“Yes.” Her expression was patient and encouraging.
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath, feeling tense about what she had planned.
Are you ready for this?
I didn’t know the answer. We’d drafted the ERP plan for my touch aversion weeks ago, but without someone for me to touch, someone I trusted, I couldn’t initiate it.
As though sensing my reluctance, she asked, “What is it?”
“Specifically, what will you request Beau do? I mean, what is the plan for when he comes next week?”
“Oh, yes, I have a paper for you to give him.” Dr. West pulled a blue folder from her lap and handed it to me. “Please make sure he reads it and that he calls me this week.”
“What is it?”
“Frequently asked questions relating to Exposure and Response Prevention. The paper will give him an overview and when he and I speak on the phone, I’ll go over the details.”
“Okay.”
“Shelly, this is the first step. You understand, this means you will be initiating your ERP plan to overcome touch aversion. Depending on how things go next Friday—and I’m very optimistic based on how much self-directed progress you’ve made—you will be expected to follow the plan between sessions.”
“I understand that.”
She studied me. “The other two options we’ve already discussed—you coming in to the office five times a week for your exercises so you can be monitored, or checking yourself into a facility so you can be monitored—are still on the table.”
“No, I can do this. I’m ready to do this.”
“Please also understand that the only reasons I’m considering this method instead of insisting on one of the others is because it’s been a very long time since you’ve engaged in self-harm and because you’ve shown remarkable ability to follow self-guided ERPs. You’ve resisted the compulsion to self-harm entirely on your own, even when avoidance of touch wasn’t possible. And you’ve always reached out, called me when you’ve felt overwhelmed.”
“Understood.” My knee began to bounce.
This was where I lived my life, being afraid of the things I wanted the most.
I can do this. I can do this. I will do this.
“What’s on your mind, Shelly?” she asked conversationally, like she’d just told me about the chance for precipitation in the forecast.
“It’s just . . . I do not want to use him.”
“Use him how?”
“I don’t want him to feel like I’m using him, for my treatment.”
She gave me a blank stare, like I’d confused her. “But we are going to use him for your treatment.”
“I know, but I do not want him to think that I’m just using him. I would never do that. If he didn’t want to help, I’d still want to be with him.”
Dr. West lifted her chin, like she was absorbing my point. “From what you’ve said about Beau, and from my short conversation with him this week, he seems disposed to think only the best of you, Shelly.”
“That’s just how he is. I do not want to take advantage.”
“But if he wants to help,” she reasoned, like she was trying to lead me to a shared conclusion, “then it’s not taking advantage. Right?”
Right.
I stared at her.
Say it.
I opened my mouth, then closed it, swallowing.
Just say it.
“Shelly?”
“Right.”
She was right, of course. It wouldn’t be taking advantage.
But if he helped me move past this, the most fearsome of my obsessions, how could I ever repay him? What could I possibly offer him in return?
17
“I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.”
― Emily Bront?, Wuthering Heights
*Beau*
After Shelly left me on Wednesday, I went home and sulked.
I tried fixing the toilet in the upstairs bathroom, but the damn thing didn’t want to be fixed. So, naturally, I drank bourbon instead. Then I passed out. And because all my dreams were drunken fantasies about the woman I was trying to forget, I woke up hungover and sulked some more.
Exacerbating matters, there was a new message from Drill on my phone Thursday morning—a missed call and a text. I didn’t listen to the voicemail, but I did glance briefly at the text,
* * *
Drill: Last chance asshole. U pick a place or she will.
* * *
Grumbling to myself, I turned off the screen and shoved the phone in my back pocket. I didn’t need to meet with that crazy psychopath Christine St. Claire if I didn’t want to, and no amount of cryptic bullying from Drill would persuade me otherwise.
Sulking wasn’t like me and I didn’t much like doing it. By mid-morning Thursday, I resolved to stop being such a cranky ass and I called Hank to see about going fishing. We did, and that helped a little. Then I bartended at the Pink Pony. That didn’t help at all.
Firstly, Tina Patterson was working—Duane’s ex-girlfriend—and she and I don’t like each other much. When she wasn’t on the stage giving me dirty looks, she loitered at the bar, trying to sneak free drinks and giving me dirty looks.
Secondly, I couldn’t help comparing Shelly’s long, strong, beautiful body to all the lady strippers. Which meant I spent the whole night thinking about Shelly naked.
Desperate for a distraction, I tagged along with Drew on Friday morning for one of his trail runs. Keeping busy and wearing myself out seemed to help. By the time I made it to work Friday afternoon, Shelly was already gone to her appointment. I’d couldn’t figure out if I was relieved—because I was so tired—or disappointed—because I’d lost out on a chance to see her.
Disappointed. Definitely disappointed.
Bonus, watching Cletus torture himself over Jennifer Sylvester all day Saturday helped more than anything else. All of us, Jennifer Sylvester included, had gone to Nashville to watch Cletus and Claire McClure participate in a music contest. Usually, I would have used the opportunity to flirt with Jenn, rile Cletus up a bit.
Turns out, riling Cletus was not necessary. He’d already riled himself. The looks Cletus sent Jennifer at dinner were pathetic. Not having a death wish, I kept my trap shut.
Unfortunately, a tortured Cletus on Saturday led to a rampaging Cletus on Sunday. Most everybody attributed his short tempter to residual nerves about the contest, but I knew the real story. And now I also had firsthand experience how a woman could wreck a fella without him consenting to be wrecked.
I wasn’t wrecked, not by a long shot. But I’d come precariously close to standing on the edge of that cliff and thinking to myself, I wonder what’s down there?
Yeah, no. No thanks. No me gusta. None of that for me.
Duane and I drove into work together Monday morning. He needed to borrow my car, and leaving early with my twin was much preferable than suffering through Cletus’s current mood. I pulled into the auto shop just after 6:30 AM and both Duane and I were surprised to see Shelly’s car in the lot.