Risk Your Heart

"Then I couldn't think about it, because I was coming, again. I couldn't believe it. Suddenly it seemed like I was everywhere at once, in the ambulance, on the beach, looking at myself from your point of view, in my body looking at you, even though I was blindfolded and couldn't see you.

"Then I felt something weird."

I stopped there. I hadn't meant to tell him what happened next. It must have been being off kilter from before walking in the church that made me slip up.

"What?"

"Ah, nothing."

"Leah..."

"Well, I couldn't have actually seen anything, because I was still blindfolded, but I 'saw' a blue light, or a few lines of blue light actually, from you to me. Sort of felt them, warm and sparkly, connecting us. Just for a few seconds and then they were gone."

Drew nodded, as if that wasn't weird at all, as if he had heard of things like that before.

I wanted to rush over that one, whatever that was.

"Then you collapsed on top of me, and talked me back from the beach, and my entire body felt like it was singing and melting into the cot at the same time. I'm not sure, but I think you carried me up to the apartment. The rest is history."

I focused on the bulletin board again, because I needed to calm down, and my underwear was wet, and I didn't want them to get any wetter. There was a dresser for sale.

"Hey, do you think that dresser would look good in my apartment?" I said.

"Nice try," Drew said. "Distraction time is over."

Huh?

Drew let go off me. He dragged two metal folding chairs into the middle of the room, which immediately reminded me of the first day we met.

"Sit," he said forcefully.

Ut-oh.

I sat.

"So," he said. "The thing about panic attacks, is that they rarely come out of nowhere."

"Can we not talk about this?"

"No."

Damn.

"They rarely come out of nowhere," Drew repeated. "Usually, they have a trigger. Was there something specific today that set you off?"

Oh, I felt some serious suckville coming on. Isn't this what I have Dr. Jeff for? Do I have to do this with my boyfriend?

"Would you like to tell me about what happened today?"

No, no, and hell no.

Drew just stared at me.

Well shit on a stick.

"Why don't you just start at the beginning?" Drew asked.

Pass.

"Baby," Drew said in a softer voice, and scootched his chair a little closer to mine. It made a high-pitched scratching sound on the linoleum. "Lots of people have panic attacks, or anxiety attacks, or whatever you want to call them. I get that. Being in a Dom/sub relationship can probably even be very reassuring, and help keep the frequency down, right?"

I stared at him and pursed my lips. I don't have to answer him. I gave a head motion that was half nod, and half so-so maybe.

"And, with my magical powers of intuition I'm getting that you really don't want to talk about this," Drew said.

I will not crack a smile.

"But the thing is, chances are, you will have another one, and because we're in a relationship, you might have another one while you are with me. And, because of my history, I'll probably assume you're having a heart attack, which will be awful for me. Then I'll assume that it's not a heart attack, that it's a panic attack, but considering they have almost identical symptoms there's no way for me to know for sure. So I'll assume that it's a panic attack"—his voice got softer—"but what if I'm wrong? What if you're wrong? What if there's no way to know until it's too late?"

I sighed.

"Sweetheart, I'm not asking you to do anything different right now. I'm just asking you to talk to me."

Double damn.

"I don't really like to talk," I said.

"Tough shit." It was the harshest I had ever heard him sound. I remembered the first day we met, something about cursing in church versus cursing in the parking lot and a slightly hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up.

"Baby, we're in a safe place." He gestured around the room. "You're with a safe guy." He gestured to himself. "You can tell me. Hey, I'm the assistant Deacon here. That's the same as the associate Deacon, the vice president Deacon, the honorary, 'You better fucking tell me Deacon'."

I stared at him.

"Sweetheart, I wouldn't push you if I didn't really need to know everything about them. When they started, how often. Everything you can tell me about what the panic attacks are like, I want to know. Can you tell me what triggered it today, please?"

I looked off into the distance.

"I don't even know really," I said. But as soon as I said it, I did know. Shit.

I would have to approach this the long way around.

"You know, for some people there's a pivotal moment, a path taken, or not taken, like a choice to go to school, or not," I said.

"For some people, there's this one moment, a moment where something happens. Maybe it's something awful. Maybe it's something really awful. Maybe some people handle it well, like it's no big deal. But maybe for some people, it feels like the world ends. Maybe for some people it's somewhere in between."

