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  To freaking crave it.

  And I think it's probably a good thing that Sam no longer wants any physical contact. Because it's hard enough for me to be so close to him and so far away at the same time. Hard enough to endure the constant state of longing. We definitely don't need to add to the complication of our situation with physical contact. I don't need the tingles, the goose bumps, the shivering, the unbridled attraction, or any of my other pathetic reactions to his touch constantly reminding me what I gave up.

  Because the truth is I need no reminder. The perpetual unsettled ache in my chest is effective enough.

  But Sam is okay. He is safe.

  If Robin finds some way to stalk me again, to come after me, Sam won't be a target the way he would if he was my boyfriend. He won't get into fights because of me, won't end up in fucking handcuffs, won't risk his life or future. No, he will continue to lead the carefree life he led before I showed up and complicated everything. He'll graduate in June and then go off to Columbia two months after that, and the most I can hope for is to remain his friend. Only time will tell if I can handle being as close friends as we were before. If he even wants to be.

  For now, Sam still seems serious about going back to our friendship. He even sent Kendall, his former “regular” hook-up and current “good friend”, to check on me after he got my note saying I'd gone back home.

  Talk about awkward.

  Even more awkward—Chelsea apologized to me on our first day back to school. I just rolled my eyes and walked away. I realize it wasn't exactly gracious of me, or even mature, but I never claimed to be either. I really don't care if she's sorry or not. And it's not even that I'm holding a grudge, I just don't want anything to do with her. I don't want to forgive or forget, and I don't want to punish her either. I just want to get on with my life, and I'd simply prefer not to have her in it. I have enough issues to deal with without another fake friend I can't trust.

  But, of course, our groups of friends are comingled to the point of freaking incest. So whether I forgive her or not, she still ends up at my lunch table from time to time, and she was of course present at the single party I dragged myself to attend since we all got back. She and Lily made up too, and though Carl and Tina still aren't her biggest fans, they are all technically friends.

  But the worst part is that I'm not the only one she apologized to. Apparently, after our trip, Chelsea's mom hosted the Caplans for brunch and Chelsea and Sam made up. She's sorry, or so she says. She was only trying to protect her life-long friend, though she admits she was misguided in doing so. She claims her feelings for Sam were meaningless—just a silly childhood crush, and she's over it. Sam has forgiven her, and why wouldn't he? She didn't really do anything to him, her actions were against me, and since she's apologized, Sam really has no reason to remain angry with her. After all, they've been friends a hell of lot longer than he and I have.

  I rush around the perimeter of the school to the student lot and hop in my jeep. It's always a nightmare navigating the end of day campus traffic, and I'm always stuck smack dab in the middle of it since I have no choice but to take my detour to avoid passing the locker rooms. But that's one trigger I'm certain still wields power over me, and probably always will, and so I still take this precaution daily.

  I glance nervously between the gridlock in front of me and the clock on the dashboard, sure I'm going to be late to my appointment. I've never been an especially punctual person, but as a fun extra side effect of my fun new anxiety disorder, every time I'm late for something, it makes me crazy. Like the world is going to end if the light doesn't freaking change, or that asshat in front of me doesn't just drive faster. Rationally I know it's ridiculous, but that doesn't change the physical reaction. The racing pulse, the shortness of breath, or the irritability.

  I know Dr. Schall won't give me a hard time for being a little late, but I know once it's past ten minutes into the session, Kathy, the receptionist, will call and ask to reschedule for tomorrow. But tomorrow's Thursday, and I have calculus tutoring with Sam.

  The relief I'd felt when Sam didn't discontinue our tutoring sessions after Miami was truly pitiful, but he's trying to act like everything is the same as before and I'm not going to stop him. Truthfully, I'm just grateful that he doesn't hate me for leading him on and then ending things so abruptly.

