The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(98)

“Let it out, Erik.”

“She kissed me one more time and she walked down the aisle. But she turned back and looked at me. And waved. And that moment right there—everything was amazing. She pointed at me and she was smiling at me. Everything was perfect. I was so happy. I swear it’s the last time in my life I remember being completely and totally happy.”

“You were connected to her,” Diane said. “With every cell of your body.”

“It was like I was still inside her.”

“And you were still connected to the night before, yes. The current of sexuality was still live. It was still crackling.”

“Yes.”

“It was a powerful moment, Erik. A moment layered with joy. All kinds of deeply intense feelings of love and connection and arousal and youth.”

“I was so happy,” he whispered. “I was…” He was starting to cry as the fabric of the universe began to tear down the center, thread by thread, warp and weft separating.

“Lean into it,” she said. “Don’t pull back, Erik. Tell me.”

“I was looking at her. But I was looking at Will, too. And David behind the set. My friends. My teachers. Everyone I loved, all of us. My life. Right there. Perfect. I was so happy…”

“And then?”

“James came in.”

“And he took it away from you.”

“He told me it was a fairytale. He told me the day would come when I would lose her and then I would know what it was like. He made that day come. He brought it to me.”

“You were a target, Erik.”

“It wasn’t just Will. He came after me, too.”

“He shot down your happiness.”

“He shot it.” He sobbed into his hands. “He came and he shot it. He killed it. He took her away from me, he took all of it down. It was gone. It was dead, all of it. And Daisy…”

The river of memory closed over his head, picked him up and tossed him along. The current battered him against the rocks, dragged him on the gravel, filled his lungs with frigid, brackish water that choked and burned. Out of the depths of his young heart poured his grief, the raging, bitter injustice of what had been done to him. He cried hard, for the undeserved ripping of pages from the stories of his life. For the senseless destruction of everything he had held so dear.

Diane made no move to rescue him or throw a lifeline. She sat quietly as he wept. It was strange, disconcerting, crying so unreservedly in front of someone, a woman no less, who made no move to comfort him. Without a word or gesture or touch, she sat there, giving him her unconditional presence.

She was his witness.

She put no spin on his pain, just acknowledged it, a tiny piece of public within this intensely private moment of grief. His trust she would rescue him if it were warranted, was absolute.

“How do you feel?” she asked when finally he brought his face out of his hands.

“Like I have the flu.” He ached all over and he thanked God he had made this appointment late in the afternoon. He guessed he had just enough in the tank to get himself home and collapse.

“Do you see now, Erik? How when you would try to make love, terror and anxiety would immediately follow?”

“I do see it now. I can’t believe… Never in a million years would I have linked those things together.”

“They were already linked. You just weren’t aware.”

“How do you not be aware of something like that?”

Diane leaned forward in her chair. For a moment Erik thought she was actually going to touch him, take his hands in hers. But she only clasped her own hands together and looked at him intently. “What happened, Erik,” she said, “was traumatizing.”

“I had a bad dream,” he whispered.

“The way the brain deals with trauma is to suppress. It doesn’t forget. It just pushes the trauma somewhere deep, where it continues to exert its power without you being aware of it.” She sat back, but her gaze stayed fixed on him, holding him rapt. “It is absolutely no shock the repercussions to your relationship with Daisy were sexual. It makes perfect sense being sexual and loving and connected brought on feelings of extreme anxiety. It makes sense you are reluctant or even outright averse to leaning into the joyful moments of your life because part of you is now braced and waiting for something to come along and blow your joy to bits.”

“What do I do?” he said. “How do I stop this?”

Her smile was indulgent. “You’ve begun today. This was a huge step. You did an amazing thing here.”

“And we’re out of time, I take it?”

“For today. But we have plenty of time to work this out.”





Coup de Grace


He went home. He was still chilled and feeling the residue of the session on his skin, so he took a long hot shower before falling into bed and careening into sleep.

And he dreamed.

Dreams with cruel vividness and clarity, with not a shred of the absurd to remind him these were only dreams. He was back up in Daisy’s room, in her bed, wrapped in her arms and legs and hair. Her mouth swollen and hungry in his, her breath in his lungs as she whispered amazing things.

Up on his elbows, cradled in her thighs, he held her head in his hands, her hair woven around and between his fingers. As he worked his hips in her, his necklace swung back and forth by her chin. She kept catching the fish in her teeth and smiling up at him. Those gorgeous, wicked, blue-green eyes. She had him. She’d caught him. He was where he belonged and it would never end, ever.