“It wasn’t fun. And I didn’t know where it had come from or why it had happened. And I couldn’t face that dude again. So I tried going out with someone else. And it happened again. Every time I got close to somebody, where it was possible they would kiss me, I was so terrified that I thought I would die.”
“Is that . . . is that how you feel when you’re with me?”
“I haven’t gone that far, because we haven’t come close to kissing. Obviously you’re super attractive and confident and charming and I respond to that, but all of that scares me to death at the same time. That’s why I said we have to be just friends. I can’t be more than friends, and this is why.”
“Do you have attacks at other times?” he asked.
“Nope, never. I thought maybe I had an anxiety disorder or something, but it seems to be centralized just around the kissing thing.”
“Have you ever seen a professional about it?”
I let out a laugh. “Before tonight, I couldn’t imagine even telling someone else, let alone a therapist. I don’t know why I’m telling you.” I paused. “That’s not true. It’s probably a little bit the alcohol, but I just . . . I know I can trust you.”
He smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way.”
He pursed his lips together, seeming to be mulling something over. Then his eyes lit up. “Wait. Hang on. This would be a really weird coincidence.” He walked over to his bookcase, where there was a large stack of bundled papers. He dug through them until he found one and pulled it out. He flipped through a few pages. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually heard of this before. You might have philemaphobia. A fear of kissing. My agent wants me to do a romantic comedy, and she sent me this script that’s about what you’re describing.”
He handed it to me. It was titled The Worst First Kiss. I could almost hear my mom’s voice saying, “There’s no such thing as coincidences.” I’d never subscribed to that particular theory of hers, but I was much closer to believing it now. Jeez, if I was looking for a sign, you couldn’t ask for a bigger one than that.
As I glanced at a couple of the pages, not sure what I was looking for, he said, “In this script the heroine has that phobia, but it’s about germs. Is that a problem for you?”
“No. I don’t think about germs. I mean, more than one dog has licked my face, and I didn’t freak out about germs or anything. I’m not grossed out by kissing. It’s the act itself that is paralyzing for me.” I hesitated to ask my next question, but curiosity took over. “How does the heroine deal with it? Does she get over it?”
“She does. She learns to ground herself to deal with the attacks.”
“What does that mean?”
“Basically that instead of avoiding the feelings associated with the panic attacks, you let yourself feel them but stay in control by grounding yourself. Hold on, let me look it up real fast.” He turned pages until he found what he was looking for. “You’re supposed to think of five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. When your mind is racing, going through those steps is supposed to bring you back to the present so you can focus on what’s happening to you physically instead of being caught up in your brain. And deep breathing is supposed to help, too.”
“Really?” I was skeptical.
“In the script it works, and she also practices kissing with the hero, who is also her best friend, and she overcomes her phobia. There was a note that the scriptwriter overcame this thing in real life. I’m not an expert or anything, but it seems to me that it’s kind of similar to being afraid to fly or being terrified of tarantulas. You get over your fear by repeatedly exposing yourself to the thing you’re afraid of and working through your reaction.”
Logically it made sense. It also made me feel better that somebody else had been through the same thing as me, even if hers had happened for different reasons.
It was also the first time in a long time that I’d felt hope over my situation—what if I could overcome this? What if I could be in a normal relationship and actually be able to kiss someone without feeling like I was going to die?
That would be amazing.
As if he could read my mind, Noah asked, “Is that something that interests you? Trying to work through it? Or are you happy with the way things are?”
“I’ve never been happy that I’m like this—I just resigned myself to it. It’s been this shameful, dark, scary thing that I’ve been carrying around for a long time. And overreacting the way that I have, it’s made me avoid romance and men altogether. I would like things to be different.” I didn’t want to be alone for the rest of my life.
Noah nodded, his expression serious. I liked how calmly he seemed to be taking this in, how matter-of-factly he was processing it and looking for a solution. Which I supposed was a very male thing to do, but I appreciated the approach.
“Then I think I could help you.”
“And how are you going to do that?” I asked. Run me through meditation exercises? Find me the world’s leading expert on . . . whatever the name was for my kissing phobia that I couldn’t remember? Knowing the kind of guy he was, he’d probably insist on paying for my sessions and I’d have to tell him no and then we’d argue and—
He interrupted my train of thought and said, “Let me help you get over your fear. You could kiss me.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I don’t know why that was the last thing I expected him to say, given how our conversation had been going, but it was. A bolt of fear spiked inside me. “Oh.” I was going to ask him if he was serious, but I could see from his face that he was.
He said, “We’re friends, and I want to help you. Not to mention that I’m probably the best guy you could pick for a project like this. I have kissed a lot—and I mean a lot—of women. Both personally and professionally.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t sound quite so proud of that,” I said.
“I’m just giving you my CV so that you understand why I’m the best candidate for this job. I’m perfect for it—I can be whoever you want me to be. I could even go put the Malec costume back on.”
“Oh. No. Don’t do that.” It would be too weird. Right? But maybe it would work? Could I picture myself kissing Malec?
Little bit, yes. I could.
But I couldn’t ask him to do that. Or maybe I could. Or it would be a step too far. Maybe it would stress me out even worse, because I would know he wasn’t actually Malec, so it would be weird if he was pretending like he was.
On the other hand, I had really, really liked him in that costume.
“Have you worked it out in your head yet?” he asked in a teasing tone, and I immediately flushed in response.
“No. I wouldn’t want you to do that. If I said yes, I would want it to be just you.” Because Noah was the one I knew and trusted.
He was the one that would take care of me and wouldn’t let anything bad happen.
“Good.” He made it sound like that had been the right answer. “And in a way, you’d be doing me a favor, too. If I took this part, it would help me to have actual, personal knowledge about the material. Because so far my experience has been the opposite.”