pull to him was magnetic, irresistible. She pushed her way through the crowd around her father, toward the back of the room where he stood.
“Hank?”
Beneath all the layers, he was there. The boy she loved, the one who raced into the woods to save her but couldn’t. She remembered his sweetness, how funny he was, what a brain, a comic-book, video-game dork. How he had this a kind of delicate beauty—almost girlish—even though he was skinny with fine, high cheekbones and straight white teeth that never needed braces.
She ran to him, to that boy, but a man—someone so different—took her into his arms. That night, she still thought about it. All the time. Too often. That heat, that desire—it was white-hot. She couldn’t have resisted if she tried.
She remembered the way her father looked at her when she left with him, his eyebrows raised in warning. Don’t fuck up, kid. That was his other favorite piece of advice.
After the café where they talked and talked, about how his family moved him to Florida after Kreskey, how he tried to forget the past. They followed each other on Facebook; he never posted, and never responded to her posts. But he knew all about her. He’d been watching, he admitted, too shy to reach out. What if you wanted to forget, too?
They barely made it back to his place, groping each other in the cab, up the stairs to his apartment. Her encounters before that had all been so—polite. Gentle, respectful, halting. Hank took her, and she wanted him to. They were up most of the night.
The way he watched her; the boy was gone. There was a man, a stranger, muscular and powerful beside her. She felt his strength, his need. Half his face was cast in shadow.
“Do you have that with Greg?” Hank had wanted to know. It was after three. How many times had they made love? She lay beside him on his futon, the street noise loud outside. Someone yelling. The blaring of a horn. “Does he make love to you like that?”
“No,” she admitted. “It’s different with us.”
It was different. It was light and good, healthy. She and Greg—there was laughter, play, genuine pleasure in being together. But no, it was nothing like it was with Hank.
“Good,” Hank said. His voice was gravel as he moved in closer. “That’s better. Because this thing? It could be dangerous.”
He kissed her deeply, and though she’d been about to leave, she let him. Then he flipped her on her belly and took her from behind—deep, desperate, leaving her weak and spent when they were done.
But almost as soon as they were together, she was pulling away from him already. There was a black place inside him, an abyss that she could feel tugging at her. He connected her to her basest self. Sometimes she saw him, the real boy, the one she’d never stopped loving. But he was lost, buried deep in the woods of their past.
And it was always going to be Greg. Because Greg was the guy you married.
“What worries me,” said Greg now, “is that this is not about you, not about what happened, not about telling the story, and finally healing.”
His voice was a sad whisper. She didn’t say anything, just held on to him—his kindness, his gentle strength, his faithful love, his adoring fatherhood. A good man anyone would be lucky to have as a husband. Maybe she didn’t deserve him.
“What worries me is that this is about Hank Reams,” he said. “And if you chase him, you won’t be able to come back.”
She looked up at him, put a hand on his jaw, which was rough with stubble.
“This has nothing to do with him,” she said. They probably both knew it was a lie.
He held her a moment longer, then rose, leaving her. He had circles under his eyes; she felt a sudden distance between them. She watched as he walked out of the room. She wanted to chase after him, try to make him understand. But she let him go, listening as his footfalls faded up the stairs.
NINETEEN
I have a small office here at the psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of town. I think it used to be a generously sized janitor’s closet, but it works. There’s a narrow window, enough room for a desk and a chair. The desk is bare; I carry my laptop and notebooks back and forth with me in a leather satchel that reminds me of the one