Touch

by MJ Knight

Chapter Twenty-nine

  What Adrian wanted to do was flee, but he wasn’t up to it, and it was the wrong thing to do anyway. Leaving her alone during a panic attack would have been a jerk move. It was just... it hit so close to home. It had made him feel as if there was something wrong with him. He knew that wasn’t true, but the feelings just wouldn’t stop washing over him.

  After ten minutes or so, he heard the water go off in the bathroom. “Anything you need?” he called, feeling like an idiot.

  “I’ll be out in a minute.” Julianne’s voice was unsteady but at least she was communicating.

  When she emerged, she looked shaken.

  “I’m so sorry,” Adrian began but she held up a hand.

  “There was nothing about what just happened that was your fault, Adrian. Nothing.”

  “But, I—”

  “No. What just happened to me happened inside my head and because of what someone else did to me. I don’t mean to diminish you in any way, but what just happened to me isn’t about you. Look, come and sit down with me for a few minutes. I think we need to talk about what’s going on with us.”

  It was the talk Adrian had dreaded, but he followed her to the living room and sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

  “You don’t have to stay so far,” she said, moving closer. “I still enjoy being with you, being close to you. And if you didn’t have that bandage on you, if you weren’t being held together with stitches, I’d be lying against you right now. But here’s the thing. That act... it was the first thing my uncle ever did to me. Before anything else. He locked us in his study and he showed me his—his—” she took a few deep breaths.

  “It’s okay I can imagine what he showed you.”

  “No, I need to get this out. He showed me his cock,” she said, avoiding Adrian’s eyes. “And he told me I had to suck it. When I wouldn’t, he made me do it. He told me that if I ever told anyone else about anything that he did, he’d kill everyone and everything I loved and then kill me. So that particular act? It feels like death to me. It feels like death and danger, my own and everyone I love. It’s the way a child’s mind works.”

  “We never have to do that again, ever. I’m so sorry—”

  “No, that’s not what I want at all. I don’t want my monster to think there’s any way he can hurt me, not ever. So if you’ll just put your arms around me, I’ll be much happier. You make me feel safe,” she said.

  Adrian’s heart ached with a horrible mixture of sadness and joy. He hated how she suffered, but to think that she felt safe with him made him feel as if he was worthy of her.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “And it’s something that’s been bothering me for a while now, so as long as we’re communicating here I want to ask you why you never tell me anything. To this day I don’t know why you were seeing Dr. Lange, or why you were with Olivia. I’ve been watching you struggle with depression since you were shot, but when I ask you if you’re all right you say you’re fine, that everything is just fantastic. I know it’s not, Adrian. I know that. I can see it. But you tell me nothing. What I know about you suggests that you popped into existence the day I first saw you at Lange’s office.”

  He stiffened. “It’s not important,” he began, but she sat up and looked him in the eye.

  “It’s very important. You can say you don’t want to talk to me about it, and I’ll have to accept your decision. But if you’re holding off because you think it will upset me, or that what you feel doesn’t matter to me, to us, you’re dead wrong. Adrian I have shared so much of my life with you, and all I really know about you is what you do for a living and that you were shot by a disgruntled ex-lover.”

  How hard should this be? Adrian wondered. Why was he feeling so trapped?

  “Adrian? You’re so tense.” She placed her hand against his cheek and turned his face towards hers. “What is it you don’t want to say?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “There’s so much.” The shooting had changed everything about his life. It had robbed him of any fantasy of control, and he felt weak and lost, and so unworthy of love. “How can you love me?”

  She was startled. “What?”

  “How is it you can love me, Julie? No one else ever has. I’m not lovable.”

  “No, don’t say that. Don’t even think it!”

  “It’s true. Even my own mother doesn’t love me. Mothers have to love you. Even Olivia, who was willing to kill herself over me, never loved me. I feel like I’m the monster in the closet.”

  Julianne shook her head. “No, oh no. You’re nothing like a monster. Trust me on this. But... do you not want me to love you? Is that what this is about?”

  He was horrified. “No, not at all. I’m so ridiculously grateful that you do, and I don’t know how you stand it.”

  “Stand what?” she asked. She was stroking his cheek softly and he was starting to feel calmer, more centered.

  “Stand someone like me? Someone weak and foolish.”

  “Oh, Adrian, do you sincerely think there’s anyone in this world who isn’t weak and foolish at least part of the time?”

  “You aren’t,” he blurted.

  “I have been. I will be again. Should I be blaming myself for what my uncle did to me? I’ve done that. It nearly killed me.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why blame yourself for what your mother did to you?”

  He knew she was right, knew it intellectually. But in his heart he was still the boy who was turned away by everyone he thought should have cared about him. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said, bowing his head. He felt so old and used up. The ache inside him was not just the pain of his bullet wound, but of other, older wounds as well.

