Page 59 of Look, Don't Touch

“The crystal vase worth more than my condo isn’t wow enough?” Astor gapes.

I shrug. It’s over the top, I know. But it’s been my outlet, and it’ll be fully planned in another week. Since I’ve been heading it for the past three years, I have everything down to a science. There’s not much left to do. Then what the hell will occupy my free time? My hands begin to shake.

“Who wants a drink?” Nat gracefully rises from the couch, careful not to disturb her work.

“A drink?” Astor goes bug-eyed. “It’s eleven o’clock, Natalia.” Her head shakes. “I could go for a snack, though.”

“Do you have anything to eat here?” My aunt heads past the wall of painted blue closet doors stretching from the floor to the high ceiling, and down the long hallway, lined with closets, toward the kitchen.

“I have a ton, actually,” I call after her. I’ve been eating my feelings too. Hiding them. Ignoring them. Brushing them off.

“When are you coming back?”

My shoulders fall. I knew the second Nat was out of earshot, Astor would be on me about therapy. Of course, I gave her the rundown when I couldn’t get out of bed when Monday rolled around after that dreadful weekend.

What he had done wasn’t all that bad.

Divided into three entities—donor, partner, and patient—he made me experience emotions I hadn’t ever expected or wanted to feel. As one singular man…Fucking hell. The feelings he evoked left me trembling and incapable of rational thought or simple function.

“After the gala.” I give her a big smile.

“Try again?”

My smile widens. “I will, after the gala.”

She turns her body toward me, rests her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and looks at me on the floor, a ridiculous pile of baggy sweats and a poof of knotted hair on the top of my head. It’s Saturday, and she has on sweats too, but hers are a whole lot less wrinkled and likely smell better too. She probably put them on this morning, as opposed to the second she walked in the door from work yesterday, like I did.

“Have you spoken to him?”

“No.”

“Seen him?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“Astor.” I jump up from the floor and stalk to the window. “I can’t.”

“Why not? He’s no longer your patient. And when he was, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t know.”

Maybe I’d overreacted when I called her screaming about losing my license. There was one example of the irrational thought he provoked.

“You know why.” I stuff my hands into the deep pouch of my hoodie and practically snarl.

“I don’t,” she corrects. “Because you haven’t told me.”

I stare at the specks of people moving about their life with no clue what a fucking scary place surrounds them. They’re oblivious to how one second everything is fine, and then the next, nothing will ever be that way again.

Never.

And he made me feel as close to fine as I’ve ever been…since.

“He coaxed me across boundaries I never thought I’d cross. He made me speak during sex. He made me hate my blindfold. He made me want more.”

My friend smiles as though I just told her great news. “Monday, noon, my office, no excuses.”

“Make me.” I grin.

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