Page 26 of Redemption

“There’s a woman. We’ve been friends for a long time, even though I’ve always known she’s wanted more. To me, she’s been this innocent twenty-one-year-old who looked at me as though I hung the moon. At first it made me uncomfortable. Not because I wasn’t attracted to her, but because I thought she was too young for me. I’m a lot older than she is, so I’ve kept her at arm’s length even though she’s grown up since then. I thought it was the best thing for both of us. I didn’t want her getting attached to an old man like me. Plus, with me slowly losing my mind, I didn’t want to bring her into the darkness with me. I have panic attacks, nightmares, visions of death everywhere I go.”

She continued her note taking. “Has that changed?”

“What?”

“You said you didn’t want her to get attached. Has that changed?”

I thought about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. I guess I always expected Josie to be around. Waiting for me, even though I hadn’t given any indications that there was something more than friendship between us. I just assumed she’d always be there. Which was completely unfair to her. She shouldn’t be expected to put her life on hold for me. Now, when she’s decided to move on, I hated it. I thought about the future and what I wanted. I realized at this moment that I saw Josie. I wanted her attached to me. And me to her.

“Yes. Things have happened recently that have made me realize how dumb I’ve been holding myself back from her.”

“Can you expound upon that? Why the sudden change? You say it’s been years. What makes things different now?”

My body heated as I pictured that first night at the club. Her commands that I not touch her. Even now my fingers itched at wanting to touch, and she wasn’t even in the room. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my desire to submit to Josie; it just made me slightly uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to handle this need I suddenly had, and I wasn’t quite ready to put it all out there.

“I’d rather not discuss it.”

Dr. Parrish studied me, and I forced myself not to fidget. I hoped she didn’t push the issue.

“I’ll let it go for now, but I think it’s important that you talk about it at some point. Especially since this is a pivotal point for you. You’ve gone through a traumatic experience, and based on the symptoms you’ve described such as the panicking, the nightmares, etcetera, I would venture to say that you are suffering from PTSD. It’s a common occurrence after events such as the one you went through. You need to think about why you’ve had this sudden change of heart regarding your relationship with this woman. Is it because you truly care about her, or is it because you’re using her as a coping mechanism for dealing with your guilt?”

I bristled at her comment. “You don’t know anything about my relationship with Josie. Of course I care about her. She has the wickedest sense of humor, and her laughter is contagious. If she smiles at you, you just have to smile back. She’s kind beyond words. She is the first one to offer help when she sees someone in need. She has the patience of a saint. I mean, she’s been putting up with me for six years. She fucking brilliant, and she’s gorgeous, inside and out. And most importantly, she makes me want to be a better me.”

It was as though a light bulb went off inside my head. All this time I’d wasted when the perfect woman had been in front of me all along. I finally realized the desperation she’d felt to go to such extreme lengths for me to finally see her. God, I was such an idiot.

My internal epiphany was interrupted when Dr. Parrish spoke. “She sounds like a remarkable woman.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at her assessment. “You have no idea. She’s almost too smart for her own good.”

“Our session is almost over, but I’d like to leave you with this. No one can absolve you of your guilt except you. This is only our first session so we’ll continue to discuss your reaction to what you did, but in the meantime we need to discuss coping mechanisms for the panic attacks and nightmares.”

For the next fifteen minutes we talked about various ways for me to deal with my emotions. Dr. Parrish instructed me to start journaling. She expected me to keep a daily log of when the flashbacks happened, what I was doing when they happened, each time an anxiety attack came on, what I did to control it, and how long it lasted. She gave me breathing techniques to try and fend off the panic attacks.

Dr. Parrish also wanted me to write about my relationship with Josie. What I wanted from it and what I planned to do to achieve the things I wanted. She said we’d discuss it at our next session. It seemed like a useless exercise, but I said I would do it. I left her office feeling slightly better than I had when I’d showed up. Mostly because my mind had constantly been drifting to Josie. We needed to talk.

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