  “Adrian, I don’t mean to be harsh, but if you can’t meet me halfway, even part of the way, even a few steps, I can’t stay here. It hurts me too much to see you suffering, to see you shutting yourself off because of... what? Olivia? She tried to kill you. She shot herself in front of you. I know I’m not qualified to deal with that trauma, but please just go talk to Dr. Lange about it. Please. If you can’t make the effort, I can’t stay. I won’t watch you finish the job Olivia started.”

  “So you’re deserting me?” he blurted and was immediately ashamed.

  “No,” she said, touching his face softly. “I’m your wake-up call. I love you. I won’t watch you destroy yourself, though. That’s the only thing I will not do for you.”

  Adrian tipped forward and rested his head on her shoulder. “I need your strength.”

  “You have it. Will you talk to Lange?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

  Dr. Lange’s Diary

  I welcomed Adrian back to therapy this afternoon. I knew Julianne had been concerned about his mental state since the shooting, but I was simply not prepared for the change in him. This was not the Adrian I knew. Physically, he was thin and haggard looking, and he walked like an old man. Emotionally? It’s hard to say at this point but I know he’s depressed. He’s told me that his doctor has given him anti-depressants and I feel it’s a good beginning.

  He’s also wracked with guilt. Under the circumstances, it’s natural. No matter how many times you tell yourself that you are not, cannot be responsible for how another human being disposes of his or her life, the fact is that you will always wonder whether you could have changed their decision. Adrian wonders if he should have stayed with Olivia. I have asked him to consider the cost of giving up the life he hoped for to give her the emotional validation she demanded.

  “I can’t tell you if that would have been right or wrong, Adrian, or whether she would have chosen to live rather than die. I never knew her. But what I will tell you is that her life was her own. She chose to dispose of it, and in the process she attempted to take yours as well, an act of incredible selfishness. But she was responsible for those choices, not you.”

  I know he understands these things on an intellectual level, but that they
will dog him emotionally for a long time to come. It’s not unlike the guilt abuse victims suffer, and in fact, what Olivia did to him was abuse. I hope to help him come to see that.

  There’s more, of course. There are all the reasons why he came to me in the first place, reasons which we never really explored in depth. I believe that we may be able to go further now. It’s possible that Olivia’s suicide will help him move beyond his usual defensive postures. It may be that there is a silver lining in these events. I think he and I need to look for it together.

  I’m glad he’s back. It’s still going to be difficult to treat both of them at this point, but unless and until he chooses to go to another therapist, I’m happy to make the effort. He’s been through too much for me to push him away.

  Chapter Thirty

  Autumn had begun to fade into winter, and as the holidays loomed, Adrian gave up his apartment and moved into Julianne’s building. It was a cautious living experiment, together but not exactly together. He was loving the proximity, and learning to live with another human being in stages. The subject of marriage hadn’t been raised again. He didn’t feel ready to move in that direction; there were still too many issues he needed to explore.

  Encouraged by Julianne’s faith in him, he pushed past his feelings of guilt over Olivia’s death to explore some of the deeper issues in his life. In spite of his promise not to refer to Julianne during his therapy sessions, he found it impossible not to ask Dr. Lange if it wasn’t possible that his feelings for Julianne had more to do with his emotional problems than with real love.

  “Adrian, please define love for me,” she said one overcast afternoon when he was in a tailspin of doubt.

  The question took him aback. “Well... it’s when you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, I suppose. And when their welfare means more to you than your own does. What’s the point of this?” he asked with a slight edge to his voice.

  He saw the corner of her mouth quirk up and remembered that she’d told him she felt he’d turned an important corner when he started challenging her again. “I didn’t hear you say anything about the reason why you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, or the reason why the welfare of someone else means so much to you.”

  “Your point?”

  “That when you defined love you didn’t put conditions on it, so why attempt to put conditions on your love for Julianne? The question is not why you love her but do you love her, don’t you think?”

  “I just want to be fair to her,” he protested, feeling whiny and tiresome.

  “I understand that, but if you spend all your time trying to parse your feelings for her, don’t you think you’ll miss actually feeling them?”

  It wasn’t like her to be that blunt, but then she’d dropped much of her professional neutrality when she’d started visiting him in the hospital, and it was, Adrian supposed, a difficult barrier to rebuild.

  “So basically you’re saying I should shut up and enjoy what I have?”

  Lange bit her lower lip to keep from laughing, but it was all there in her eyes. “Not exactly that, no. I would never tell you to shut up.

  “Even though you’d love to sometimes,” he teased.

  “I do think you make problems where there are none. I think we need to explore that in the future.”

  “Sounds like fun,” he said wryly, but then he grew serious. “I’ve begun to wait for the other shoe to drop,” he confessed.

  “Get a rubber band from Julianne,” she suggested.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Wear one on your wrist. Every time you feel that way, snap the band to remind yourself that sometimes there is no other shoe. And with that bit of folksy wisdom I have to tell you that our hour is up. I’ll see you next week.

  Julie had waited for Adrian in the office and they stopped at the cafe downstairs for some cocoa before heading home. The cafe was decked out for the holidays with evergreen swags caught in big red bows. Nets of twinkling white lights hung from the ceiling making it feel as if they were under a starry sky.

