Like Gravity (26 page)

I looked into Finn’s eyes, hoping my answer was apparent in their depths. “I’m sure,” I said.
“I want you to erase him, Finn. I need you to.”

At my words, a tender look came into his eyes. “I will, princess. I promise.”

Kissing me sweetly, he used his hands and his mouth over every part of me, eradicating any thoughts of my attacker from even the darkest corners of my mind. When he finally rid himself of his jeans and braced himself over my body, Finn stared down at me as if he’d never seen anything more beautiful. 

“I love you, Brooklyn,” he breathed, as he slid slowly inside me. “I always have.”

I gasped, both at the feeling of him and at his words. Wrapping my arms and legs around him as tightly as I could, I matched his rhythm. We were perfectly in sync, moving together as one, and I could feel something building inside me, more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced.

He loves me.

My hips lifted to his, faster and faster as we climbed toward release.

He loves me.

My fingernails dug into his back as I tried to
press us even closer.

He loves me.

My back arched off the bed and a scream built in my throat.

When I exploded into my orgasm, I cried out so loudly I would have been embarrassed if Finn hadn’t been right there with me, yelling my name as he came. Together, we climaxed into a powerful, passionate release that I knew, for however long I lived, I’d never forget.

Afterward, Finn pulled me up to lie against his chest so he wasn’t crushing me or putting
any weight on my injuries. With his warm, strong arms wrapped around me, I was safe. I was loved. And I was happier than I could ever remember being.

“I love you too,” I
whispered, smiling against his chest. His body went utterly still beneath mine, and I heard the breath catch in his throat at my words. One of his hands cupped my chin and he tilted my head back so I was able to see his face.

“
Are you sure?” he whispered, staring into my eyes. “Because once you tell me you love me, that’s it, Bee. You’re mine. And I’m not ever giving you up.”

“
Hmmm, well in that case….” I teased, grinning playfully up at him.

He did
not
appreciate my joke; his face remained utterly serious as he waited for my answer.

“Oh, you idiot!” I smacked his arm. “Yes, I love you. Do I need to get it tattooed on my ass and sign a binding legal document, or will a verbal confirmation
be enough?” I rolled my eyes.

“You’re a smartass,” he said, grabbing my hips and settling me on top so I was straddling him. “But I love you anyway.”

I had just enough time to see that adorable dimple pop out in his right cheek before his lips were again on mine, so fierce it felt like he was branding me as his, and he was slipping back inside me.

***

“So, a lot has happened since our last session.”

Dr.
Angelini’s normal tone of self-possession and composure was slightly ruffled today. I couldn’t really blame her, I supposed; it probably wasn’t every day that one of her patients divulged about a slew of recovered dream-memories, a near-fatal sexual assault in an alleyway, and a foray into a first-ever healthy romantic relationship – all in one sixty-minute session, I might add.

Just unloading all the details of everything that had happened in the last week had eaten up most of our time together. I wasn’t sure how much psychoanalyzing she could possibly get done in
twenty minutes, but I didn’t peg the good doc as a quitter.

“How are you feeling about the attack?” she asked. “You mentioned you spo
ke with the police again this morning.”

“They say it
’s not Gordon,” I shrugged. “And I don’t really know what I’m feeling. Is there a right emotion for this situation that I
should
be experiencing? Because, except for the hour right after it happened, when I cried, I’ve been feeling generally normal. I’m not scared to go out at night, or walk to my car alone. I don’t want to board up my windows and isolate myself for the next several decades with twenty-seven cats,” I explained. “I feel like me – just with some extra cuts and bruises.”

“There’s no
singular right or wrong emotion, Brooklyn. You don’t necessarily need to feel traumatized, simply because you’ve experienced a trauma.” Dr. Angelini stared at me across her pristine glass coffee table. I vaguely wondered how she kept it so clean; there wasn’t a coffee ring or a fingerprint smudge on the damn thing.

