by Annie Jocoby
She opened it, and it was obvious that she had been crying. My heart melted upon seeing her, with her tear-stained face, and hair that was loosely flowing for once. I had never seen her with her hair down, and I felt even more captivated, if that was possible. She was still in her pajamas, which meant, of course, that she was lying when she said that she was about to go somewhere. I was charmed to see that the pajamas that she wore were Winnie the Pooh bottoms with a matching top in blue. I also noticed that, on her coffee table, there was not only a box of tissues, but also about fifteen crumpled up Kleenexes.
She said nothing, but just turned her back and walked back into the apartment. I followed her, and sat down with her on the couch.
I put my arm around her, and felt her stiffen up upon doing so. I felt daunted, but I had to comfort her. I knew that she was crying because of me, and that just broke my heart. As the British would say, I was gutted at that moment.
How do I bring this up? I sat there with my arm around her, ignoring her obvious body language about my touching her, trying to decide what to say to her. It was so not like me, not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to address something. But I found myself absolutely tongue-tied, perhaps for the first time in my life.
I finally just decided that I needed to confront the situation head-on, which was how I usually confronted every situation. “Scotty, uh, I know that you talked to Ryan.”
She nodded her head. “Yes. And, I’ve spent the last couple of hours just thinking about things.” She paused for a few minutes. “Nick, uh, I think that I need to get this out of the way. I’m in love with you.”
My heart skipped about a hundred beats upon hearing that. She did feel the same way about me as I did about her! I put my hand her hair, and nuzzled her neck. But she gently pushed me off of her. “I don’t think that you understand. I can’t get involved with you any further. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk being vulnerable with somebody, only to have that somebody move on to a newer and shinier object.”
At those words, my heart sank. My own words came back to haunt me – that, one of these days, my lifestyle would catch up to me. And, lo and behold, this moment proved it.
My lifestyle had officially caught up with me.
“Scotty,” I began. “I know what you’re thinking. And, you are right to be thinking that. Absolutely right. I have had my share of random hookups. More than my share. But I want you to know that you are truly, truly, truly special to me. More than anybody has ever been. I’ve thought of little else but you these past few weeks, and I can say, without any reservations whatsoever, that I am madly in love with you.”
I saw a flicker in those green eyes that gave me hope.
But it was a false hope. She shook her head. “No, Nick. I’m sorry. I can’t get involved with somebody who sees sex as something that isn’t special.” Then she took a deep breath. “Perhaps if I tell you what happened to me, you will know why.”
I held my breath. Was she going to tell me about the abuse?
She was shaking again, and she reached for another Kleenex. I continued to have my arm around her, and I also continued to stroke her hair. Every tear that she shed was tearing me apart. I felt her despair all the way to my core, and all that I wanted to do was to erase all of her sadness.
Just erase it.
If only I could.
She took a deep breath. “I’m only going to tell you this because I want you to understand where I am coming from. I don’t want you to think that I feel that you’re a bad person, or morally damaged or anything like that. I don’t want you to feel that I am judging you. But I do need you to understand me, and why being with you is so terrifying for me. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, and the slightest wind might come along and knock me over.”
I just sat there, not saying a word for once in my life. “Go on,” I said
Another deep breath, and she looked at her Kleenex in her hands. “Uh, okay,” she began. “My mother, as you probably know, is a little unstable.”
She got up and got a glass of water for myself and her, and sat back down. I just took the water, and continued to say nothing. But I hoped that I was silently encouraging her to confide in me.
“Go on,” I said.
“Well, ok. She was unstable, and she couldn’t care for me. At all. She left me alone in the apartment almost all the time, even when I was very small. She didn’t work, but had a hellacious alcohol habit to finance, so she turned tricks. Growing up, when she was not leaving me completely alone in the apartment, she was there with some random guy, hooking up so that she could get enough money to buy her booze. And that was literally where all her money went. Because she certainly wasn’t spending the money on food or clothing, for either her or me. If it weren’t for food stamps and the church pantry, we both would have starved to death. I had about one pair of jeans growing up, and one top. To say that I was embarrassed when I started school was an understatement.”
Okay. So, maybe there wasn’t sexual abuse. Perhaps she has a problem with casual sex because her mother and her tricks.
But, no, there was more.
She took another deep breath. “Well, somebody reported her, and I was removed from the home. I went through one foster home after another, and I also was reunited with my mother periodically, because sometimes she got her act together long enough to convince the court to give her custody of me again. But, she would always go right back to what she was doing, so, eventually, her parental rights were severed.”
I could feel my heart breaking, absolutely breaking, for this beautiful woman. All that she had to endure was simultaneously breaking my heart and making me feel even more in love with her by the second. Her combination of vulnerability and strength were absolutely intoxicating.
She shook her head. “I was eligible to be adopted at the age of 9. And that was what I wanted. I mean, I really wanted to be with my mother, because I loved her, no matter how awful of a parent she was. But if I couldn’t be with her, then I wanted to be with a family that would love me and would treat me like one of their own. I craved that sense of permanence and unconditional love that most everybody else takes for granted.”
“Of course,” I said softly. “And you deserved that.”
