Page 20 of Alarm Fatigue

“According to the nurses you are seeing someone and he took you sailing. Is that right?”

“I had a date.” I say stupidly. As if I have to answer to you. “What is that to you, Mark?”

He lets out a breath. “Is it serious?”

“I can’t be myself with him. So, it could be fun, but it cannot be serious.” Wait, why am I telling him everything? I am wondering how he is a human lie detector test when he starts talking again.

“I need to go.”

What the hell is happening? He is turning to go when I reach my hand to grab his jacket and when I tug on him he turns back into me and leans closer. My right hand is clutching the left lapel of his jacket and it feels like he is made of electricity, as my hand is buzzing.

Mark looks at my hand, surprise registering on his face. “May I take it that you grabbing my jacket is tantamount to consenting for me to kiss you? Is that correct?” He stops looking at my hand to look directly into my eyes. “May I kiss you?”

“Yes.” Yes.

He reaches his hands up and puts his palms on the wall to either side of my head as I temporarily lose the ability to breathe. He is not even touching me yet and I cannot breathe. I, for one, have not let go of his jacket. He leans in and finally his lips are on mine. His kiss blows my mind. I literally cannot think. His lips on mine become more urgent. The electricity that is emanating from him is what is still keeping me upright. My own hands travel up his chest and suddenly I am grabbing at the back of his head, my fingers in his hair, like I am falling out of the sky and his hair is the only thing left for me to hang onto. Suddenly I realize who I am and what I am doing. I freeze.

“Mark,” I whisper. He stops, moving back an inch, and looks into me.

“Rachel?”

“What is this?”

“This is years of me needing to kiss you.”

“Oh.” And whatever else I wanted to say is gone because he kisses me again and this kiss is somehow more gentle and yet even more intense and are my toes curling? Is that an actual thing that happens?

“Oh,” I say again, as he has moved his mouth down to my neck and I dumbly wonder if I drank more than I realized.

“Mark.” I whisper.

“Rachel.” He has stopped again and is looking intently at me, patiently waiting to hear what I want to say.

“Years?”

“Years.”

“I thought you did not like me. I actually thought you hated me.” At this point, having no control over my emotions, my eyes betray me and fill with tears. This seems both to sober him and break him from his trance. At that moment, Kimberly, a nurse old enough to still be a smoker, steps outside to light a cigarette. Mark springs back from me of me like I have been doused in some type of man repellent.

He takes another look at me, searching my face for something, but I have no idea what it might be. He starts to speak but seems to change his mind and then he walks away without another word to me and heads back inside.

I work to catch my breath.

Kimberly seems too drunk to notice anyone is here but her.

I follow Mark back inside, but he has gone. I look around the party and he is nowhere to be found.

I grab as many chocolate mousses as I can gather up in my hands, and sit down to my feast. Judging that I am not yet fit for driving a car, I will sit here and enjoy several desserts. It turns out they taste even better than they look. However, they are nothing compared to the electricity still buzzing within me. This is years of needing to kiss you. Pausing on the desserts for a moment, I stop to actually pinch myself to see if I am, in fact, just dreaming. Nope. It seems that everything that just happened on that patio did happen on this plane of existence.

After more calories in dessert than I should probably be eating in an entire day, I finally search out the guests of honor to say my farewells. Mike and Carrie are seated together at a side table and I sit with them as we reminisce for a little while. Still feeling as though I had an out-of-body experience, I decide to leave my car until the morning. Giving them each an embrace, I take my leave and, in fugue state, I head out to the street to wait for a ride share. While I am standing there I text Amalie and inform her that we need to talk soon, and in person. Realizing it is nearly midnight I send her a follow-up text and tell her I am fine and have had too much to drink, but that we do need to talk. My driver appears just then to take me home.

Chapter 16

Together, we have built a refuge of sorts, Amalie and I. There is something about living a life without secrets, of being able to speak the truth about myself, that has created a sense of security that I was missing early in life. When I first I shared with Amalie the things I was keeping concealed about my home and my family, it was as if someone had opened the windows to my heart and let the sun shine in for the very first time. Being able to depend on her, and later, to a certain extent, Eli and my daughters, served as a release from the incredible pressure I had previously been living under. Once I tasted that freedom, of being heard and being seen, I could never go back to living alone.

It never occurred to me as a kid in summer camp that Amalie would still be my truest and dearest friend so many years later. With all my heart, I strive to be half the friend to her that she has been to me. Today, however, was not going to be that day.

Here in the present, I know I am in my own room before I open my eyes. What a dream; it felt so real. Slowly coming to at least a level of semi-consciousness, I start to review snapshots in my mind: Mark standing at the edge of a dance floor, our encounter on the patio, Mark leaving…oh shit. I slowly sit up as I realize that this was not a dream at all. I reach over and grab my phone and reading glasses. The last thing I remember doing before I left that party for home was sending texts to Amalie. Needless to say, my messages to her resulted in multiple responses, all of which I have slept through. Apparently, she had started her day bright and early which means that I am now waking up to multiple texts demanding a reply.

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