“Brooklyn, are you still with me?” Dr. Angelini asked, one eyebrow raised in question.

I nodded, forcing myself to stop the thought process concerning her Windex-ing habits and focus on her words. They
were
costing me several hundred dollars per hour, after all.

“I think it’s also possible that, because this isn’t the first trauma you’ve
experienced, you may be slightly desensitized to risky or potentially life-threatening incidents,” she continued.

“So I
’m numb to danger,” I mused, miming karate chops in the air as I slayed invisible enemies. “Does that count as a super-power?”

“Brooklyn,” she scolde
d, her voice stern. “Please take this seriously.”

“I am! It was a joke,” I scoffed. She was overreacting
, big time.

“I
do admit that your desensitization to trauma could be an asset in certain threatening situations, such as when you needed to defend yourself in that alley and keep your wits about you,” she explained.

I nodded, sensing
a big “but” coming.

“But
,”
There it is. “
It may also be a detriment, because it can make you reckless. You have no real sense of fear, and you’re completely unafraid to push the boundaries of your personal safety – whether it’s with casual sexual encounters, excessive drinking, or going out into a dark alleyway alone, with no viable forms of communication at hand.”

I thought about her words for a moment. I guessed there was some truth to what she was saying, but it wasn’t exactly something I would be able to fix. As I saw it,
I’d been fucked up for so long it was no longer a changeable trait, but an ingrained part of my nature. Sure, I could get better at managing my fucked-upedness, but – let’s face facts here – I’d never be completely normal.

“I don’t suppose there’s a magic pill you can prescribe to fix this little problem of mine, right?” I
joked.

“You don’t need medication, Brooklyn. Just keep your cellphone with you next time,” Dr. Angelini smirked.

I laughed. “Did you just make a joke, doc?”

“Definitely not,”
she denied, inducing an eye roll from me almost instantly. “Now, I want to discuss your dreams in the few minutes we have left. Have you had more since we last spoke?”

“Yes, and they s
eem to be getting more frequent; they’ve pretty much taken the place of my regular nightmares – which is okay, cause my nightmares sucked and I look way better sans the dark under-eye circles.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Dr. Angelini was holding back a laugh.

“I’ve dreamed about the foster home and the boy three nights this week,” I continued. “And I think you’re right about them being triggered memories – there’s no way my dreams would be that specific if they hadn’t actually happened to me at some point. So now I guess all I have to do is find their trigger.”

“I don’t believe it’s something you should necessarily be actively searching for. When your mind is ready, you
may simply remember naturally,” Dr. Angelini shrugged delicately. “And as I’ve said before, there’s no exact science to how our memories work, Brooklyn. My advice would be to live your life and not dwell too much in the past. It sounds like, for the first time in a long while, you’re really enjoying just being in your present.”

“You’re right,” I agreed, smiling
wistfully as I thought of Finn. “I finally have something that makes me excited to get out of bed in the morning.”

Our time was officially up, and we’d barely even scratched the surface of everything that had been going on in my soap opera of a life. Dr. Angelini stood and ushered me to the door, reaching out at the last second to press a business card into my hand.

“This has my personal cell number on it. I don’t usually give it out to patients,” she explained. “But I want you to know that I’m always here if you need me, Brooklyn – even if it isn’t for a scheduled session.”

It was clear that her concern for my welfare extended beyond that of a normal doctor-patient relationship, and her maternal gesture made my heart ache. I wondered whether Dr. Angelini had kids and a family of her own; she didn’t wear a wedding ring, so I assumed she wasn’t married, and she didn’t exactly give off a motherly vibe. I was suddenly struck by the thought that she might be a little bit lonely too.

Somehow, that endeared her to me further.

Though I was definitely not a hugger – and I got the sense that Dr. Angelini wasn’t either – I tentatively wrapped my arms around her petite frame and lightly embraced her. She startled at first but recovered quickly, her arms coming up to squeeze me equally hesitantly. After what was perhaps the most awkward hug in the history of mankind, I detached and took a hasty step out of her space.

