Chapter 168
720 Words
“OK, Jenny.” Lori leaned forward. “Why did you run and hide from Chris? Why didn’t you talk to him?”
Jenny was still shaking three hours later, and despite her professional calm and demeanor, Lori was actually very worried about her. It seemed that Jenny was having some kind of extended panic attack, and the fact that she’d physically barricaded herself away from the man she trusted was a major regression in her behavior.
But why? What happened between them making love last night and her laying eyes on him this morning? Why has she totally shut him out like this?
“Jenny?”
“I – I just couldn’t face him.”
“Because you made love last night?”
“No.” Jenny wrapped her arms around herself. “Because he told me he loved me last night.”
“Ah.” Lori exhaled. “I see.”
“I mean… how can he?” Jenny’s voice rose. “How can he love me? I’m – I’m damaged and dirty and… I’m just not worth having a relationship with!”
“So why are we doing all this, then?”
“All what?”
“This.” Lori gestured around her office. “Therapy. Having Chris touch you. Kiss you. Give you pleasure. Make love to you. If the end goal is to not have a relationship – either with him or someone else – then just what the hell is the point of it all?”
Jenny gaped at her. In six years, Lori’s tone had never been anywhere close to this harsh.
“Because if you really, truly believe that you’re damaged goods that nobody can or should ever love, Jenny, then you might as well get out of here now. Go get on with your lonely life. Because I can’t help you anymore.”
“You – what?”
“He’s a good man, Jenny. I know it, and you’d damn well better know it. And he loves you. Do you love him?”
“I – I… I don’t know.”
Lori waited.
Jenny thought about that first day when Chris had stood between her and her front door, and the panic she’d felt. She remembered the first time he’d touched her hand, the first kiss they’d shared on the sofa. She thought about how good it had felt to watch him come, how good it had felt for him to make her come. Over the months, they’d gained ground inch by inch, fighting like hell to do so sometimes, but they’d done it. Somehow, they’d made it through together.
And last night… my God, what he’d done to her. He’d turned her inside out. He’d loved her, fully and completely, and here she was, rejecting that gift. After everything they’d been through together, she was pushing him away, and why? Because she was scared?
I’m so tired of being scared.
“Yes.” Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes. I do.”
“You do what?”
“I love him.”
“And why is that so frightening?”
Jenny shook her head.
“Jenny,” Lori said gently. “You have spent almost six months with this man in your home. For the past three months of that, he’s been in your bed. You know him, he knows you. You’ve been totally open and vulnerable with each other – physically, emotionally. You trust him.”
“Yes.”
“So when he tells you how he feels, you need to trust that.”
Jenny bit her lip.
“You want to try with him?” Lori asked. “You want to give a name to what you have, to what’s between you?”
She looked down. “I – I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I’m so f*****g done with being scared.
“OK, yes.” She met Lori’s eyes. “Yes, I want to be with him, like, for real. I want to call him my boyfriend. I want to move past the whole idea that he’s – he’s helping me get ready to be comfortable with some future man’s touch. I want – I want his touch. Just his.”
Lori smiled. “That’s good, Jenny. Now. Go tell Chris.”
- Writer
