Confidential(43)

I’d have given him that. I still would, if he’d let me.

Fuck, where had my self-respect gone? I’d never been this way before with anyone. You’d think my life depended on Michael.

Forgive me, I texted again. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me . . .

Over and over I typed it, and the repetition became oddly comforting, like when I was a kid and I got in trouble and I had to write the same phrase a hundred times. I will not chew gum in class. I will not talk to my friends. I will pay attention.

I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything . . .

I’d do anything, yes, but still, he gave me nothing. Not a single word. Not a character. Not an emoji. Hadn’t he ever made a mistake before? Was he so incapable of compassion, of mercy?

That asshole.

I can talk, too, if I need to.

As in, you leave me, and you expose yourself to a world of hurt, professionally and personally.

Kate wasn’t the only one who knew his secret. She wasn’t the only one who could bring him down, if it came to that. Not that I wanted it to come to that. All I wanted was him. But I was willing to play hardball because he’d given me no choice. Because he was giving me nothing.

I thought it would feel worse to be reduced to that kind of a threat. Instead, it was a little bit satisfying. It didn’t level the playing field exactly, but the grade of slope had shifted.

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago whether I would ever be threatening Michael, I would have thought you were crazy. But then, I never would have thought he would just ignore me. If he wanted to break up, that was one thing. This was another. He was refusing to even acknowledge me. That, I couldn’t have. I would say anything, do anything, to remind him that I existed.

I remembered being a little girl. An ugly little girl with a big nose, straggly hair, and bowlegs. You know the old story: picked last in gym class, no one to sit with at lunch. I was invited to the birthday parties only when the whole class was, and my parents would make me go because they said that then I could make friends, which never happened. I wasn’t even teased; I was invisible. I didn’t rate mockery and disdain. I wasn’t worthy of any recognition at all.

Then my breasts came early, and I figured out how to be sexy, if not actually pretty. I taught myself to be gregarious and sporadically outrageous so that people would want me at their parties. I worked hard not to be overlooked. Kate claims she doesn’t even remember my awkward phase, that she only remembers me as having tons of friends and guys who wanted to date me. I appreciated her selective amnesia. If only I possessed it.

All those insecurities from elementary school were still alive inside me. Mostly, I kept them at bay, tucked behind glass, but it could shatter. Like when Young stopped desiring me. And now, with Michael.

Do I sense a pattern? I could just imagine Michael—when he’s Dr. Michael—querying.

But I was hardly alone. There was nothing more terrifying than the withdrawal of someone you love, when their worshipful gaze turns elsewhere. Sure, I had my work, and when I visited the different male doctors with my pharmaceutical samples and literature, I knew plenty of them would be happy to have a go at me. That was part of what made me successful in sales. I was a good flirt because I liked the attention, instead of merely enduring it like some women do. When men flirted or made a pass, I didn’t cry sexual harassment. I earned the self-esteem and the commission.

But no matter how many other men eyeballed me, I needed that gaze of Michael’s. Was that because I imagined Michael was more discerning, more refined, a connoisseur of the human condition and psyche, that his lens penetrated beneath my skin, to my very core?

Maybe. It was also because I loved him, passionately, devotedly, irreparably, devastatingly.

I was all texted out. There was nothing else I could say to lure him back. No, there had to be something else to say or do. I just needed to think.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, I was spent. I fell to the couch and sobbed, and then my door was flung open. I looked up with eyes nearly swollen shut, fighting to blink. No, it wasn’t a mirage.

His shirt was half-untucked, and his hair was wild. He looked, in a word, frenzied. He was on top of me and neither of us spoke. We made love for an eternity, like we were both afraid to stop. Because then we’d have to talk. We’d have to see where we stood—after my betrayal, and the pain of his silence, and the impact of my threat. Far better to keep lying down, to arch my back and cry, “Oh God,” until my voice was hoarse. Eerily, though, he remained silent.

He never came. He just continued, and then, without warning, he stopped. He pulled away and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he said, more to himself than to me.

“You love me,” I told him. “That’s why we can’t stay away from each other.”

“I need to get out of here. I just need to clear my head.” He stood up and started putting on his clothes.

“Let me come with you.”

“No.”

“You love me, though, right?” I hated that I had to ask.

I hated even more that he didn’t answer. Not right away. Finally, unhappily, he nodded.

I had no choice but to let him go. He was like that bird you have to set free, and if he comes back, he’s yours, and if he doesn’t . . .

Maybe he never had been. He came here to hold out false hope, to keep me on a string. All that sex could have been a stalling tactic, a response to my earlier threat. He had to stop me from reporting him. He had to give me just enough.