Clearing my throat, I did my best to dismiss the uncharacteristic display of
affection I’d just initiated as no big deal. “Well, thanks doc. I can’t make any promises that your number won’t end up in an newspaper ad for a phone-sex hotline, though,” I teased.

“Well, Brooklyn,” she grinned the most
genuine smile I’d ever seen from her, pushing me out into the hallway. “I suppose if that happens, I can’t promise that I won’t recommend you for a lifetime of institutionalization in one of Virginia’s finest state asylums.”

I laughed as I walked down the hall, turning to
toss a goodbye over my shoulder. “See you next week, doc.”

“
Until then, Brooklyn,” she returned, and I could hear the smile in her voice.

Maybe it was sad, because I was paying her and all, but I was pretty sure my shrink was one of the best friends I’d ever had.

Or, maybe I was crazy after all.

Blindsided

A week passed quietly, and I had the luxury of acting like I was a normal college student for a brief span of time. There were no more attacks, mysterious deliveries, or asthmatic phone calls. I went to my classes every day, which
remarkably seemed only to be growing more boring and unchallenging as the semester progressed and my professors lost any of their prior academic verve. I completed my homework each night, which took me an hour at most, and occasionally I pulled out my textbooks and forced myself to study until my eyes were drifting closed; memorizing the names and details of every major Supreme Court case over the last five decades is enough to put anyone to sleep. Mostly, though, I just tried to take Dr. Angelini’s advice by enjoying the blissful ease of living in the present.

In time, my bruises faded, then disappeared completely. The scrapes took longer, but each day Finn helped me apply antiseptic and change the
ir bandages; he was also a firm believer that his
kiss-it-better
approach had real healing properties, and he’d insist on running his mouth over each of my injuries at least once a day.

I think it actually had more to do with him getting me naked, but I wasn’t exactly complaining.

The police had completely ruled out Gordon’s involvement in my attack, leaving me slightly unsettled and more than a little confused about the identity of my mystery attacker. I’d been so ready to believe it was him – to tie a neat little bow around the case and remove all of the unease that came with knowing the person who’d tried to rape – or maybe even
kill
– me that night was still walking around, a free man.

Apparently, Gordon had been occupied
– quite publically – at the exact time I was battling for my life in the alleyway, with his tongue stuck down the throat of a cheerleader in full view of numerous Styx patrons. There was no way it could have been him, unless he had a super power that allowed him to be in two places at once.

Somehow, I doubted that was the case.

Since the attack, a constant air of unsettlement had lingered around me, and I was left with the distinct feeling that I wasn’t a good victim – not that there was anything
good
about being a victim, but rather that I wasn’t processing my trauma in the normal, healthy way. I thought a lot about what Dr. Angelini had told me, and was forced to accept the fact that I was probably walking through life more than a little numb from everything I’d experienced in my relatively short twenty – nearly twenty one – years on the planet.

Twenty-one: o
ne of the biggest rights of passage for any young adult, especially on a college campus. Somehow, it held no appeal for me. I hadn’t actually celebrated a birthday in years and I didn’t plan to even mention this one’s arrival to Finn.

Maybe
a part of that was because I’d had a fake ID since I was seventeen. Or maybe it was because I’d never enjoyed or even understood the concept of birthdays. They had always seemed rather pointless to me – just another meaningless demarcation of life’s value; society’s way of portraying our headless march toward the grave as some great gift, rather than an inevitability.

I mean, w
hen you really think about it, aren’t birthdays just an opiate for mortality? Our way of saying,
Congratulations! You’ve survived yet another year in this mess we call life. Here’s a piece of cake and a few balloons for your trouble.

