Thankful that Kara and James weren’t camped out in the living room, and that my mom for once must be somewhere else in the house, I climbed the stairs and slipped into my haven. Quietly closing the door behind me, I considered calling Diane, but decided that I needed to evaluate the evening myself, navigate the developments on my own. Tonight had been a big step, and I needed to fully grasp every minute of it before I could share.
Getting ready for bed, washing my face and brushing my teeth, I pulled on some extra comfy pajamas and crawled into bed. Refusing to check my phone, knowing that I needed no more distractions from sleep than my overactive thoughts, I lay in the dark and began to replay the evening. Each new experience flashed through my head, and I considered how I’d felt about them.
I’d had a good time. I felt good, I knew that I looked good, and Charlie seemed to appreciate both how I looked and my company. I didn’t love how he surprised me a couple of times, it had been hard to relax when he touched me without warning, but Rachel had made a point of making it clear that certain events needed context. And the context of a date made uninvited things like handholding, understandable. Socialized people gave and received social cues, and my accompanying Charlie was a cue that I might be receptive to his resting his hand on my shoulder, or helping me out of his car.
Which was why I had taken control of the kiss. I didn’t want to allow him to decide to take the lead on that move, because as innocuous as a sweet kiss generally was, it was still much much more to someone like me. Take.
Because He hadn’t stolen that from me. He hadn’t stolen my ability to choose, from here on. I chose to kiss Charlie, and for the night, that was enough to allow me to fall into sleep.
THIRTY
Today’s new thing for my journal was that he hadn’t stolen….Fuck. I was all out. There was nothing left of me that he hadn’t scathed, hadn’t robbed me of, or hadn’t literally touched. Today went down as a defeat.
THIRTY-ONE
Charlie was always exactly on time for stuff. Which to me, was essentially late. I had become accustomed to showing up for things absurdly ahead of time, to avoid the rush, avoid awkward entrances, and just to give me enough time to mentally shore myself up. And, I had no life, so it was easy to give myself plenty of time to get places without shaving essential minutes off of my non-existent other plans. So as I sat at our now frequent haunt, the coffee shop where we met to study and work on our project, I wasn’t surprised that Charlie wasn’t here yet.
I was surprised that Harrison was. Apparently he’d mixed up the time and shown up early. He seemed both embarrassed by this, and completely unfazed. That was Harrison for you. He rolled as he rolled and he rolled with it. I got the sense that the embarrassment that he had felt at showing up early was not because he had accidentally been confused about the time that we were meeting, the same time that we met every time, but was in fact because he’d arrived early to a school-related event. Harrison had a life, and school was not a part of it.
“So I guess you’re stuck with me until the true star of the show arrives,” he said, rolling his eyes. He’d already moved on from embarrassment to boredom. I got the sense that Harrison didn’t necessarily like Charlie all that much, possibly because many of Charlie’s charms were lost on him, being a hetero dude and all. “I can’t wait for this whole thing to be done.” And case in point: Harrison was just all around annoyed by school and the project and anything that reminded him of it. AKA Charlie.
“Yeah,” I just said, because honestly, this ‘whole thing’ was kind of all that I had going on right now. Not that I’d admit that to Mr. Social Butterfly over there.
“I mean, hanging with you is cool and all, but a guy has other stuff to do.” Thanks for clarifying, Harrison.
“Yes, I get it. We all get it, Harrison. You are a very busy man.” It was my time to roll my eyes.
“Well, look at that. You do have an awareness of things outside of school and Charlie.” Harrison laughed, so I knew that he was just teasing me, but it was my turn to be embarrassed. I knew that from the outside I seemed pretty bland, but that wasn’t what was embarrassing. What was awkward was my apparently obvious intrigue with Charlie. Ugh. “But it’s good to see that you aren’t just “nice” about everything.”
“Trust me, I’m not nice about everything.” Where was this going?
“It’s cool. You’re kind of mysterious, Cass. I mean, you show up and you work hard and you contribute your intellect, but otherwise, you’re sort of a closed book.”
“Don’t feel bad, Harrison. You’re a closed book too…well, a closed black book,” I replied, and Harrison actually laughed even louder. His dark eyes held a glimmer of amusement, and I remembered why I actually liked Harrison. He was so easygoing, there was such little pressure being around him. Harrison seemed like he was rarely surprised, rarely bothered, and didn’t expect a whole lot from other people. It made it simpler for someone who didn’t feel like she had a whole lot to provide.
“I guess I’m not as mysterious as I try to be,” he said, his smile growing as he lifted his eyebrows at me. Harrison was good looking, which explained his active social life, but in a low-key kind of way. His hair was always messy, despite having a stylized cut, his signature white tee and jeans always clean, but simple, and he was never without his black boots. He didn’t try at all, it seemed, but it worked. Mostly, his openness was what I appreciated the most about Harrison, making you forget that he was both handsome and came off as somewhat aloof.
I got aloof.
“Anyway, plans for summer?” Harrison was making small talk, and I had a moment of understanding that this was an opportunity to both practice and learn.