She nodded her head. “I know that I did. But I couldn’t find it. I went through four different families, all of whom promised me that they would adopt me, and all of whom gave me back after a short time. I have no idea why, to this day.”
I was incredulous. This sweet, beautiful girl, and these families didn’t want to keep her? Especially after telling her that they would? What the hell was wrong with these people???
Another deep breath, and she continued on with her story. “Well, when I was 11, I finally settled in with a family that I hoped to call my own. They were a wealthy family who lived in a lavish apartment on the Upper West Side. The mother was a K-Street lobbyist who commuted between Washington and here, and the father was a Wall Street trader.”
It sounded like this was a good thing, this family, but Scotty’s body language told me otherwise. She started shaking uncontrollably, and I knew that this story held the key to Scotty’s fears. Somehow, this family was pivotal to who she was, and I was grateful that I was going to be privy to it. Because it could give me a road map on how to help her heal.
“Go on, Scotty. I’m listening.”
She nodded her head again. “Well, uh, things were great for awhile. They didn’t have any children, so I was like their only child, and they really tried to make me feel welcome and at home. I really loved Elle, the mother. She was very sweet, even if she was completely driven in her day job. She was a lobbyist, as I said, but her lobbying was for things that helped the world. She lobbied for environmental and human rights causes. So, I looked up to her.”
I braced myself for the bombshell to come. Because I could sense that it was right around the corner.
“The father, uh, his name is, well I’ll give him a different name. Let’s
say his name is Sam Johnson. Sam was 33 and very successful, and very handsome to boot. The two of them really made a beautiful couple, and they were socialites. Everybody who was anybody knew both of them. They really were the center of a lot of New York scenes.”
Scotty now had body language that showed how anxious she was. She took one of the pillows on her couch, and was hugging it tightly as she shook.
She didn’t look me in the eye when she told me what happened next. “Well, uh, when I was 13, I started to look more like a woman. I got my, uh, my breasts that year. And I started to feel uncomfortable sometimes around the house. Paul, I mean Sam, started staring at me like he had never stared at me before. And Elle wasn’t always around, because, you know, she stayed in DC a lot.”
I suddenly knew where this was going, and I suddenly had the violent urge to find this Sam Johnson and rip his lungs out. Flay him alive, inch by inch.
But I let her continue with her story.
She started crying again as she continued on with her story. “Sam, uh, came into my bedroom one night a few months after I had my 13th birthday. He crawled into bed with me, and kissed me and felt me up. He told me that I was beautiful and that he could see that I wanted him.”
At this point, I bit my lip, hard, to keep myself from completely losing control. I was going to kill this man, and I was going to do it slowly…
She shook her head. “I didn’t want him. I mean, I was interested in boys, like anybody my age would be. I really didn’t want him at all. But he persisted. Every night, he would come into my room and fondle me.”
Her breathing started coming harder and harder, and the tears were coming faster as well. “This went on for a few months, him fondling and kissing me. Then, one night, he, uh, he, uh….”
Calm down, Nick. Calm down. You need to be there for her, so calm down. But I felt my own heart racing and realized that I, too, was crying. Which was something that I never did.
“He, uh, he, uh…he-he-he-he r-r-raped me. He promised me that it wouldn’t hurt, but it was excruciating. And, even after he did it to me that first night, and I had never felt pain like that before, he did it to me again that same night.”
To my surprise, she was able to tell her story easier, more fluently, after telling me about the rape. Like she was past the worst part.
But she did still seem very anxious. “Well, from that point on, for about a year, he came in and raped me every night that his wife wasn’t there. Which was pretty much Monday-Friday. Of course, when she came home on the weekends, and she did come home almost every weekend, thank god, he left me alone. But, when she returned to work on the following Monday, it would start over again. Sometimes two or three times in the same night. I never wanted it, but I didn’t know what to do about it. And I didn’t get pregnant because he forced me to take the pill soon after it all began.”
She was shaking again, and I was too. I looked down and saw that my hands were visibly shaking, and I imagined that my body was too. I was feeling so many emotions – hatred and rage for this man, sorrow for Scotty, and an overwhelming love and admiration for her. She was so strong to have survived this.
She continued. “Finally, I, uh, started telling people about it. I told my social worker about it, and some of my teachers. It was pretty obvious to me, however, that they didn’t believe me. I mean, this guy was so well-respected. He had tons of friends and admirers, and gave a fortune to charity. There was no way that he could be doing what he was doing.”
Another deep breath for her. “So, finally, I took matters into my own hands. I ran away. Just ran away. I found an abandoned car in a seedy neighborhood, and moved in. I lived in this car for an entire year, eating out of dumpsters, showering at the YMCA when I could, and picking up cans and bottles all day to get the money to feed myself. It was a shitty life, but infinitely better than living with Paul, I mean Sam.”
My admiration for her grew even more, exponentially. Her strength – in taking matters into her own hands, and surviving on her own on the streets – astounded me.
If I wasn’t truly, madly, deeply in love with her before, I was after hearing her story.