Drew was silent, letting me get to the point, if there was one, in my own time.

"But maybe, maybe, for some people, something happens, and it creates this moment, this surreal, 'No, this can't be happening to me' moment, where their heart breaks. Where it explodes, or implodes, or just collapses. Or maybe it flakes off, or turns to dust, or falls apart.

"Maybe part of it stops beating. Maybe it is like a mini heart attack, because part of it dies, the tissue atrophying never to be good again. Maybe a thick wall, thicker than fortresses of old, forms instantly. Maybe, the whole psyche schisms, and someone new is created."

I knew I was stalling, talking in generalities, waxing poetic about something that was vague and not poetic at all. Protecting myself, again, as always.

"I think, for some people, there's one moment in a lifetime where they have an unbelievable, unexpected, devastating heartbreak, right?

"So, I mean, it would make sense, right, that when Nick died in a car accident a little over a year ago, that was the one moment when my heart broke, when I was no longer whole, and would never be."

I paused. Looked away from Drew again. Kept my eyes on the far wall this time. The tiles were a faded no-color color, but I thought they once might have been yellow.

"I think of myself as the girl with no past, really. I shut the door on it, like a basement that's unfinished that you never open, and eventually you almost forget it's there. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean."

"Do you?" I asked. My voice went up a lot at the end.

"Mm-hm."

I looked at him. He nodded, and I dared to hope.

Drew stared into my eyes, and I seemed to fall in. It was like slowly leaning off a dock and gently sliding into a cool lake. I waited for him to say something more, but he didn't say anything.

He just held my hand, and gave me that feeling that we were the only two people in the world. His expression told me that he was listening, not just to my words, but to what I wasn't saying, too. I don't know what or how, maybe he was listening to my emotions that I couldn't help from wafting out, and my body language maybe.

There was silence for a while, and it felt okay.

I had the distinct feeling if I wanted to say more, he would wait forever to hear it.

What the hell was that about? Who does that?

I took a deep breath, held it and counted to five, and let it out as slowly as I could, like Doc Jeff had taught me to do.

"Where was I?" I asked.

"You felt like you were no longer whole, and would never be," Drew said.

He remembered. "Wow, whoa, okay." I took another deep breath. "Okay, so I thought that was when my heart broke."

"Makes sense," Drew said.

"Do you ever feel like that? I mean still. Like there was that moment, that one moment in life where your whole life changed and your heart just...froze and shattered?"

"Frequently."

I wanted to ask him how did he go on, but I didn't.

I put my hand over my heart, as if that would keep it from falling apart, or falling out. Then I shook my head. I forced myself to put my hand down.

"Well, so I thought that was my moment. After that was when the..." I was going to say nightmares, but at the last minute I changed my mind. "The dreams started."

I thought he would ask what dreams, but he was silent, creating space for me to tell my story in my own way.

"Um, ah, so...the dreams were bad, I was freezing and running in the middle of summer, but my heart was never involved. I realized that wasn't when my heart broke, and it was partially because I hadn't given my whole heart in the first place."

I was quiet again. I wondered if he would condemn me. Would he think worse of me because I said that? That's not what I saw in his face.

I had to look up and away, because my eyes were beginning to tear up, and I didn't want any of the fat drops to spill over. Tears pooled, weighing against my bottom lashes like heavy dew threatening to fall off a curved, downward-sloped leaf.

"So then I thought my heart broke when I was twelve. It was a few days after my mom left, and the landlord came to the apartment. I realized my mom had been paying him in blow jobs, and I couldn't pay the rent."

I started to shake. Drew squeezed my hand harder.

Everyone has trauma, I reminded myself. Whether it's getting fired from a job, or wanting a divorce, everyone has something they want to escape from. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself.

"Hey, maybe that's why I think about sex so much."

"What?" Drew asked. "Wait, what?"

"I guess that was a quick change of topic. I meant to avoid thinking about all this," I said, and waved my hand vaguely through the air, as if to indicate all I had been talking about. Drew's expression kind of fell. It was so abrupt it was comical.

"Just checking to see if you were listening," I said, and then laughed.

