Stuart rubs his belly and nods at me, "You want to drive?"
I take the keys and walk around the back of the truck. I see my father watching me through the small window at the front. I see such sadness on his face. Sadness we will both wear until the day we die. Sadness we will never discuss.
Back at Jane's building, I sit in the monitor room and watch Sarah cry and shake. She pleads with Jane to put her back into the cell.
Jane leaves the room, looking drained and confused. She looks at me, "Is it possible you were hallucinating her being better?"
I sigh, "She was better. She is better. She hasn’t washed her hands or anything else in hours. How did she eat her dinner?"
Jane nods, "No, you're right. She's just so ashamed of herself. She cut herself with some glass too, trying to end her life."
On the monitor, I can see the bandage on her arm. She is curled into a ball and sobbing still. She closes her eyes and lays there, like she is dead. It makes me angry to see her so pathetic and detached. Her self-pity is too much. I storm down the hall and into the room. I scoop her off the bed and carry her to the doorway.
"You came back?" her words are soft. She closes her eyes and snuggles into me. "I didn’t think you were coming back."
I don’t have words for that. I climb the stairs to the roof and step out into the icy-cold rain that’s coming down on the city. It had been a horrid drive back to the building in it.
We are outside a second and she screams and struggles but I hold her there, in the cold rain and speak softly, "You feel that, don’t you?"
"Eli, let me down. It's freezing." She is wearing a simple skirt and tee shirt. I'm in my dress pants and dress shirt.
"Can you feel how cold and painful that is?"
We both are chattering within seconds. She looks up at me, "Let me go."
I shake my head, "I need you to feel this. Can you feel this cold rain, Sarah?"
She wipes her face and shouts at me, "YES! JESUS, I FEEL IT! NOW LET'S GO BACK IN!"
"No. I want you to feel it. This pain means you are alive. The cold, hateful feeling right now, this is your body alive and well and reacting normally. This is as normal as people like me and you get. We don’t get to feel sorry for ourselves or the pity eats us up. Can you feel how alive this cold makes you feel? You feel like you have to run or do something to get out of this?"
She struggles and I put her down. She stands barefoot in the wet slush and nods.
I look down on her soaked face, "That is survival of the fittest. Our bodies and minds do things to tell us that we need to do them to survive."
She shudders and hops from foot to foot. I look down at my dress shoes, "Step onto my shoes."
She does it, pressing her soaked chest into mine.
"What we did in the past, everything we did, was to survive. That moment was no different than this one. My body is telling me to run away with you. It's telling me to go to a warm place and hide there for the rest of my life."
She gives me a look, "You want to run away with me?"
I nod, shivering as the icy-cold rain poured down on me. She cups her fingers around my jaw and stands on her tiptoes on my shoes. Her face is nearly at my level, "I want that too," she whispers.
A gust of wind hits and pelts the freezing rain at us. She gasps and I take my moment. I wrap around her, pressing my lips against hers. She moans into my mouth but the wind carries it away. The sound of the rain and wind is more than we can make, writhing against each other. She hops up into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist. I carry her back into the building, pressing her back against the wall. My ragged breaths become my words, "We can't. You need this next week to try and find a place for everything you're thinking and feeling. I'll see you after."
Her eyes widen but I trace my thumb along her lips, "I will always come back for you, Sarah. It took me a long time to find you this time, but I did it. I won't ever leave, never. Don’t hurt yourself, it hurts me when you do, and Emalyn wouldn’t want that for you or me. She would want us dancing in the rain and savoring every second. We deserve that, Sarah." I kiss the side of her face and turn away from her.
I look back, feeling my inner dictator rising in me, "Use this time wisely. Jane is crazy but she knows what she's doing. She knows how to debrief you. Use her knowledge."
I don’t wave or kiss her goodbye, or do any of the things I want to do. I drive to the gym to let Angelo beat the ever-loving shit out of me.
Chapter Sixteen
January 7th
"I need to see you, Eli. I need to discuss a few things with you."
I look at the stack of things on my desk and nod, "Fine. I'll come right over." I don’t even fight her on it. I know why, I know Sarah is at her office for her last treatment before she's freed into the world. The world where she makes the choices for herself and I no longer dangle her about like a puppet. She is no longer mine to control, mine to stalk, or mine to watch. She is free and I don’t know how to win her heart when mine is still not found.
