here either. I just wanted to ask if we can be friends. There’s no rule against that.”
I thought about what Daniel was saying. Obviously there were no rules about members of the opposite sex being friends. Hell, Fiona and Sam joked about their game “dates” all the time, and no one ever gave them any shit for it, since everyone knew they were just kidding about the dating thing. Maybe this was an option. But was it a good option? Was I going to be able to hide the fact that every time I saw Daniel I wanted to grab him, push him against the wall and rip his clothes off right then and there? Was I going to be able to hide their reaction my body had every time I set eyes on the man? Or was this just an idea that was destined for failure, something that would guarantee that Daniel and I both got kicked out of this program?
“I’m not sure. I’d like to Daniel, I’d really like to, but you saw how I reacted to your body. You saw what I want to do you. I just don’t know if I can do it.”
“Well, why don’t we give it a try? It doesn’t have to be forever, it doesn’t even have to be for longer than a week or so. All I ask is that we try it, let’s try being friends.”
“Okay, that’s fine. We’ll give it a shot, and either one of us can call it off if we decide it’s becoming too much for us.”
I smiled, happy with the decision we had eventually come to. This way I had a shot, I could always try and just be friends with Daniel, and if it became too much we could call it off.
“Good. So, new friend of mine, what have you been doing the last few days?”
“Avoiding you, mainly. Sitting on my computer, reading old Agatha Christie novels, not doing much really. How about you?”
“I think you know I spend most of my days in the gym. I’ve come up to the lounge room a few times, which has been okay, a few the women around here have been basically throwing themselves at me though. Oh here comes one of them now, I think she’s going to come and sit with us.”
I looked behind me and saw Fiona coming towards us with the big tray of food.
“Hey, mind if I sit with you guys?” she asked, putting her tray down without waiting for an answer. I laughed at the complete obviousness of her flirting with Daniel as she sat in the seat right next to his and immediately turned to him and began to chat.
“What am I here Fiona, chopped liver? I thought we were supposed be friends,” I teased.
“Oh, sorry Kylie, I just wanted to catch up with Daniel first for a few minutes.”
As she continued to chat to him, Daniel glancing at me from time to time with the worried expression on his face, as if to silently beg me to get the crazy lady away from him, I started off bemused, but as the conversation continued I actually found jealousy creeping up inside of me.
I hadn’t been jealous in years. It had been so long, since I’d really truly felt jealousy, I think the last time I really experienced it was in high school. I had a friend, Anita King, who was just naturally so smart. She never had to work for any of her grades, she did extracurriculars, she breezed through every assignment we were ever given and almost always had better marks than me. I was never down by any stretch of the imagination, but there were a few courses where in order to keep my marks high, high enough to get accepted into the best university program I could, I had to really work hard. And still, I could never catch Anita’s grades. I thought it was so unfair at the time, and while we moved on and were still actually pretty good friends (although I hadn’t seen her in months, I basically fell off the face of the earth to my friends after that fateful night), I still remember that jealousy that I felt.
Now, for the first time since I was in school, I felt it again. This time it was aimed at a boy though. God, Daniel and I had literally just agreed a couple of minutes ago to try and work out as friends, and here I was wanting to throttle the only real friend I had in this place before Daniel arrived just because she was flirting with him. What was wrong with me? I forced the jealousy out of my head. I was being stupid. This was how Fiona acted with everyone. This was her thing, to flirt with guys, and I knew she meant absolutely nothing by it. She was happily married. I was being silly, but the fact that jealousy crept into me at all worried me.
“Are you listening Kylie? I was just telling Daniel that it’s not fair that you keep them all to yourself, when there are so many other wonderful women in this place would love to be blessed with the pleasure of his company.”
Hearing my name I was broken out of the thoughts running through my head.
“Oh what? Sorry, I think I drifted away for a minute there. Besides Fiona, I’m not hogging Daniel at all. For one thing, he’s a big boy now and he can hang out with whoever he wants, for another this is the first time I’ve seen him in like three days, except for sports this morning.”