  And so, despite the fact that I'm little more than an exhausted, depressed zombie these days, calculus is one class I'm still doing okay in. My state hasn't quite affected my grades that much just yet—tests are seldom given now that graduation approaches. But finals get closer every day, and it would suck to ruin my GPA because of the last few weeks of high school.

  I know, of course, that it won't really affect anything. NYU isn't going to withdraw my acceptance because of it, surely. But I worked so hard to get my scores back after I'd fallen behind last year. My mother did, too, as she was the one homeschooling me. And it would just feel like an immense failure to screw it all up now. So I'm grateful to Sam. But if that jerk in the Porsche in front of me doesn't speed the hell up, Kathy is going to push my appointment and then I'll have to reschedule my tutoring session and I can't freaking deal with this right now!

  At the next red light, I close my eyes and count backwards from ten, knowing that I'm too close to losing it. But it doesn't matter if I'm aware that my reaction doesn't match the situation. Self-awareness is a useless tool when my anxiety is in control.

  When I finally arrive at the medical office complex, I'm no more than three minutes late, and I have to sit for an additional few minutes in my car, taking deep, even breaths, forcibly calming myself, making me even later. It's not something I ever could have imagined before. Not having control over my physiological reactions to everyday situations. And it makes me resent myself that much more. And then I resent my own self-loathing, perpetuating the vicious cycle.

  Dr. Schall greets me, welcomes me into his office, and then excuses himself to use the restroom in an obvious attempt to allow me to get my bearings. His office is not what I ever would have expected of a shrink's office. It's both contemporary and comfortable, done up in steel grays and warm taupes. There is a sofa, but not the kind you would lay down on. More like the kind you'd expect to see in anyone's living room. I sit and wait until he returns and takes his place in one of the club chairs adjacent to the sofa.

  "Your mother is joining us today, correct?" he asks, though his tone tells me he has already confirmed this directly with her.

  Once a month, Dr. Schall asks my mother to join the second half of my session so we can discuss everything "as a family". Or what's left of our family, in our case. And family session day is today.

  I nod, even though I know he already knows the answer.

  "So, any good nights since Saturday?" he asks with carefully managed expectations.

  I shrug automatically before shaking my head no. He asked the same question on Saturday about the three nights since the previous Wednesday. The answer was the same then, as I expect it will be for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.

  Since Miami, I've been made to double down on therapy, now spending every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon here, but unlike when I first began the sessions, I don't begrudge the change. God knows I need it.

  Before Miami I had progressed to having a few nights a week of relatively peaceful sleep, but I'm not sure I've even slept at all since.

  Dr. Schall gives me a sympathetic smile and goes on about how my upswing in nightmares is to be expected with my "recent trauma". He reminds me of this every session, as if he's justifying my regression.

  Anyone who bothers to spare me more than a cursory glance could surely see the dark circles under my eyes, despite my attempts to hide them with cover-up. I don't care about being attractive—in fact, in the last year I'd actually taken care to make sure I was not especially attractive. But I've recently learned that negative attention to my physical appearance is just as unwelcome as positive attention. I still don't want
to be hit on, of course, I'm not sure I could even endure such a thing without panicking, but as it turns out, I don't especially enjoy being asked if I'm okay every five minutes, or told I look tired or ill. I'm fully aware.

  I ramble pointlessly, updating Schall on the events of the past couple days—the calculus quiz I did well on, the fact that yesterday I spent the duration of an entire gym period hiding in the bathroom—and he asks me some follow up questions and tells me I'm entitled to hide sometimes if I feel like it, considering all I've been through, and I appreciate his saying so. But while he has gotten to know me fairly well since I began seeing him, I've also picked up on a few things about him, and I'm pretty sure he's just biding time to ask the questions he really wants to get to, probably the topics I'd most prefer to avoid.

  "So, Rory," his voice changes subtly—a little louder and a slightly higher pitch I may not have noticed if I hadn't been anticipating it—"let's talk a little more about your dreams."

