She was starting to look panicked. Shit. How had this gone so wrong, so fast? “Okay,” I said again, calmly because she seemed to be spinning. “I get it, Brit. I do. I’m sorry. I won’t do that shit again.”
She was shaking her head, her eyes glazed over, and I wondered if she’d even heard me. “You have to go.”
My stomach dropped, and I realized my mistake. Even though she had kissed me, I should have said no. Her head wasn’t in the right place for it. “I’ll go,” I said. “I promise. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
“Axel, please go.”
“Brit, come on.”
“Go.”
There was a moment of silent standoff, Brit leaning against the counter with her hands on her cheeks, me a step away with my palms open like I was at gunpoint. Neither of us moved.
But she’d asked, and what the fuck was I supposed to do? I took another step back, then another. Then I grabbed my coat from the hook next to the front door and went home.
TWELVE
Brit
Time passed, somehow. Days and days of it.
Christmas Day passed. Ellen and I lazed around and watched TV, and I was almost fine until my mother called. When Mom started telling me about a weight loss supplement she was trying—results guaranteed—and how she could sell me some, I told her I had to go and hung up. I spent the rest of the day in bed.
I went back to work at The Corner, dreading that I’d see Axel, that I’d hear from him. I didn’t. He didn’t offer to drive me to work or drive me home. He didn’t drop in on me during my shift like he had before. I heard absolutely nothing.
He was avoiding me.
I knew he had every reason to give me space—that I’d pushed him away—and that only made it worse. With Pierre, whenever I acted in a way he didn’t approve of, he had always punished me with silence. He’d stop speaking to me, and he’d barely acknowledge my presence, as if I disgusted him. It was his constant threat—not to love me anymore, to make me feel like the worthless person we both knew I was.
This wasn’t that. I’d not only pushed Axel away, I’d made him feel like a creep. If he forced his presence on me now, he’d feel like even more of a creep. This was my fault,and no one else’s. If Axel didn’t like me anymore, if he didn’t want me in his life, it was on me.
The thought sent me deeper into darkness.
I saw him coming and going in those days, like I had before, except now I could make expert guesses as to where he was going. He was dropping in at The Corner when I wasn’t working. I knew when his monthly therapy session was, and I watched him leave to go to it, then watched him come home. I knew that one of the AA meetings downtown started at seven o’clock, so when I saw Axel leave his house just after six thirty and get in his car, I knew that was where he was going. I ached to know why he felt the need to go to a meeting, whether it had anything to do with me.
He went for his morning runs on schedule, but he didn’t ask me whether I wanted to come.
New Year’s Eve came. The Corner closed at five, and then I stayed home. Axel went to a meeting. I wanted to call him, to ask if he was okay and whether the holidays were hard. But whenever I thought about actually calling, a thought always crossed through my mind, as bright as a neon sign:He doesn’t want to talk to you.
Axel had kissed me. Actually, I’d kissed him first, but he’d kissed me back. It had been so good it was practically delirious, and I’d never been kissed like that in my life. I’d wanted to crawl into him, to be a part of Axel and never leave. And then I’d panicked.
It had been cold terror, my fingers going numb and my stomach turning. Every neuron in my body had screamedNo.I’d barely been able to breathe, let alone explain myself.
I hadn’t expected it, and I still didn’t understand it. I’d never had any sexual hang-ups before, except for the usual, exhausting shit about not wanting a man to see my naked belly or the cellulite on my thighs. So I had body image issues—sue me. I’d never panicked before when a man touched me.
Except, I realized, maybe I had, and I’d never acknowledged it before. Maybe, toward the end, I’d panicked every time Pierre touched me. And I’d buried the feeling in the pile of other terrible feelings about being with Pierre.
Someone at The Corner quit, and my so-called holiday job stretched into January. The days were cold and dark, each one nearly the same. Ellen came into my room one evening as I was lying in bed, which was where I usually was when I was home.
“This isn’t right,” she said.
“I know,” I said, probably surprising her. “Aunt Ellen, do you know any therapists?”
She blinked, because she’d expected an argument, and then she said pragmatically, “I have a friend who’s a doctor. Let me make a call.”
She left the room and came back thirty minutes later with a piece of paper in her hand. Written on the page, in her careful, shaky handwriting, were four names and phone numbers. “These are all good,” she said. “Pick one. Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll help you pay for it.”
And I owed my great-aunt once again.