“They’re almost identical, except Beau’s face looks older, wiser. Beau has laugh lines, wrinkles—does that make sense?”
“Yes. But other than what Duane looks like, what is he like? Does he smile, like Beau?”
“No. He never smiles.”
She nodded, looking to her notes and writing something down. “Is he always helping people? Is he friendly?”
“No. Duane is not particularly friendly.”
“Does he joke around . . . Shelly?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Do you think maybe it’s not just what Beau looks like that has you attracted to him? Maybe the strength of your attraction is because you like Beau? As a person?”
I glanced over her head again to the blank wall.
“You’ve been with men before? Yes?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t you ever met someone—other than Beau—and had difficulty pushing them from your thoughts?”
“No.” I hadn’t hesitated in my answer, though it wasn’t strictly true. There had been other people I couldn’t stop thinking about. But not in the way Dr. West meant, not like Beau. So I added, “Not like Beau.”
“You have dated?”
I shifted my gaze back to my therapist, sliding my teeth to the side.
“Not really dated.” Once again, I didn’t lie, yet my response wasn’t entirely accurate either. I debated what to do, uncertain whether it was necessary to clarify that I’d gone on dates, but never because I liked the person.
“You’ve been intimate?” She started thumbing through her notes on our previous conversations.
“Yes. I’ve been intimate with lots of men.”
“And no one has occupied your thoughts like,” she paused, glancing at her first page of notes, “like Beau has?”
“I like sex, but I don’t like people.”
“That’s not true. You like people. You fear being close to people. Most of your fears, your obsessive thoughts and therefore compulsions, center around unintentionally hurting others. You have grown used to pushing people away—pushing people away is the compulsion—because you think it’s safer for them to keep their distance—concerns for their safety is the obsessive thought. People are not the problem. Your irrational obsessions, your worries about hurting people are the problem.”
“So, what do I do about Beau?”
She shrugged. “Ask him out.”
“Out?” My voice cracked and I was seized by panic. But this panic felt strange, different than my usual anxiety.
“To a meal. Ask him to have coffee, or dinner.”
“Eat food together?”
“Yes. Food. Together.”
“No, I can’t.” My voice cracked again.
“Why?”
“I think he might have a girlfriend.”
“You think, Shelly? Or you know?” Dr. West peered at me, and I understood that she thought I was making up an imaginary love interest for Beau.
“I think so.”
“But you don’t know so?”
“It doesn’t matter. He knows about . . .” He saw my arm.
I scratched the raised lines even though they didn’t itch, recalling the look in his eyes—equal parts fascinated and horrified—earlier in the afternoon. My stomach had dropped and pitched. It did the same now, like I was plummeting from the highest arc of a roller coaster.
“What? Beau knows what?”
“He speaks in even sentences,” I blurted.
Her lips twitched and then she promptly rolled them between her teeth, her eyes growing suspiciously bright. I got the sense she was trying not to laugh.
A year ago, just that small gesture would have made me shut down and check out.
But not now.
Now I had an odd desire to hear her laugh, and laugh with her.
“And I can’t tell him,” I gestured widely to the air. “I can’t tell him that I need him to speak in sentences with an odd number of words. Then he’ll know I’m crazy.” He already knows.
“You’re not crazy.” She said this firmly, pinning me with her gaze. “You need to stop referring to yourself or thinking of yourself in that way. Calling yourself crazy is giving up. You are in control, of your obsessions, of your compulsions, because you know they’re irrational. And you want to change.”
“But what if he wants to touch me?” The thought was both terrifying and thrilling.
“You have been intimate before.”
“I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.”
“That is an irrational thought. Now, say it.”
“Believing something bad will happen to Beau if I touch him is an irrational thought,” I said dutifully, breathing through the surge of fear. Irrational fear.
“Have you considered that there’s someone out there who might not consider these things about you crazy? That someone might take the time to understand your disorder, take the time to understand and therefore appreciate you?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Is that why you haven’t told anyone about the cutting? Or about your aversion for touching others? Because you don’t think they would understand?”
I glared at my therapist, irritated that she was making me discuss this. “Do you know how many times a day—over the course of my life—I’ve asked myself, ‘Why do I have to be so crazy all the time?’”
“You’re not—”
“I couldn’t figure out how to put it into words or admit it to myself, what I was doing. What I needed. It’s easy to make excuses and lie to yourself when you are already lying to everyone else. But I have always known—always felt—how embarrassing it is, to be this way. To admit that I can’t touch people without wanting to cut myself, to keep them safe from me, just in case. Because though you say I am not crazy, I know how I sound.”
Dr. West’s expression was thoughtful; she gave me the impression of someone trying to plan their next chess move.
Eventually, she said, “I urge you to consider the possibility that people exist who will not judge you for your disorder, but rather will see and value the strength required to master your compulsions.”
“I do not want to tell anyone.” Especially not Beau.
“What are you afraid of?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“You tell me.”
I ran my fingertip along the raised scars of my forearm. “How he looks at me, it’ll change.”
“How he looks at you?”
“Like I’m normal.” Like I’m whole.
She sighed, sounding frustrated, giving into a rare moment of emotion. “Do you trust B— this man?”
“I don’t trust anyone, Doctor.”
“But do you think he would knowingly hurt you?”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I thought about the question, thought about Beau and what I knew about him, what I’d observed over the last several weeks. He was nice to everyone. Everyone. Even when they didn’t deserve it.
He went out of his way to help people. He had an extraordinary work ethic; staying late to fix a last-minute emergency or coming in on the weekends; calling all over Tennessee and the Carolinas trying to find a rare car part.
And I thought about his expression after he’d called me a narcissistic pariah. I didn’t blame him, not after I’d treated him and others poorly. I hated that I’d treated him poorly, that I’d ignored him, that I couldn’t shake anyone’s hand.