  Here we go…

  "They're still the same—the new ones," I murmur, hoping my reference to their content will suffice and he won't make me describe the details, but I already know my hope is futile. Dr. Schall nods thoughtfully and jots something down on his note pad.

  I've spent the past year dreaming about Robin, my abusive monster of an ex-boyfriend, hurting me. Usually in the school locker room, sometimes in his car. It usually started with some innocuous event—a party, a football game—and then Robin would get angry over something—my forgetting to call him, losing a game, or he simply drank too much.

  Every scene ended the same way, with Robin pinning me to a wall or the ground, and violently forcing himself on me. Sometimes he'd choke me too, and often I'd wake up gasping for air. Sometimes he'd even hit me, even though he'd never actually hit me when we were together. Pushed me around, sure. Grabbed or squeezed me violently, a few times. Though Cam once said it was the same thing. That assault was assault. The emptiness and loss inside me sharpens, reminding me that things aren't as bad as they sometimes seem—no, they're worse.

  Before Miami, the only reprieve I had was when I'd been granted a dreamless sleep. I hadn't had a single dream that did not include one of those harrowing scenarios until that trip. But Sam changed that. I only slept two nights in his arms—and one post-orgasmic afternoon nap—but each time, he kept the nightmares away. He also starred in the one and only dream I can remember having in the past year that did not include a night terror. In fact, it was an exceptionally enjoyable dream, featuring Sam and me engaged in exploits not unlike those that preceded that nap. I woke up gasping for different reasons.

  But so much has happened since then.

  In my naivety I almost started to believe that I could have that—love—with Sam. That it could be enough.

  But maybe it was too much.

  It took no more than a few hours after we made love for the first time that Sam found himself in a physical altercation because of me—having to save me from Robin—risking injury or arrest. It took no more than a few hours after we professed our love for one another that he came to blows over me again, this time with my own father, and got dragged away in handcuffs. Some love.

  What good is a love that does nothing but drag you down? That puts you at constant risk? That offers you nothing but pain and violence, and threatens to destroy your entire future? I doubt Columbia University would be overly forgiving of an assault conviction. They could rescind Sam's acceptance if Miami PD takes Robin's accusations that Sam attacked him seriously—that he wasn't saving me from anything at all, and just beat Robin out of jealousy over our history. Complete nonsense, and yet all any of us have is our word. And my word doesn't have much value, not after Robin Forbes and his entire family spent the last year trashing my credibility all over my hometown down in northern Florida.

  And that isn't even the worst case scenario. Because Sam messing up his future over me would be bad enough, but if Robin came after me again, and Sam was there… he could get hurt. Really hurt. Or worse. Like Cam. A sharp pain slices through my gut at the thought.

  And thus is the new direction my nightmares have taken.

  I had to tell Dr. Schall about Sam and me. At first I just told him about the dreams—how Sam is always there, always in the line of fire… always ending up hurt or killed. When Dr. Schall asked about our friendship, something we'd discussed before, I think he already surmised that something had happened between us. In the past couple of months, Sam has consistently been a central topic in my therapy sessions. Because many of my issues center around panic triggers specific to male proximity—being alone with a man, or God forbid, touched by one—my friendship with Sam, and all that came along with it, was something significant in my recovery, according to Schall.

  So I'm not surprised that he's especially fixated on the romantic direction our relationship had taken in Miami. As fucked up as it is, this psychiatrist I've known for barely a few months is the closest thing to a father figure I have anymore. So his pride over my intimacy with Sam is just the weirdest freaking thing ever. He knows Sam of course, he treats his little sister, Beth—or Bits as her family calls her—and I suspect Sam may have seen him himself at one point too.

  Schall wasn't surprised when I told him I love Sam. Or that Sam said that he loved me. Nor was he surprised that I broke things off after what happened with Robin and my father. He asks me if I think that Sam blames me for him getting into these altercations. I don't answer. The truth is, I have no idea. But it doesn't matter, I know it's my fault, and that's what important. That's what gave me the strength to do what I needed to.