I’d probably felt differently as a kid. Back when my mother was alive, birthdays had been the highlight of my year – filled with color and laughter, frosting and presents. Piñatas strung up in the backyard if the weather was nice. A slightly lopsided pink princess cake, frosted to perfection.
Presents piled high on the kitchen table. My mother’s voice soaring above the rest, as the partygoers chorused in time…

Happy Birthday, D
ear Brooklyn…

Those days had come to a quick end after she’d died. I
couldn’t remember my seventh birthday. I knew it had been spent in the foster home, but like so many of my memories from that time, it was locked somewhere deep and unnavigable within my psyche.

Dr. Angelini
told me that I couldn’t force the memories to reveal themselves, but that hadn’t stopped me from trying. When I’d close my eyes and turn my thoughts inward, I could sense the memories there – as if they were hidden in the shadows of my mind behind a thick gauzy curtain. The answers I wanted lurked just out of reach, and sometimes I even thought I’d caught a glimpse of one behind that opaque mental drape – a flash of color, a faintly reminiscent scent, a vaguely familiar face.

I want
ed to reach into my head and tear down that curtain. Hell, I would’ve taken a crowbar to my memories to pry them out, if I’d thought it would do me any good. But, since that didn’t seem like a viable option, they remained frustratingly inaccessible to me.

I’d taken
a biology course during my first semester of college – an odious and inescapable science breath requirement – and I remembered the days I’d spent hovering over the microscope, turning dials and adjusting light intensities as I tried to bring the microorganisms on my slides into view. The other kids in my class hadn’t batted an eye at the task, effortlessly illuminating their samples. Try as I might, though, I could never get the damn thing to focus.

Sadly, looking into
the contents of my own brain was strangely reminiscent of those infuriating days in the biology lab.

Finn would have understood – if I’d told him, that is. I think he knew there was something going on with me, something more than just the attack or Gordon’s supposed innocence.

He would have been kind. Sympathetic. Helpful, even.

But how do you tell
the person you love that you don’t even know your own mind? That there are parts of yourself, aspects of your soul – your innermost thoughts and memories – that you’ve blocked out or simply forgotten? That your brain doesn’t function normally – and that maybe it never will?

Things were good between us – great, actually. I was
happy
. Even more shockingly, I seemed to make Finn happy too. And, perhaps selfishly, I didn’t want to undermine that happiness. I didn’t want him to look at me differently, to treat me differently. So I held back.

At least, that’s the reason I gave myself
to excuse my nondisclosure.

Because
, just maybe, if I were really being honest, there was the inescapable fact that I myself wasn’t ready to face the dark questions that had begun to swirl through my mind – a violent maelstrom of suspicion and foreboding and inconceivable possibilities.

Sometimes the mind puts things together in an instant; a hundred pieces of the puzzle that have been lying scattered across the floor suddenly snap together like magic and the whole picture comes swiftly clear. Until that moment of clarity, though, you stare at those goddamn pieces so long they begin to blur out of focus, feeling like you must be missing
those vital pieces that hold all the answers. 

The
truth was, on all those quiet nights of normalcy, my mind had begun to wander over all of the things that had been happening to me recently. I stared at all those pieces of the puzzle, lying on my carpet with seemingly no connectable edges or even a discernable pattern amongst them. I thought about the things I’d dismissed as nothing at the time, shrugged off as no big deal or stuffed down into the corners of my mind that I avoid looking at too closely, for fear of their contents.

But I couldn’t ignore the fact that there had been entirely too many strange incidents lately to be merely coincidental. Not anymore.

I’d sat on my rooftop looking up at the stars – late autumn constellations had always been my favorite, though I wasn’t sure why – and thought about the attack. And then, almost involuntarily, my mind shifted to examine all the anonymous phone calls I’d received.

The
n, the eerie sensation I’d experienced more than a few times of being watched as I walked home or made my way across campus alone.

The
n, the bizarre and still-unexplained black rose delivery – an apparent harbinger of my death.

Then, finally, things I’d never even spent a second thought on began to pop
into my head, as if my brain were making quantum leaps from one seemingly random occurrence to another, too fast for me to keep up or consciously seek out the next part of the puzzle.