  Adrian loved their Friday dates every afternoon after their appointments with Dr. Lange. That afternoon as he stared across the table at Julianne, he felt a rush of something so profound, so vast, that it took his breath away. Maybe Lange was right, maybe love was all they needed. Then he thought that maybe Lange had gotten that philosophy from The Beatles and he chuckled.

  “What?” Julie asked.

  “I’m just happy.” It was true, too. He was happy for the first time in a long time.

  “Me too.”

  Julianne’s good mood didn’t last very long though. On the way into their building they stopped to pick up their mail. Julie found an envelope with a return address that provoked an involuntary and audible “Oh god...”

  “What?” Adrian was shuffling through his mail, dividing it up into junk and important things the way he always did on the way up the stairs. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I know I’m not going to like it. This is from my cousin Maggie, Uncle Gerald’s daughter.”

  “Oh. Come on, let’s go upstairs and get cozy before you read that.” Adrian knew that her uncle had been released from prison at the end of November. He and Julie had spent the day downtown, visiting a couple of local museums, having lunch, doing some shopping. It was a tiring day for him; he hadn’t yet regained all of his old strength, and he often had discomfort in the wound area. But he refused to let it stop him, or even to let on that there was anything wrong. When he got tired, he pretended he wanted to pause to look at something, or that he wanted something to drink. He didn’t think Julie had caught on, at least he hoped she hadn’t. He would do whatever he could to help her ride out the bad days.

  Once in Julie’s apartment, Adrian hung up their coats, made some tea and settled onto the couch beside her. “Come on and lean on me,” he told her. “I’ve got your back.”

  “I love you,” she said as she slit the envelope. “Nothing can hurt me with you here.”

  * * * *

  It was what she had expected, what she had known would come sooner or later.

  “Family holiday gathering. I’m invited. What fun.”

  “Do you think he’ll be there?”

  She nodded as she read over the invitation. “Oh yeah. Maggie is his eldest daughter. I know she’s been molested, I always knew. But she lied about it. And now she’s throwing a party for everyone to welcome Uncle Gerald back into the fold. Debt to society paid.” She sighed. “Adrian... I’ve wondered about this for a while now, and I want you to tell me what you think. I think I need to let go of all this now.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “I will never forgive him, or forget what he did to me, but I think I need to stop worrying about him all the time.”

  “How will you do that?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think I do have to confront him.”

  “Really? You’re going to the party?”

  She nodded. She was surprised how unafraid she felt.

  “With all those people around?” It sounded awful to him.

  “It’s not just Gerald I’m confronting, though, is it? It’s everyone who didn’t believe me, everyone who called me a liar and worse. I have to show them I’m not ever going to let them hurt me again.”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “Okay, but we both have to understand...” she stopped herself and began again. “We all have to understand that you’re not there to keep me safe.”

  He nuzzled her neck. “I know that. I’m just coming along because I love you,” he said.

  She turned her face so that her cheek pressed against his and slipped an arm over his shoulder. “That’s why I want you with me. Because I love you too,” she murmured.

  This was right, it was just. She was going to walk into that party with her head held high, and she was never going to be afraid of her uncle or any of her family members again.


  Chapter Thirty-one

  The room where the holiday party was being held, a slightly down-at-the-heels banquet room in a suburban restaurant, was filled with people by the time Julianne arrived with Adrian and her parents. She’d tried to talk her parents into skipping the event. They’d had so little to do with the family in the past decade that Julianne feared that going might reopen a lot of old wounds for them. But they insisted. Like Adrian, they wanted to be there for her, to show their support.

  There were friendly faces in the group and openly hostile ones. The guarded ones, though, they were the ones Julianne feared. They were the victims who had never spoken out, who had lived their lives in Gerald’s shadow with no one to help. They were the ones who had lied about what had happened to them, and they hated Julianne for breaking ranks and telling the world what kind of man Gerald really was. They hated her because she was stronger than they were and because she’d freed herself.

  Maggie, who was one of the most guarded of all, stepped forward to meet them. “I’m so glad you all came,” she said, sparing just a glance for Adrian. “Now we can all be friends again and put this business behind us. Dad will be so happy to see you.”

  Julianne’s father puffed up with anger, but her mother laid a quelling hand on his arm. “I think we’re going over to speak to Carla if you don’t mind,” she said. The message was clear and clearly Maggie resented it.

  “Well I like that,” she said. “Don’t you think you owe my father something?” she asked.

  Julianne felt Adrian tense, too, and caught hold of his hand. “I don’t owe your father a thing, Maggie, but yes, I would like to speak to him.”

  “Not if you’re going to insult him.”

  “It’s hard to insult a pedophile,” Adrian blurted and Maggie went crimson.

  “Who are you and what business is it of yours?”

  “He’s my boyfriend and he knows the entire story.”

  “Not the whole story he doesn’t. He doesn’t know how you ruined my father’s life.”