"I didn't want to tell you that I have no friends. No one sees me. No one notices me. So there's no point in me even trying to make friends with people. I'm invisible. I have no one; I am no one."
I could relate to that. More than she'd ever know. But I would never divulge that to her. Some people needed to know that others felt what they were feeling, to sympathize with them, but I could never admit to one of my patients how much I related to them. Those feelings were best left locked inside where no one could see them.
"I'm here to help, Ivy. Please, just let me do my job."
I felt her nod against my chest and I slowly began to let her go. I could tell by one look into her tear-filled eyes that she had so many layers. I was only breaching the first one. It would take much longer to fix her than it would any of my other clients I had ever seen before. If I could fix her at all. Looking into her eyes, her soul, I could see so much of myself in there. And I couldn't be fixed; that worried me.
"Come on. Let's go. We can talk in the car." I walked her back to the parking lot, supporting her weight against me, and then helped her into the car. I didn't back out of the parking lot until she started talking.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you the truth."
"I saw the way you lit up as you told me about Ben last night. Why would something like that brighten you up the way it did? Why would lying make you seem happy?" It was only the tip of the iceberg of questions I had for her. There were so many things I needed to know, but I had to start somewhere.
She shrugged her shoulders and bit her lip. I wanted so badly to know what was going through her mind. I wanted to see inside her skull and witness the thoughts that had her in such silence it was as if she was alone and I didn't exist.
"Their lives make me happy," was all she said in a defeated voice that made me feel something, but I didn't know what. It evoked an emotion in me, but I couldn't tell which one. I was bordering between sympathy and anger.
"I noticed you've reviewed quite a few books. Would you say you read a book a day?"
"At least." Her eyes remained trained on her lap.
"Do you read to escape life?"
She shook her head adamantly. "No. I read to feel life. To feel something, anything. That's why I came to see you. I've read all of these books about love and hate. About all kinds of sex and feelings. Things I don't experience because I can't do it on my own. I want those things. I read about proposals and weddings and it makes me want those things, too. I have never wanted to be married before. Never wanted a family. But these people in these books make me want it all."
"Why come see me? Why not your psychiatrist?"
Her eyes moved to mine. "I've seen them since I was eleven. They clearly haven't been able to help. Not to mention, I need help because I can't have sex. And you're a sex doctor, so I figured you'd be able to help me."
"I still don't know what you mean when you say you can't have sex," I admitted as I turned in my seat to look more at her. We were still sitting in the parking lot and the sky around us had turned dark; the only light illuminating her face came from the parking lot and my dashboard.
"People can't touch me or look at me."
"But I've touched you," I mentioned skeptically. I wasn't sure what she meant.
She shook her head and returned her gaze to her lap. I grabbed her chin and pulled her eyes back to mine. She stared at me for a moment and I could see the wheels spinning in her head.
"You haven't touched me there," she whispered, moving her sight down, indicating she meant between her legs. "That's where the problem is."
"So you're okay with affection, as long as it's not sexual," I confirmed.
"Yes. I mean, no. I don't know. I don't really like to be touched in general, but I don't freak out if someone brushes against me or touches my hand. I don't cringe when you hold my shoulders or when I lean into you. But it all goes very bad when it goes beyond that."
"How bad?"
"Bad," she answered with a shudder.
"What happens?"
"Want to find out?" Her question was cynical, as if she was daring me. Her voice was devoid of emotion and from what I could see of her eyes, they were blank. I didn't know what I was dealing with, and wasn't about to jump into that quite yet.
"Let me take you home. We'll plan to see each other again tomorrow and we'll talk about this. Every success plan is different, but I still have to follow rules. We can't skip steps, Ivy. It's not conducive to your healing process. So let's end for tonight and continue working on things tomorrow." I watched as her face fell and her head nodded in agreement. "I'll call you in the morning after I find a time slot for you. Is that okay with you?"
"That's fine."
I stared at her for a few more moments before putting the car in reverse and backing out of the parking lot. I drove her home in the same silence her company provided and it ate at me from the inside out. But I didn't dare try to start a new conversation after the one we just had. So instead, I sat in the quiet car, listening to the road thud beneath the tires, and let my mind drift to a time when silence was all I had.
To a silence that was filled with fear and death.
To a time when everything inside of me had turned off in order to survive.
My mind was so dark by the time I got back home. Images ran rampant through my head and left me feeling things I had long ago pushed aside. Anger was the strongest and it was the one I fought against most. I didn't like to feel angry at things I didn't have the ability to control, but it didn't stop it from taking hold of me.
I headed to a room in the back of the house that I had turned into somewhat of a sparring gym. Without bothering to wrap my hands, I took swing after swing on the hanging bag. It wasn't working. No matter how many times I punched the heavy leather, the anger still held on strong.
I tried the treadmill, hoping I could run away from the feelings that had overshadowed everything else, but that proved worthless as well. Giving up with the workout, I grabbed my phone and called the only person I knew that had the ability to make me forget, Alyssa.
It didn't take any persuading on my part to get her over; it never did. She had her own set of issues when it came to relationships, which made things between us easier. I never had to worry that she'd fall in love with me or need me for anything more than what I needed from her. It was the perfect arrangement. One that I desperately needed to escape to at that moment.
"I haven't heard from you in a while," she said as she walked in the house.
"I've been busy," was all I said. I didn't need to explain myself or come up with excuses as to why I hadn't called her in a week. I generally called her twice a week, sometimes more depending on my moods, but I wasn't obligated to call her at all and she knew that.
Her hands touched my bare chest, still sticky from the drying sweat of my workout. I kept her around for many reasons. One of which was that I never had to waste time entertaining her before getting to the purpose of her visit. I never had to offer her a drink or feed her, and we never watched television together. She'd come over and get right to the point once I opened the door.
"Where is it going to be tonight, Cade?" she asked softly as she kissed a trail up my neck.
She asked because I wasn't one that liked sex on a bed. In fact, I hated having sex on a bed. So we switched things up between other furniture, sometimes counters or walls. It became a game to her, which I didn't mind because playing games with girls were what I enjoyed the most.
Without a word, I pulled her by the back of her hair to look in her face. I attacked her lips with mine as I shoved her back against the front door and thrust my tongue into her awaiting mouth; the glass pane rattled behind her back with the force at which I pushed her into it.
"Here," I said against her lips as my hands began tearing the clothes from her body. She came without a bra, which made access to her tits that much easier. I didn't bother with her skirt, other than lifting it around her hips. She knew better than to come over with underwear on. I had ripped too many of them and she eventually learned not to wear them. Her arguments about how much money they were fell on deaf ears. They were barely strings of fabric and should never cost as much money as she claimed. Either way, I didn't care. They were in my way so I removed them. Simply pulling her skirt to her waist was much easier and less of a hassle.
Her hand found its way inside my basketball shorts and I immediately felt the warmth of her palm around my hardening cock. She pulled one leg up around my hip and began to grind into my erection as she roughly stroked me, but something was off. It wasn't her moans that were elicited from the pulling and pinching of her nipple between my fingers. It wasn't even the scratches left behind from her fingernails on my back. I wasn't sure what it was, but something felt off.