And I knew, right at that moment, that this was going to be the woman that I would spend the rest of my life with. If it was the last thing I did, I would make her my wife. And, unlike the first time I was married, I knew that I would be faithful to Scotty. I just knew that.
She took a deep breath. “So, you see, Nick, I was, uh, used by Sam for a year. He saw me as nothing more than a plaything. An outlet. I can’t get involved with somebody who doesn’t see sex as being connected to love. I have had a very difficult time being around any guy except Jack. I, uh, have never been on a date. And, I have never willingly had sex with anybody. I really don’t know if I am capable of being intimate with somebody. I might never be. But it will take a lot for me to learn how to trust. And, I, I, I, don’t think that I would be able to trust you.”
My heart sank, but only briefly. Yes, it will be more complicated to get Scotty to trust you enough to give her heart to you. But I knew that it was what I not only wanted, but needed, to happen. I suddenly couldn’t see myself being interested in anybody else but her.
But how would I ever convince her of this? I knew that I had to be perfectly honest with her about my past, and, suddenly, I was the one who was feeling vulnerable and anxious.
“Scotty,” I said. “That story touches my heart. You don’t know how profoundly you have touched me. I wish that there were words that I could express that would make you believe that I won’t be the man that I was to you. If that makes any sense at all. You’ve captivated me as no woman ever has. I haven’t been the greatest guy in the whole world. I’ve slept with way too many people, and I know that I’ve broken more than few hearts along the way. But, you have to believe me, I am ready to give it all up for you.”
She looked doubtful, to say the least. “I wish that I could believe you. But, I think that I’ve gone through enough tragedy in my life. Loving somebody who is fickle, and who will leave me when he is tired of me, would just devastate me. I’m really sorry, Nick, but I just can’t take that chance.”
“Scotty, what words can I use to convince you that you’re different for me? That I won’t treat you callously? That you are special to me, like nobody has ever been?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that you can convince me of that. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just need an excuse not to get close, because I’m afraid of intimacy, more than you will ever know. I don’t know. But I do know that it is just safer for me if you and I keep our relationship strictly professional from now on. It’s going to be difficult to do for me, because I am madly in love with you already. I had a crush on you from the very first day of class, and I think that I fell in love with you with that kiss in the car. And I know that, if there ever came a time when we actually made love, I would be lost. Past the point of no return. If you left me after that happened, I literally don’t think that I could survive it. So, please. Please find somebody who isn’t as broken as me. Because I don’t think that you would have the stomach for somebody like me. Nobody would.”
“I’m not going to give up, Scotty. I know it might be sudden, but I know that you’re the one for me. And, just for the record, I’m probably as broken as you.” As soon as I said that last part, however, I regretted it. She had just opened up to me, but I somehow couldn’t do the same right now with her. I hadn’t talked about my feelings about my own tragedies with anybody, not even Ryan. He knew about them, of course, but even he didn’t know how much they had affected me.
She looked at me quizzically. “You’re broken too?” She was interested in this. “You seem to have it all. How could you be broken too?”
I just got quiet for a few minutes, and then said “Well, sometimes looks can be deceiving. Anyhow, we aren’t talking about me. I need to know how I can make you trust me never to hurt you. Tell me what I need to do.”
She put her hea
d down, and said “There really isn’t anything. I’m sorry. I might not have much of a life, outside of Jack and my school. But that life is safe for me. You are not. You’re the very antithesis of safe. You have the ability to really send me reeling. It took me a long time to recover from Mr. Johnson. But if I get involved with you, and I turn out just to be another notch in your bedpost…well, I don’t think I would recover from that.”
It was then that I knew that I needed to give her time. I wasn’t going to give up. I just had to do what I could to slowly get her to know that I was in love with her, enough that I knew that I would be faithful. For the first time in my life. Because she was special. Truly special.
I took a deep breath. “Okay then Scotty. I probably can’t convince you right now. But I’m not giving up. You’ll soon see how I feel about you, and that I will never hurt you. I don’t know how I’m going to convince you of this, but if it takes me the rest of my life, I will convince you. I love you, Scotty. I’m in love with you. I don’t say that. Ever. I’ve been married, and I never once told her that I was in love with her, because I wasn’t. I know that you have no reason to believe me when I tell you that this is the first real time that I have ever been in love, but it is.” Of course, I didn’t tell her about Iris. I was in love with her, too, but Iris was so off-limits for me that it wasn’t real. I couldn’t really act on my feelings for her, ever.
On the other hand, I could act on my feelings with Scotty. I could spend my life with her, making sure that she was happy every day. That was the reality, and since I could have Scotty, I knew that my feelings for her were genuine.
And I would take my time making sure that she knew it too.
Chapter 28
Scotty
So, Nick had just left my apartment, and I’m feeling so empty and devastated that I can’t even stand it. I wished that I had never gotten to know him. It was fine for me when he was the professor that I dreamed about every night before I went to sleep. But, as soon as he became a reality, it all became too terrifying to me. And, after I talked to Ryan, and I could sense that Ryan was trying very hard not to tell me how much Nick got around, I knew for sure. There was simply no way that I would allow myself to get involved with Nick more than I was. A couple of kisses, which was huge for me, would be as far as it went.