  "In fact, if you really feel like you've done him wrong, perhaps you should apologize."

  I blink at him before letting out a short laugh. "Nice try. I already apologized, remember?" I know what he's trying to do. He thinks Sam will agree with him that I am innocent in all of this. But he's lamented his opinions ad nauseam, so he knows there's no use in repeating them. He thinks I was an innocent victim. He always says "was", because he insists that's no longer what I am. He doesn't want me identifying myself as a victim. Now, he insists, I am a survivor.

  But a year ago, I was an innocent victim. Maybe a little naive, but that was my right at my age, or so he's said repeatedly. And now he says that I am similarly not to blame for what happened in Miami. But I'm not naive anymore, and so what excuse do I have for putting myself in such a precarious situation when I knew better? None. And he knows it.

  But I know he thinks Sam will agree with him, and that I'll listen, because Dr. Schall thinks I listen to Sam more than anyone. That I trust him.

  And sure, he's not wrong, I do trust Sam. But I also know he is both protective and defensive of me, and so his opinion isn't exactly unbiased. Even so, Dr. Schall won't force a conversation this way. Because I did apologize to Sam. And so I remind him of the note we discussed the week after I arrived back home.

  But Dr. Schall shakes his head. "Doesn't count. You apologized for abruptly ending the relationship. Not for unintentionally leading him into danger and putting him at risk."

  "Semantics," I argue, though I know he's right. I didn't apologize for getting Sam into trouble. Just for how I handled things—for hurting him.

  But it's irrelevant, because it's not like there's a chance in hell of me going up to Sam—who most days resembles more stranger than best friend—and ask him if he blames me for something I know to be my fault.

  I know I didn't intentionally put Sam at risk. But that's not the point. The simple math is, if it weren't for me, Sam wouldn't have gotten into those altercations. Wouldn't have spent his spring break getting into fights and nearly getting arrested. I don't have to be a whiz in calculus to know that he's better off without me than with.

  Dr. Schall makes that "hmm" sound he always makes to let me know he's reserving his opinion. It's his way of not reserving his opinion at all, and I roll my eyes.

  Schall hands me an empty journal and asks me to start writing down my d
reams. He wants a detailed log of when they happen, and their content. He wants me to record if I do have any dreamless sleep, or sleep without nightmares, and tells me to particularly pay attention if there's anything out of the ordinary. He says if that happens I should try and think what was different about the day that preceded such an occasion and record that, too.

  No problem, I tell him, since it won't actually fucking happen.

  I stifle another yawn. I'm so damn tired.

  Dr. Schall tries to hide his disappointment in my negative attitude, but I catch it. He tells me to let him know if I ever ask Sam about what he thinks about the whole matter. If he blames me for almost getting him hurt or arrested. I offer him a faint, sardonic smile and let the good doctor know I will keep him in the loop. He smiles then, and I feel less hurt over his disappointment.

  Dr. Schall's intercom buzzes and the receptionist announces my mom's arrival. They shake hands before she joins me on the sofa, rubbing my upper arm in greeting. I'm immediately put on edge. I don't know why, either. Maybe it's the change in the doctor's demeanor, subtle as it may be. Or perhaps it's the nervous energy I feel emanating from my mother.

  Then again, her nerves aren't exactly unwarranted—these family sessions haven't exactly gone smoothly, historically speaking. I think of our first session after Miami, and how I was talking about my confusion over how Robin knew I'd be there. How he said my father had mentioned it, and how I couldn't understand how he even knew. I hadn't spoken to my father in nearly a year, and I'd been under the impression the same went for my mother.

  I remember my growing awareness of the tension in the room, and how it's source—my nervous, suspiciously guilty-looking mother—sat beside me bouncing her knee in what I've recognized since childhood as a sign of her own anxiety.