Page 4 of Cloud Nine Love

“Are you two…together?” I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but I did want to know if it was just a one-time thing. Maybe they ran into each other on a night out.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“We, um, we had a thing last summer, but I ended it. And then we started up again two months ago.”

So not a one-time thing.

“Do you love him?”

“Yes,” she admitted as she broke down, sobbing. “I’m sorry, Remi. I’m so sorry, Remi.”

I hated when women cried. Especially women I cared about. And despite this news, I did care about Misty.

“Okay.” I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. “Listen, I need to go.”

“Are you okay? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but…I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay. I’m fine. Don’t stress. You shouldn’t be stressing. I’ll, um, I’ll call you later. It’s okay, really. Just take care of yourself.”

I hung up the phone, looked through the glass into the bar, and saw her. She was back. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the information I’d just learned, but I did know one thing. I no longer had to feel guilty for the attraction I’d felt for the green-eyed beauty I was staring at. Hell, I might even be able to act on it.

2

TAYLOR

“All mammals get goosebumps, not just people.” ~ Tim Rhodes

Cold water. That’s what I needed. Cold water.

I waved my hand beneath the spout. When the water began to pour out, I placed my palms beneath the stream, bent over, splashed the water on my face, and cupped the back of my neck. My goal was twofold: one, my face felt greasy after my flight, and two, I needed to snap myself out of this insta-crush I’d developed on a stranger with huge, brown puppy dog eyes, thick brown hair, and a strong jaw covered in stubble.

My body’s response to him was insane. Before I’d looked up and seen him, the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and goosebumps covered my arms. Then, the moment my gaze lifted to his, a spark of recognition lit inside of me. I stared into his eyes and tried to reconcile the fact that I knew I’d never seen him before but somehow recognized him.

As a physician who had spent the last twelve years of her life studying medicine, I was aware of the physiological response to attraction. I knew I was experiencing a series of neurochemical reactions in my brain’s reward center because of the flood of dopamine.

But it felt like more than that, which I couldn’t explain. When I saw him, it was as if my soul had déjà vu. I wasn’t looking into the eyes of a stranger, even though I was sure it was the first time I’d ever seen him. My reaction when our hands touched added further credence to this theory.

For most of my life, I’d suffered from haphephobia, which meant I had an aversion, fear, and anxiety about strangers touching me, especially men. That condition was magnified by my hypersensitivity to being touched by strangers, especially men, which caused me to feel actual physical discomfort.

People always assumed that I was a germaphobe because of my aversion to contact; at least, they did until they found out my occupation. That sort of phobia would make my career as a physician, specializing in trauma, impossible. Thankfully, when I was in work mode, my brain chemistry rewired itself, and I didn’t suffer either affliction.

For thirty years, I’d battled with my invisible conditions, which all stemmed from a trauma I experienced at five years old. I don’t remember very many details about the event that changed my life forever, just flashes of images. Scents, sounds or tastes would sometimes trigger my sensory memories. Burning rubber, sirens, metal crunching, squealing tires, anything with a metallic flavor, and even coffee on someone’s breath would transport me back in time, almost like a dream.

It was a sunny day, music was playing through the speakers, and I was riding shotgun in my father’s pickup truck when another driver fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into us. It was a head-on collision that proved fatal for my dad. I remember music playing and him laughing and looking at me, then everything sort of goes in slow motion in still shots.

My dad’s head and body fling forward like a ragdoll. The next slides are of hands reaching into the truck and prying me out. I’m crying, desperately holding onto my dad’s arm, and my mouth tastes like I’ve been sucking on pennies. I don’t want to let him go, but the hands are stronger than me. I reach out for my dad, but his body is slumped over the wheel, his face covered in blood, and his soulless, blank eyes staring directly at me. That is the last memory I have of my father.

The rest of the next twenty-four hours are a blur. According to the police reports I’ve read since becoming an adult, the people who pulled me out were Good Samaritan drivers who stopped to help. They handed me off to firefighters, then to EMTs, and when I reached the hospital, nurses and doctors took over. At five years old, I didn’t know why all these strangers were lifting me up, holding me, and carrying me. All I knew was that they took me away from my dad.

It took my mom a full day to come and visit me in the hospital. For years, I didn’t know why she left me there alone. It wasn’t until she passed away ten years ago that I read her journals and learned that the day of the accident, my father was leaving her and taking me with him.

That was the last piece of the puzzle I needed to fill in the blanks of my childhood. Growing up, my mother was an undiagnosed bipolar alcoholic. She didn’t seek medical attention for her mental illness and alcoholism until I enlisted in the Navy at age eighteen and moved away from home. It was then, when she was totally alone, with no one to clean up her mess or absorb her manic and erratic behavior, that she decided to get help.

Over the years, I’ve gone to a handful of therapists and psychologists who all agree that both my haphephobia and hypersensitivity were initially triggered by the trauma of the crash and then exacerbated by a tumultuous and volatile childhood.

At thirty-five years of age, I’d learned to live with my aversions. I had coping mechanisms that helped, including always flying first class for more room and, when in crowded spaces, only sitting down if there was an end seat available and I could put a bag on the chair next to me so there were no accidental touches.

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