I threw my bag in the back seat and opened my door, but something made me look back. Something inside of me that left me on edge made me turn back and watch her. If she wanted me to chase her, she would have been looking back at me. She would have been walking slower, much slower, but she wasn't. I paused for a moment, waiting to see if she'd look over her shoulder, but she didn't. Maybe she was simply a troubled individual that only sought me out for help.
I got in my car and started the engine. The rain lowered my body temperature to freezing, and the cold leather beneath me didn't help. But I couldn't think about that. I wiped the excess water away from my face as I threw the car in reverse and backed out, pulling up next to Ivy as she walked with her head down.
"Get in," I called to her through the cracked window. Even though the crack was slight, the rain found its way inside and began to soak my car.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. You're going to get sick. Let me take you home. Come on. Get in."
She looked over at me and stopped, causing me to press harder on the brake pedal than I had anticipated. Her fingers held on to the edge of the glass as she pulled her face to the opening. "No, really, I'm fine." And again, she started walking.
Without thinking, I slammed the gearshift into park and got out. Stopping in front of her, I held on to her shoulders and moved closer to her ear. "I cannot consciously let you walk in the rain. It's almost dark and you shouldn't be out here alone. Let me take you home."
"I'll get your seat wet," she argued.
"It'll survive. I've already gotten mine wet. Get in."
I didn't let go of her until I could physically feel her concede. Then, I waited to get into the car until she was opening the passenger door and getting in herself. Once we were both inside, I noticed her small, delicate body shivering. It was as if she were convulsing from the coldness inside the car.
Without thinking, I instantly cranked the heat up. The pinpricks of the heat hit my face and I had to fight the images and sounds it brought to the forefront of my mind. If it were up to me, I'd rather suffer from hypothermia than feel the heat on my skin, but I couldn't do that to Ivy. Her lips had begun to turn a bluish color as they tried to muffle the chattering of her teeth.
"Where to?" I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
"Head down this street. I'm about three blocks up." Her eyes stared straight ahead, not once looking my way as I sat next to her. She made it clear that my assumption of her was wrong. She wasn't seeing me to fulfill some sexual fantasy; she really did have a problem. For the first time in years, I felt consumed by the need to find out what it was.
The silence was deafening, only broken up by the sweeping sounds of the windshield wipers. I hated silence. The still air that surrounded it often pulled me into dark places, dark places I never wanted to go to again. Instead of waiting for the pull into my memories, I asked her a question, hoping she would engage in some kind of conversation.
"Have you lived here long?"
She nodded.
I needed a question that would make her voice her answer. "How long?" I implored her to answer with my eyes, even though she still refused to meet them.
"Since I was eleven."
"Why were you sitting in the rain?" I shouldn't have asked that. I wanted to stick to the normal conversations that two people who just meet ask. But I couldn't. I yearned to know why she was sitting on the curb outside of my office in the pouring rain. Usually, I was better at leading into questions, finding answers to some by nothing more than observation, but Ivy had me losing my patience and suffering from a desperate need to know everything immediately.
"I like the rain," was all she said. It irritated the fuck out of me because it wasn't a real answer and nothing bothered me more than deference.
"Why?" I prodded in a harsher voice, hoping it would illicit a real answer from her.
"It drowns out the noises. It makes me not feel so alone. I don't know; I just like it." She looked down at her shaking hands and nowhere else.
What in the hell was wrong with this girl? I needed to know. More so than normal. I didn't only want to fix her sexual issues; I wanted to know what went on in that head of hers. I needed to know what she meant by noises and feeling alone. I could only explain that need by relating. I found myself connecting to her and I wanted to know why. I, too, hated silence and it seemed to haunt me. I hated the thoughts and sounds that ran though my head when things were too quiet. Did she experience the same things I had? Or was it worse? Whatever it was, it made her who she is, and I had an unnerving need to explore what it was.
"Are you often alone? Don't you have friends?" Like I was one to talk. Aside from the contacts in my phone, which I only used when I had a need to get laid or see my own therapist, I didn't talk to anyone, either. But I wouldn't say I felt lonely. I wanted it that way. After all, I chose to be that way. I didn't think Ivy chose to be the way she was.
"I have friends. In fact, one of my best friends is Ben. We met in high school."
"Tell me about him." I felt ecstatic at her small offering of information. Then, the need I had for her to help fill the silence that was threatening to suffocate me trumped that small victory.
"We were sitting at a table outside in the courtyard during lunch. It was him and his friends, and me and mine. But our friends were mutual friends, which is why we were at the same table. Anyway, he was sorting M&Ms, pulling out all of the red ones. I had never spoken to him before, but decided to ask why he did that. He said the red ones tasted different. I argued with him that they all tasted the same. So he pulled out a brown one and I ate it. Then he gave me a red one; I just knew I was about to prove him wrong. But as soon as the red candy coating began to melt on my tongue, he knew he won. We became instant friends after that."
"That's a good story," I said, knowing she had more to say and hoped she would continue. She had barely spoken since she walked into my office, and suddenly, it was as if she could talk for hours. It made me wonder who this Ben guy was and what had happened to him.
"We ended up going to a party together at my friend's house. We spent the whole night talking and realized we had so many things in common. Like … our dads both cheated on our moms, we both loved pickles, and we hated Halloween. Neither one of us liked to wear shoes and our favorite kind of foods to eat were spicy foods. We were best friends from then on out."
"And it never turned into anything else?"
"Well, he was the one that took my virginity. We flipped a coin for it. Sounds lame now, but at the time, I was ready to see what it was like. He was the only one I trusted to give it to. So we let fate handle it and flipped a coin."
It seemed like an odd story. One that didn't really match the kind of person I had met. It started to make me even more curious about her past and what she had been through. I was convinced that she had been abused at one point in her life, but I couldn't even begin to guess when or how. Maybe she wasn't molested as a small child like I had initially thought. Maybe it was something that happened to her in her late teens. It was certainly possible.
We got to her apartment and she got out of the car, saying she'd see me the next day.
"Ivy," I said, stopping her from closing the door all the way. "Do you drive?"
"No. I don't have a car."
"Then let me pick you up tomorrow for our session. It's a late time slot and I would feel much better if you'd let me drive you. I don't feel comfortable with you walking."
"Nah, that's okay. Thanks, though."
"Ivy," I called out again, but in a stern tone to make her halt her movements. "I'll be here at six forty-five. Really, I insist."
Her eyes were downcast again and the barely-there smile was now absent from her face. It was as if she had turned into a different person when she spoke of Ben, but the mentioning our session brought her back to reality. Without saying another word, she nodded her head and closed the door.
Who the fuck was this girl?
The moment I walked into my laundry room from my garage, I stripped my soaking wet clothes from my body. As soon as Ivy was out of the car, I turned the heat back off. I couldn't take the feeling of the hot air on my skin any longer and immediately welcomed the icy relief. I also cranked up the music. Nothing spun me out of control like the mixture of silence and heat.
I threw the clothes into the washing machine and headed to my bedroom across the house, stark naked. Being naked didn't bother me. It never had. I actually felt more comfortable without clothes on than I did in them. It came in handy in my practice, when I had to be naked in front of a client. It also helped the other person feel more comfortable. Observing me acting confident had a way of easing their worries.