I race down the stairs to the foyer, waving at the annoying guy at the desk as I hurry across to the door. I can't get to my car fast enough. What if they've left already and I have no reason to see her?
I dial Stuart as I start the car but he doesn’t answer. I take deep breaths and redial, cutting someone off and getting a true Boston fuck you.
I can't relax until I see the Tahoe still there. I cut traffic, nearly hit a pedestrian, and speed, but the Tahoe is still there. She hasn’t left yet. Stuart is pacing outside the vehicle, talking on his phone. He looks worried.
I jump out, "What are you doing?"
He scowls at me, "Leaving Michelle another voicemail. She isn’t speaking to me. Sarah had to phone her and give her a rough recount of the events and she is pissed. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to win her back or make her understand."
He means he doesn’t know how to do all of that, without actually telling Michelle what he's been through. He doesn’t want her to know he's soiled. Only he can see the dirty sides of himself but it doesn’t matter; he doesn’t want her to feel sorry for him or see him as less of a man.
To me that is impossible. There is no one like Stuart. His secret soft side is something people don’t know about. He volunteers to hold babies at the neonatal unit at Boston's Children's Hospital. He helps to find strays with the local animal shelters.
No one is manlier than Stuart, and if he would let Michelle see himself, she would know that. But he won't. He'll act like a player and die inside slowly.
I watch him dial again and nod, "I have to go inside and see Jane. You taking Sarah back to dorms?"
He nods and starts leaving his message again. I wave and walk away.
When I get inside, I look at the elevator and take a deep breath. I press the button and wait. The doors open and she walks right into my chest, not seeing me, "Oh sorry," she says so casually, like we are strangers.
I step back, letting her and trying not to look wounded.
"What are you doing here?" she asks.
I can't stop looking her in the eyes, not without seeing that kiss in the rain. Even the cold of it couldn’t stop me from wanting to stay there with her. I point at the elevator, "I wanted to see her."
She looks hurt, "Did you know I was here?"
I lie, "No. I expected you to still be in session. I was going to wait in the other offices." She flinches when I say that, like her memories of those places are still too traumatizing. I know it's been years for me and I am still traumatized. Jane alone scares me. I try to sound nicer, "How have you been?"
She stares at me with something I don’t want to see in her eyes, "Since you messaged me this morning and told me to stop being a pain in the ass? Good."
I laugh nervously. I don’t want her to see it, my anxiety or desire. The doors close as I avoid her face and she searches mine. I lean past her to press the button. Somewhere in the close space she whispers, "I need you."
I can't breathe. My words are stuck in my throat. I step back to tell her I love her. I just need to say it and put it out there, and hope to God she doesn’t need me in a different way than I need her. She changes her mind and leaves.
I look down at the floor and wonder where the brave man I used to be went. I was once a whole person and now I can only find that feeling of being whole, when she is there to fill the gaps.
In desperation and sickening need I send her a text, 'I need to see you this evening. I need to talk to you.'
I don’t even know what I'll say to her but I need her. I get into the elevator and try really hard not to feel the movement and tiny space of it all.
Jane is waiting for me when it opens. She frowns, "You weren’t supposed to make her love you, Eli."
I want answers but if Jane thinks anything is going on, she will manipulate Sarah and make her hate me on purpose. She loves games and she loves having me as a prize.
I raise an eyebrow, "Stockholm is your favorite form of therapy, Jane."
She walks to the counter and pours us both a scotch. She drinks hers as she brings mine to me, "It is. I've just never seen it work so effectively. The person generally recovers, Sarah is not." She hands me the glass, winking and grinning, "Then again, it is you, Eli."
I offer her up a grin, "To your success." She toasts with the little bit that’s left and goes back for more. I don’t want her to know how I feel. I sit down on the couch, "I'm just glad I can finally get back to work."
Jane watches me, "You are?"
I nod and sip the well-aged malt. "My father has been finding it hard with me working part-time and helping Sarah full time." I yawn, "And I'm exhausted."
Jane furrows her brow, "So you have no interest in pursuing her?"
"Who?"
She cocks a grin, "Don’t be daft, Sarah."