“Not really. I should take summer classes, I’m enrolled just in case, since I can always drop. But otherwise…pretty uneventful.” I’d done it. I’d sounded like a nerd, but I hadn’t just stared at him, so that was a plus. Then I took it one step further. “You?”
“Definitely not classes,” Harrison rolled his eyes. Yep, I was just confirmed to be a nerd. “I have a part-time gig at a home improvement store, so I’ll probably just up my hours. But summer is for fun, Cass. Hopefully you won’t spend your whole time reading in your room,” he joked, but I felt a flare of defensiveness because that was what I would most likely be doing. That, and hanging with my two friends, my nurse and my therapist.
Which brought me to a new exercise: What He gave me.
Maybe this was a step in the right direction, except that I wasn’t sure that most things on the list would be positive, and I was definitely fairly certain that continuing to hyper-analyze my attacker’s impact on my life was eventually going to not be so healthy. But still, Harrison had just made me discover this new exercise…
Because in that moment, I realized that He had given me lameness. I was much lamer than I used to be, and watching Harrison navigate a budding friendship with ease only shined a spotlight on that.
THIRTY-TWO
“So I think I have a friend!” I was actually excited to see Rachel today, proud of myself and in an odd good mood. Rachel, however, wasn’t as excited for me. Or at least, she was reserving her judgment for after she had sucked my brain. “My friend is Harrison. Since you asked. We spent our whole ‘study session’ not studying and just talking. It was kind of cool.” I smiled as I remembered our easy chat. It was exactly what I’d needed and hadn’t realized. Charlie had a conflict and for once, couldn’t attend, so it had been just us two misfits and I’d felt strangely relieved about that.
“What draws you to Harrison, what makes you want him for a friend?” Rachel asked, with feigned casualty. I knew Rachel better than that, and should have known that she wouldn’t just be happy for me. She was going to make me dissect my newfound friendship and take everything that I was appreciating, out of it. Bleah.
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. This stuff was why I was here, I guessed. “Harrison isn’t complicated. He doesn’t expect anything, and I feel like it’s sort of
a reprieve from the rest of my life.” It was true. Harrison just let me talk when I wanted to, not being bothered by silence or long pauses in the conversation. He talked when he wanted to, granted much more than I did, but he didn’t seem to feel the need to fill the void. It was like with Harrison, the ‘void’ wasn’t a void. It was just a break from talking. A not awkward break.
“But you’re drawn to Charlie as well…” Oh I saw where this was going.
“It’s not the same thing. I said I have a ‘friend.’ I didn’t say hey there’s this other hot guy in my group who I’m getting to know.” I shot a look of scorn at Rachel.
“So he’s hot?” Oh my god.
“Rachel! Can’t you just be glad that there is a person who I had a fun time hanging out with?”
“Of course. This is great news, Cass.” Oddly, her tone didn’t imply that it was actually great news. “But let’s get back to Charlie. You went out with him, you said you had a moderately successful time. So you are drawn to him as well.” Rachel and I had spent our entire last session dissecting my date, her applauding my decision to take control of the dreaded and highly anticipated kiss, and despite not being entirely on board, hadn’t left me feeling like I had made an awful decision. But I wasn’t here for dissection, I was here because for once, I was happy that I was becoming more adept at socialization. I had a friend!
“First of all, I’m not ‘drawn’ to Harrison. He’s just a fun guy to hang out with. Secondly, I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” Because it seemed like Rachel was asking me something, but I’d missed the actual question.
“Ok, let’s put Harrison aside for a moment. I’m just trying to gauge where your mind is right now, Cass. Have patience with me.” Rachel always knew how to express herself in a way that made me back down. Because I knew that she and I shared the same goal, to get me as healthy mentally as possible, and I appreciated that. Rachel wasn’t trying to annoy the heck out of me, that was just a by-product of the process and although that didn’t make me enjoy said by-product, I at least understood.
“Ok.” I inhaled and exhaled slowly, using Rachel’s own tools to collect my thoughts.
“What draws you to Charlie? You’ve told me that he’s very attractive, but I know you well enough to understand that physical good looks wouldn’t be enough to pierce your barriers.” She was right about that, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
“I don’t know. I’m not actually convinced that it isn’t all just an abstract infatuation. I feel like Charlie is a snow globe, or one of those Madison Avenue Christmas window displays. Like, I kind of just enjoy the whole presentation…I like observing him from the outside world, but would I want to live in that picturesque ideal?” Rachel nodded for me to continue, and I was catching on that it was her technique for when she didn’t necessarily get where I was going with my ramblings, but wanted to see where the pontification went. Sometimes it produced something interesting; most often I just sounded like an idiot. Oh well.
“Charlie is intense. Everything he does seems like it has power behind it, intention, but he executes it all with ease. It’s like he’s in total control of himself and his actions, and consequently, in control of the world around him. His intense world. But it’s impressive, having that kind of mastery. He takes his potential and actualizes it.” I wasn’t sure if I was explaining this well. “It’s like all of his choices are both calculated and effortless. I guess it’s that combination that is intriguing to me.”
