“Thanks for the lift home. I know it’s a hassle. Tell me, does anyone remember why I decided to live across the lake?” Geordie says as we head out onto the sidewalk.
“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad,” I say. My keys are in my palm, and I’m grateful that I’m the one driving. One glass of wine followed by dinner, and I’m okay to get behind the wheel. Geordie had three glasses, and he’s weaving on his feet. “This time of day, I can get you guys home in . . .”
I’m parked in front of the bank. As we walk toward my car, someone steps out after a night run to the ATM.
And it’s Jonah Marks.
“. . . half an hour,” I finish, without thinking. It’s like my voice has decided to operate independently of my brain.
He’s wearing jeans that hug his ass, outline his powerful thighs. His white T-shirt is cut in a deep V down his chest. Every ridge of his muscles shows through, reminding me of how powerful he is. How I turned myself over to him, completely.
I stop in my tracks. Geordie bumps into me from behind. He laughs and says something I don’t even hear. At the sound, Jonah turns his head and sees me too.
He smiles. He smiles at me, like nothing ever happened. As if he’s glad to see me.
But only for an instant.
I don’t smile back. Jonah stiffens. His gray eyes turn stormy, and he turns away, stalking past us without a word.
“Earth to Vivienne,” Geordie laughs. “Are you all right?”
“. . . yeah. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure you should drive?” Carmen gives me a worried look, then glances after Jonah. “Isn’t that the professor Shay invited to my party?”
No way am I answering that question. “I’m fine. Let’s go, okay?” I want to get as far away from this place—from Jonah—as possible.
? ? ?
“How could he act like nothing happened? I mean, was it that meaningless to him? That irrelevant?”
Doreen puts her hands up in the time-out sign. “I want you to take a deep breath, okay? Pause. Just for a moment.”
I realize I haven’t stopped ranting since my session began fifteen minutes ago. My cheeks are hot with pent-up anger and embarrassment. So I force myself to lean back on the sofa. Relaxing is out of the question, but at least I can calm myself.
When I know I can speak more rationally, I say, “I know you don’t approve of what I did with Jonah. You probably think I deserve this. Getting blown off.”
“Hey.” She leans forward. The tagua-nut necklace she wears dangles from her neck, turquoise and brown. “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove of your life. You get to make your own choices, Vivienne. All I do is try to help you see things clear.”
“I let a near-stranger pretend to rape me. You can’t tell me that’s not fucked up.”
“Honey, I spend all day, every day, listening to fucked-up. You’re not even in my top ten. All right?”
I laugh despite myself. Although I suspect Doreen is lying—rape role-play with a guy who’s practically a stranger has to make the top five, at least—I realize that she’s telling me to stop beating myself up.
The worst part of the past three weeks hasn’t been Jonah’s rejection. It’s been my own self-loathing. Maybe that’s what Doreen is trying to get me to see.
She says, “It upset you, seeing him.”
“Yeah.”
“But you’ve been at UT for years without ever running into him before. So there’s no reason to assume this is going to be a problem, going forward.”
Now that I think of it, Jonah and I must have crossed paths several times before we met. Maybe we walked by each other on campus, or went to Whole Foods on the same afternoon. Although it’s hard to believe I wouldn’t have noticed a guy like Jonah anytime, anywhere, maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe I’m going to see him all the time from now on.
“I want to talk to him again,” I say.
“What do you want to tell him?”
“I just want to ask why.”
“In my experience, the answers to questions like that usually fail to satisfy.”
Jonah could say that he didn’t want me enough to do this again. That I disappointed him that night. Or he could have met someone else, somebody he wants more than me. But I keep thinking of the look in his eyes when he first recognized me. I keep thinking about his smile.
And about the way he laughed that night, as he thrust deeper inside me. The way he claimed me.
“There are valid reasons he could have gone off the grid,” I say. This is the first time I’ve admitted this to myself; as usual, Doreen gets me to see the truth. “I worried that the fantasy would be . . . too intense, too much. It wasn’t for me, but it might have been for him.”
The dark, powerful figure he became that night—how he dominated me so brutally—that could have frightened Jonah. Maybe he’s scared that’s the person he really is, down deep.
I ought to be scared of that too.
“He may have his own limits,” Doreen agrees. “Isn’t it possible that what you’re seeing is his reaction to the fantasy, and its place in his life, rather than his reaction to you?”