Snap
,
snap
,
snap
, the pieces flew together, and a picture began to form…

The time I’d come home from class about a month ago to find the books on my desk slightly askew, as if someone had bumped into
the furniture and accidentally knocked them out of place.

The way my appointment book, where I’d meticulously scribed all of my academic assignments, social invitations, and random thoughts, had disappeared right out of my backpack while I was in the student center killing time between classes a few weeks ago.

And, lastly, a man standing in the dark, leaning against his motorcycle and smoking a cigarette. Watching me as I sat on my rooftop in the pre-dawn hours of a chilly August night.

Could it all be connected?

Alone, none of these instances seemed like a big deal, but
together
? If I looked at the whole picture, if I considered them as one linked series of events, rather than single, isolated incidents… 

The puzzle, though still missing some vital sections, was beginning to come together as a single, clear image: Someone was stalking me. Watching me. Trying to hurt me.

Was I crazy and overreacting? Was I paranoid?

Probably.

But once I’d opened my eyes to the possibility that this was all the work of one individual, one person who might want to hurt or scare me, I couldn’t
unsee
the connections my mind had forged. I couldn’t escape the ever-building, unshakeable belief that I was in danger. I could feel it in my bones, like a sixth sense or some innate defense mechanism; every atom in my body was screaming at me to run, hide, take shelter somewhere far away.

I didn’t know what –
who
– I was supposed to be running from, but from that moment on, I began to live my life waiting for the other shoe to drop. Finn knew; he could read me too well. We were lying in my bed one night, about a week after the attack. The sheets were a tangled mess around our bodies and he was strumming his guitar softly, humming under his breath as he played.

“You okay?” he a
sked when his fingers had settled into stillness.

“Fine,” I lied, staring up at the painted stars on my ceiling.

“You can tell me, you know.” He set aside his guitar, rolling over so we were lying face to face. “Anything.”

“I know,” I leaned in to kiss him softly,
possessively, as was becoming my habit. I’d never had the opportunity to be soft, unhurried, with someone before; never experienced that gentle intimacy and familiarity of routine. It was so new, to kiss just for the sake of kissing; a kiss that leads nowhere, with no further intentions than to meet that person’s lips with your own, simply because you can.

“I’ll tell you soon. Promise,
” I assured him. There was no use lying and pretending that everything was fine. He’d see straight through me, as he always had.

His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth, as if in preparation
of saying something important. He stared at my face so intently I began to grow uneasy. After a small infinity of silence, though, his mouth snapped closed and he swallowed roughly, his eyes as distant as his thoughts.

W
hatever he’d been about to tell me, he’d evidently decided to keep to himself. And as much as I would’ve liked to pry the thoughts from his lips, I knew that would be utterly hypocritical. After all, I was keeping my own secrets – who was I to force him to share his own before he was ready?

“I have a surprise for you,”
he said instead, reaching over to grab an envelope from the nightstand. The playful light came back into his eyes and the tense moment passed as soon as he placed it in my hands.

Finn’s
‘surprise’ consisted of two tickets to the Charlottesville County Fair, an annual mecca of amusement rides, food stands, and carnival games that passed through the area for two weeks every November. The passes were for tomorrow – my birthday. 

He’d known, without me ever mentioning a thing. I shouldn’t have even been surprised.

“Lexi?” I asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

He laughed. “Yeah, she did me the honor of informing me that my girlf
riend is a bit birthday-phobic. But I already knew it was your birthday.” His voice was smug.

“How?” I asked skeptically.

He shrugged, grinning in an infuriatingly cute way. “I know everything.”

I narrowed my eyes at him
, but couldn’t hold onto my mock anger when he pounced on me and began assaulting my sides with relentless tickle torture. I writhed on the bed, desperate to escape and borderline hyperventilating at his onslaught. Only when tears were leaking from the corners of my eyes and my threats had escalated beyond simple bodily harm, to promises of fatal retribution did he release me.