After subjecting myself to her cries for twenty minutes, I pull out my wallet and toss two crisp hundred-dollar bills at her.
“Remember what I said…” I give her one last look before leaving the room. On my way out of the strip club, Diego hands me the folder with my next hits information. I wait until I’m in the confines of my car before I open the envelope.
The picture of the target slips from my fingers and falls to my feet. I’m about to reach for it, but then I catch the name printed in black ink before me. My heart stops, and air stills in my petrified lungs. My chest is so tight, I fear it will explode as I read the name over and over again.
No! It can’t be.
5
Shawn doesn’t come to work the next day, nor does he answer any of my text messages. I tell myself that it probably has nothing to do with me, but that’s hard to believe when everything was fine before we agreed to go on a date.
Leaving work in a flurry, I drive across down to my therapist’s office. I’ve been thinking more and more about stopping my appointments but haven’t gotten the nerve to do it yet. They’ve helped a lot over the years and been a great outlet for me, but if I’m ever going to move on, I need to stop living in the past.
As I walk into Sharon’s office, the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and a sickening feeling coats the inside of my belly. It’s like tar clinging to my organs. I should be used to having this kind of feeling by now. The truth is, it never gets easier, only worse.
I wait in the waiting room, which is mostly empty, minus a man reading the paper in the corner of the room. I’m not sure why, but my attention is drawn to him, and I stare for a long time. There is something about him, but I can’t pinpoint it.
He doesn’t pay me any attention since he’s far too focused on his paper. Unable to shake the sense of familiarity, I almost wish he would look over at me, so I can see his eyes full on. There’s a pounding in my head, and my body warms all over. It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“Dove,” Sharon calls my name, breaking the connection, and gives me a warm smile.
I stand up quickly, feeling flustered for some reason. Like I just got caught doing something I shouldn’t be doing.
“Hi,” I say and walk into her office. Taking my usual seat across from her, I shake whatever that just was off and focus on my session.
Sharon is middle-aged, divorced, and has three kids. She’s been my therapist since Donna adopted me when I was a teenager, and she knows everything there is to know about me.
She stares at me, her soft eyes bleeding into mine. “How have things been?”
“Fine.” I lick my lips. “I, uhh... got asked on a date.”
Sharon’s face lights up. “That’s great. Tell me about it. How did it go?”
Defeat sits heavily on my chest. Maybe I shouldn’t have started our session with this. Nonetheless, I tell her, anyway. “We never went because he never showed up. I texted him to see if he was still coming, but he never messaged back, and I haven’t heard from him at all.” My gaze falls to the floor. “This happens to me all the time. Someone shows interest, and then I somehow mess it up. I don’t even know what I do wrong. Whatever it is must be bad because I never hear from them again.”
“How does that make you feel?”
I look up at Sharon and give her an are you serious look. “Like I’m not good enough, obviously. Or like something is wrong with me. Why would he not show up? Why would they never call?” I deflate against the couch with disappointment. “I would get it if they’d seen my scar or found out how messed up in my head I am, but they don’t even get that far.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Dove. You know that. You have a history of always being let down, it’s very normal for that to carry over into your adult life.”
“No one has as much bad luck at dating as I do.”
Sharon shakes her head. “How about a subject change. How is Donna doing?”
I smile at the mention of Donna. She adopted me when I had lost all hope; when I was sure I would never find someone to love me. I knew she would never be my real mom, but she was the closest thing I had to one. I love her, truly love her.
“Good, she’s good. I try and talk to her once a week. The nursing home she’s in keeps her busy.” Words can’t describe how glad I am that I got her into that nursing home. It’s the nicest one in town, and I figured it would be too expensive, but as it turned out, Donna had some kind of insurance no one knew about that ended up paying for everything.
“Are you still having nightmares?”
A cold chill runs down my spine. I haven’t had a nightmare in months, but that doesn’t mean they’re gone. Sometimes I go through spurts of being normal, and other times I’m so close to shattering that I’m in a constant state of fear, day and night. There is no glue to fix the broken pieces of a person’s past. You can go to all the therapy sessions in the world, take all the anxiety pills there are, but sometimes nothing helps indefinitely. There are parts of me that will always be broken.
“No, the nightmares have been dormant.” I fiddle with a loose string on my pants. “I went to a club the other night with Sasha. I’ve been trying to go out more, be a normal person, you know?” I say, sighing.
“That’s good. I’m proud of you.”
“The night was going well, and I was having a good time until I went to the bathroom and got separated from Sasha. I couldn’t find her and…” My lip trembles at the memory of that night. How afraid I was, how fragile. It reminded me of my time in foster care. A time I’m so desperately trying to forget.
“It’s okay, Dove, if you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.” Even though I’m not looking in her direction, I know she is smiling at me kindly. She always is.
“No, I want to talk about it.” I swallow around the lump in my throat. “The feeling of someone watching me is at an all-time high, and I think it’s because of what happened that night because I’m not talking about it.”
“Okay, then continue.”
Exhaling, I tell her everything from that night, how I felt when the guy touched me. How helpless I was as I rushed down the sidewalk and then how he randomly just disappeared.
I don’t even realize that I’ve lifted my hand and been touching my scar through my shirt the whole time I’ve been talking. Quickly, I drop my arm and look at Sharon, who smiles at me knowingly.
“Your worry over someone watching you is very normal, especially with your history and everything that happened with that guy. If you see him again, I want you to call the police. I also want you to work on your breathing techniques. I know it’s going to be hard, but try not to give in to those impulses of checking over your shoulder a million times.”
I almost roll my eyes. As if it’s that easy.
“I’ll try to control my impulses, but as you can see, I’m not good at it.”
“You still like to run your fingers over your scar?”
“Yes. It’s just a nervous habit. I’ve been doing it more frequently the last few days,” I admit. “I don’t know why, but it calms me when I do it.”