"I'm listening," he said very seriously. Then he leaned in and kissed me. It was a very soft, tender kiss, more like a brushing of his lips against mine really. His lips seemed softer, warmer. It was the tenderest thing I had ever felt, and despite my resistance I felt my heart open a little.

"Where was I?" I asked.

"Sex." Drew said.

I laughed again.

"So I figured that moment, when the landlord came, and I realized I would be homeless, that was the moment my heart broke, that my whole life changed, that I would never, ever really trust anyone again unless I...." I stopped, not able to say it.

"Unless someone pretended to make you," Drew said. "Tied you up and told you to trust him, so you could pretend you had no choice to trust him, even if you really didn't, not a hundred percent."

"Damn you perceptive Assistant Deacon nice guys."

He smiled at me.

"But noooooooo," I said. "When you were so nice to me at the paint store, the reason I...the paint store triggered it. I don't want to talk about it. Well, I don't want to go into it too much. I want to tell you, but I don't want you to ask any questions, okay?"

Then I did start crying, I couldn't help myself. The heavy tears rolled down my cheeks, salty and hot. I could feel my face getting red and splotchy already, and I hadn't even started. I did the breathe in, hold, slow breathe out thing again.

"So, I realized that moment, the moment when my heart collapsed, was when I was nine, and my dad drove me to the art store to get supplies and said, 'Pick out whatever you want, I'll be back in a little while'...."

I rolled my lips together in a thin line and ducked my head. I couldn't finish the sentence.

Drew lunged across the space between us, picked me up, and pulled me into his lap. He held me tightly and rocked me, and like a tsunami that had been held back for so long finally broke loose with a vengeance, the dam broke, and I cried so hard I shook, the tears I had never let myself cry my whole life.

Drew rocked me back and forth, and made soft, sort of mmmmmnnn sounds, and whispered, "I got you, baby," over and over again.

I cried so hard, I think I left a puddle on the floor, which reminded me of the day I sweat so much it felt like I had sweat buckets, before I asked Drew out, right here onto the same grayish-beige linoleum. They won't need a janitor anymore, we can mop the floor with my body fluids.

I must have been dehydrated, or high from the exertion, because for some reason that struck me as incredibly funny, and I started to laugh hysterically. I couldn't stop laughing. I sounded like a hyena.

"So you see, everyone I've ever loved, in my whole life, left me. My father left me, my mom left me, Nick left me. I can't do it again Drew, I just can't. If one more person abandons me, or leaves me, or dies, I think..." I began to hiccup loudly because I was having so much trouble breathing.

"Put your arms over your head," Drew said calmly.

I did, and the hiccups stopped. I was amazed.

"Putting your hands up is a cure for hiccups?"

"Only when they're caused by severe stress. That's when the hiccups are sharp, quick diaphragm contractions due to lack of equalized air pressure. When you raise your arms, you give your lungs more room to expand. It only works when the cause is you crunching down on your lungs in the first place."

I blinked. I wasn't processing. I had a moment of 'Where am I?'. All of a sudden I flashed back to the beginning of summer. I saw myself that day in June, in Dr. Jeff's office, and I could hear him say, "You're okay, Leah. Feel the couch under your thighs."

I looked down. I could feel the top of Drew's strong leg muscles under my thighs. I was sitting on his lap with my hands held high in the air.

"I feel kind of silly."

"Probably better than how you were feeling a minute ago," he said.

I belched up one last, really loud hiccup.

Slowly I brought my arms down.

"So I can't risk falling in love again, Drew. I just can't."

He rubbed my back, slow, calming movements up and down my spine. "That's okay, baby. I'll love you enough for both of us."

I broke into tears again.

*

Strangely, or not strangely, I had some backlash. A lot of backlash. Yesterday, when I was sitting on his lap, I felt like he got me. It felt like someone really "got" me, maybe for the first time ever, and I wanted to crawl closer and closer to that amazing, warm, comfortable intimacy. Today I didn't want to snuggle closer; I wanted to run away in the other direction.

I felt as raw as if I were a carrot that had been vigorously shredded with a sharp vegetable peeler. I didn't want to talk to Drew. Hell, I wasn't going to—wouldn't—talk to Drew. I was way too vulnerable.

In the morning I kept sitting at my computer only to stand right back up again and walk—zombielike—in ever widening loops in the living room and then from room to room. Needless to say I didn't get any work done, but I tried, I really did.