“I can appreciate that. I know that you wish you had control over much of what you have been made to feel powerless about. Do you covet Charlie’s authority over his life? Or is it just a quality that you find attractive in others?”
“I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t truly articulated it all to myself until now.” I both hated and loved my sessions with Rachel. I always came out better on the other side, but they were hard, work that I wasn’t being paid for tangibly. I always had to remind myself of the abstract reward at the end of the tunnel, remember that in theory, with enough hard work and dedication, I might possibly turn into Cass 3.0.
“Well, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but you continue to mention ‘intensity’ when you speak of Charlie, and I’m not entirely convinced that a quality like that is one which is the healthiest for you to be immersed in.” Oh. I’d thought this exercise was about me, but apparently it was about Charlie. Maybe I hadn’t explained him well, since Rachel didn’t seem to appreciate all that was him.
“Yeah, but it’s not like intensity in the way you’re thinking. It’s like, Charlie is like the sun, intense like that, where it’s amazing and beautiful, but you can’t look too long directly at it.” I was pretty sure that I was making this worse. “And no, I don’t wish that I was like him. I kind of like who I am now. I don’t mind not having the whole room look at me when I walk in, and not like before where I just wanted to hide from scrutiny across the board. I just feel comfortable with not being exceptional. It feels like it fits better.” I had experience with being the most exceptional person in the room, and it wasn’t always a positive thing.
“I’m glad to hear that. But you will always need to acknowledge that more people are aware of you and your presence than it seems. You are exceptional, Cass. Many people will never get to experience just how much so, but just as many will, at the very least, be taken with your beauty and your overall energy. You’ve come a long way, and you now carry yourself with a quiet confidence that people will be drawn to, themselves. And I know that you hate the reminder, but you will eventually need to own the fact that humans are drawn to physical beauty, and are taken with the superficial. So for the many people who will not be made better for knowing the real you, they will still be affected by your presence. I suspect that the whole room knows well and good when you enter.”
“I didn’t ask for that.” I immediately felt stupid for my statement. I didn’t ask for so much more than just my pretty face. Luckily Rachel let it go. Unlike Diane, she tried not to call me out on the really obvious stuff.
“Right. But it doesn’t change that fact. You say that you had barely expressed yourself verbally to Charlie when he seemed to become interested in you. Or at least, interested in getting to know you. You will need to acknowledge that on some level it was because of your looks.” This was making me feel a little sick. “But that’s ok. That’s how attraction works. We start on the outside and work our way in. It’s also the opposite sometimes, we get to know someone and they seem to grow in attractiveness to us. Either way, this is how relationships develop. I’m just giving you some food for thought. You are not as invisible as you feel, Cass. Which is also a lesson on safety, I might add.”
“Yeah, I know. Trust me. I had to learn the hard way, for that lesson.” I shuddered as I tried not to remember how disoriented I had felt as I was swept up and redirected by my attacker.
“Ok, so I just want you to consider some stuff. Why you like Charlie, and are those reasons elements that you feel will contribute to your journey toward health. Why Charlie likes you, and are those the qualities that you wish to be representative of the real you. And, if any of this even matters, or if this is just an experiment with socializing, the outcome being less important than the process.” Rachel had ticked off each point of consideration as she held up her fingers in numerical progression.
“Ok, Rach. Because the third point, that’s actually the one that I’ve already been contemplating. Even on my date, it felt like that was at the forefront of my mind. Did any of it really matter outside of my pushing myself out of my comfort zone, within reason, and trying to take something away from the whole experience?” I wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t just being a hopeless romantic, but I suspected that Rachel already knew that. Or, was at least hoping that she could feel confident in her assessment of that fact.
“Good. I think that is a healthy way to approach this budding romance that you have. Because I have said it before, but I’m not convinced tha
t you should be throwing yourself into a relationship, especially with the ‘sun.’” I thought that maybe Rachel was trying to bring some levity to her statement, but it sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
“I know that there is a lot going on with my analogous language, but I think that you are giving me too much credit. I’m trying to explain something that feels intangible, and thus, feels unexplainable.” I tried to clarify what I, myself, was having difficulty articulating. Rachel waved her hand, as if I were still speaking nonsense, but I knew that it meant that she actually understood my point and was waving away my feeling that I needed to clarify. That was actually one of the best parts of a successful relationship between a therapist and her patient: knowing each other well enough that we began to speak the same language. I appreciated Rachel and our intimacy, and I knew that I should tell her that more…or ever.
“So Harrison…” Ok, nevermind. Not going to be telling her about my appreciation of our working relationship.
“God. You’ve already made me forget how happy I was when I got here, wanting to tell you about having made a friend.” Rachel blinked slowly and I hoped that I hadn’t hurt her feelings. But, it was true.
“Cass, I’m thrilled that you’ve made a friend. And you’re old enough that I don’t need to feel concerned that it isn’t with another girl. I know you and your sister are rebuilding your connection, and other friendships with women will develop organically. I’d just like to hear about this new friend. It’s my job.” Don’t remind me; up until today I’d counted Rachel as one of my two friends, and she was just doing her job. It made me feel icky.
TWELVE MINUTES Page 13