“If you say so darling, just as long as you leave some of him here for the rest of us.”
“For God sakes Fiona, leave the poor man alone. He’s not some animal in a zoo, he is here for exactly the same reason as the rest of us.”
“Yes, well, just because he’s like all of us doesn’t mean we can’t have a little bit of fun, right?”
“You’re impossible Fiona.” I shook my head and laughed at her. She was so typically what somebody thinks of when they think of the rich wife from the suburbs. If it wasn’t for the fact that she kept her hair its natural brown color, she would’ve fit every single stereotype of the rich man’s wife with a drinking problem who flirts with younger men.
We kept her entertained for a while before finally she finished her meal and left Daniel and I in peace when she saw Sam come in.
“She’s found another victim, we’ve got the place to ourselves again,” I told Daniel, who laughed. “Don’t worry about Fiona, she’s completely harmless. She just likes to flirt with anything with a pulse in this place.”
“Yeah, I figured that out a couple of days ago when I was in here and saw her flirting with basically every guy. She is strange, but seems harmless enough.”
“Definitely. She’s probably my only other friend in here apart from you, and if I’m honest I wouldn’t be surprised if she leaves sometime pretty soon. She’s looking a lot better, and sounding a lot better as well.”
“That’s really good for her. The last few days have been getting harder for me as well, I think I’m finally entering the hardest part of the whole detox process.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. The other day when I was in the gym I broke out in sweat, like I was really clammy and I actually thought I had a fever for a while so I went back to my room. Then my hands started shaking, and I went to see Doctor Emma and she told me that it was completely normal. We spoke for a while, about symptoms, whether it was safe for me to train with heavy weights while experiencing the symptoms, that sort of thing. She was good, it was good to talk to her about that sort of stuff.”
“That’s good, I’m glad you’re able to talk to her about things. And don’t worry, eventually the symptoms will pass. It will be tough, it’s really tough, but you will get better.”
“Good to know, thanks. Hey, when you say you think Fiona’s gonna get out of here soon, was she here before you or did she arrive after?”
“She arrived after me, about two months ago. I’ve been here for three months, but I always knew that Fiona would get out before me.”
“Why is that? You seem like a strong woman, much stronger than any that I’ve ever known.”
I shook my head sadly. “I wish that were true. No, the reality is I’m going to be in here for a long time. That’s probably why it’s also good idea to just be friends, there is no hope of me ever getting out of here.”
“But why not? Yeah you’re an alcoholic, but so are thousands of other people. They managed to live life on the outside, avoiding drinking.”
“I don’t deserve to get better,” I replied, and I think the finality my voice told Daniel that this wasn’t a topic he wanted to continue.
“That’s fine, Kylie. You don’t need to tell me anything you don’t want to. But hey, if you ever want to talk about anything, I’m here. After all, we’re friends now, remember?”
“Thanks, Daniel. I appreciate the offer, I’m not really used to talking about this sort of thing.”
“Hey, I get it. I don’t talk about a lot of stuff either, so don’t worry about that. Let’s talk about something else, something happy.”
“Sure, I’d like that. Do you want to go play Scrabble in the games room with me?”
“Of course the potential Doctor would choose Scrabble as the game to play against the athlete,” Daniel teased. “I’m going to show you that not all of us fit the dumb punchy stereotype of hockey players,” he continued, getting up from his chair with a grin.
Ten minutes later we were sitting across from each other on comfortable couches, the Scrabble board in between us. I was staring at my tiles, trying to decide whether I should open with ‘apple’ or ‘patella’. I decided to go with the latter, in honor of my guest. Daniel grinned when he saw the word.
“Trying to throw me off my game with a reference to the knee, are you doctor?” he teased, and I stuck my tongue out at him.
“I didn’t think you would know what a patella was,” I retorted, as he played ‘trails’.
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