Page 15 of Look, Don't Touch

I press the button and put the phone to my ear. “I didn’t text you so that you can call and charge me time and a half, Astor.”

“You know damn well I quit charging you last year, Hay Bale.”

“Sure do.” It was midnight damn near twelve months to the day when she’d called me frantic, begging me to save her brother’s relationship, and I’d agreed to treat his porn addiction. “How are the newlyweds, by the way?”

“Disgustingly in love.”

“Ugh! Love. The worst.” I laugh.

“I hate to be blunt, but if you’re already on the way, I know we don’t have long. I know what triggered you. Holly called earlier when she couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“Yeah.” My voice is small and quiet.

“We’ve talked about this possibility and have prepared several alternatives for pleasure-seeking to cope in a healthier manner.”

“And I’ve worn them all out in the lead-up.” My ankle bobs, nearly taking my pump off in the process. “It’s been a shitty week.”

“You should have called me, if not as your therapist, at least as your friend.”

“I know.” We aren’t supposed to be both. In the traditional sense, we aren’t. My walls make Mr. Judge’s look like a chihuahua’s agility fence. Over the past decade, the lines have blurred, making her the closest thing I have to one.

“You said you’d quit going to Crave for monthly testing.”

“I did, until last week. I needed a safety net. Maybe it won’t hit like it used to,” I lie. “It’s the best possible scenario at a time like this.”

“The best scenario would be crying on a friend’s shoulder or being snuggled up with someone who loves you.”

My skin goes clammy as she speaks of my literal nightmare.

“Option one is my partner. At least I won’t be bloodied or bruised.”

“Hailey, you know the kink isn’t the problem. It’s your aversion to connection.”

I do.

“You’ve come a long way.” Astor’s assertive voice takes a soft dip. I know what she’s going to say before the words leave her full black lips. “Think about the night we met.”

“I try not to.”

“Me too, but it’s a testament to how far you’ve come. How far we’ve both come.”

I hiss out a breath as shame coats my skin, canceling out my shower.

“I never blamed you, Hailey. I still don’t.”

“You’re better than most.” The only real person I can call a friend hadn’t started that way. We’d started about as far away from friends as two people could be.

At Princeton’s psychology department’s annual Christmas party, she found her then-boyfriend railing me in a bathroom stall. I hadn’t known they were dating. Hell, I hadn’t even known his name. Hadn’t wanted to.

I’d thought the less I knew about a person, the less there was at stake.

That miserable night proved my tenet good, but my methods faulty. It’d been a turning point in both our lives. Astor stopped settling for shitty men to have someone by her side, and I decided to stop fucking random men. I still needed a stranger, not a random one.

“Start investing,” Astor presses like she always does. I respond like I always do.

“I invest in stocks, not people. I invest my money, not my heart.”

“You don’t have to start with your heart, Hailey. In fact, I wouldn’t suggest it,” she counters.

---