Sometimes it's like I'm a different person with different people. Or, at least I used to be, before I started working from home. Once that started it was more like I wasn't anybody, maybe because I rarely interacted with anyone.

I had been slowly fading away, further and further into my own castle of aloneness, if that's a word. I had a few similar, but not exactly the same personas, but not a true down-to-the-core, that's really me personality.

In other words, I was an actress, stuck playing out a part, or parts, that I didn't write, or audition for, but couldn't seem to get out of either. It was like having layers of Kevlar instead of clothes, or clown paint instead of skin. The real me—if I even knew who that was—was buried too deeply to be seen by anyone. I doubted I could find it myself, even with a divining rod, a microscope, a bloodhound, and a private detective license.

Makes sense I guess, that I subconsciously wanted to keep everything under wraps.

I never, ever, told anyone what I told Drew. NEVER. I didn't even want to believe, or admit it was part of my past, much less tell anyone. It felt like I had ripped off a huge scab to reveal red, raw, body parts I couldn't identify.

Drew called at noon. I let it go to voice mail, and I didn't check it. He called again later, but I didn't check that voice mail either.

I watched twelve episodes of Orange Is the New Black—almost the whole first season—a show I thought I'd never watch. I zoned out in front of the screen. I had the same vague feeling about my life as I did about the women's stories unfolding on TV; it's mildly interesting, but has nothing to do with me.

I stopped when my eyeballs felt scratchy and burning from the strain.

I wished I could take back what I had said in front of Drew.

I wished I could take back him being so nice to me.

Before crawling into bed I thought about listening to my voicemail, but that seemed like too much work. I took a quick peek at my texts and there was a message from Drew that had come in early in the morning. He let me know there was an emergency with his sister. Drew had left town to take care of it. It might take all day.

Good. Maybe it would take weeks. Maybe months. Maybe I could change my phone number and move to another state. One where no one knew my past hadn't been perfect. Hell, forget perfect, discussable.

I crawled under the blankets, sure that the nightmares of men chasing me through frozen tundra would haunt me. Instead, I dreamed of the Labor Day festival, with its warm sunshine, happy crowd, and surprise orgasm.

I woke up early. The dreams of Drew holding me dissipated when I remembered what I'd said. I got even more twisted in the head when I realized that he didn't judge me or run away from me, when he found out about my past. In fact, he seemed to completely accept me, and like, or even love me, more. Somehow that was even scarier.

It was enough to send me crawling right back under the blankets. I didn't even eat my breakfast at the table; I went back to bed and I took my Pop-tarts into bed with me. Breakfast of champions.

"This must be the break-up version of breakfast in bed," I said to myself, and laughed until I cried.

I pictured myself, in the church, in his lap, saying 'I can't risk falling in love again, Drew. I just can't', and I wanted to cry even more.

I stayed in bed most of the day. I only got up to microwave some hot cocoa, which it was still way too hot for outside, but I had my air conditioning cranked up to the max.

Drew called three times, but I didn't answer. After the third time I turned my phone off.

My bed was an oasis of comfort. Which was a good thing, because I planned to spend the rest of my life in it.

At around seven p.m., hunger drove me out of my cocoon and into the kitchen. I was eating mac and cheese out of the pot when I heard a loud banging on my door. For some reason I was sure it was my landlord, the only one I know who knocks so forcefully, so I opened it without thinking.

Ut-oh. Not the landlord. Drew.

"Hello, hot stuff."

I looked down at myself. Stained, faded pink sweatshirt that I had been wearing for two days. Raggedy gray sweat pants. Uncombed, slept-in Don King hair. Holding a pot and a yellowy-orange elbow-shaped noodle laden spoon. Yep. I'm a knock-out.

"Gug," I said.

He came in and kissed me on the cheek. "Good to see you too. Your cell service isn't working, so I thought I'd come in and check on you." He held up a bag in his right hand. "I brought Chinese." Then he held up his left hand, "And chocolate ice cream."

Okay. Maybe I couldn't fall in love with him, but I had to admit he had lovable qualities.

"I could go for some Chinese food," I said. I inhaled deeply and the smells of Szechwan beef and greasy egg rolls assaulted my nose in the very best way. I looked down at the glumpy mess in my pot. Yuck.