Joe. That was all she could hear. The sound of her husband’s name.
TWENTY-FIVE
Laura. Session Number Fourteen. Seven Weeks Ago. New York City.
Dr. Brody: This isn’t a good idea, having more sessions. Things have become complicated. We never should have started …
Laura: No—please. I’m so close. I can feel everything shifting.
Dr. Brody: Laura … all right. Close your eyes.… Can you see yourself as someone else? Another woman there in the woods with Mitch Adler?
Laura: I think so.
Dr. Brody: He pulls her behind a tree, kisses her. She can feel his desire and it makes her believe that she’s finally done it. She’s finally made him feel safe enough to love her. There’s a rush. Euphoria. You know what it’s made of. You’ve told me.
Laura: Power. It’s the rush of power.…
Dr. Brody: What do you want to say to her? That girl in the woods?
Laura: That it’s just an illusion? He’ll never love you?
Dr. Brody: Don’t ask me. Tell me. You’re the one who has to see it.
Laura: Okay. Fine. I would tell her that he’ll never love you, so stop trying.
Dr. Brody: Right. Exactly. He is never going to love her. The power is an illusion.
Laura: I would tell her to walk away. But I know she won’t. She never will. Why is that?
Dr. Brody: That’s because you can’t forgive her for trying. And you want her to suffer for it.
TWENTY-SIX
Laura. The Night Before. Thursday, 11:30 p.m. Branston, CT.
I find my purse in the kitchen. I search for my phone.
“Laura…” Jonathan Fielding stands behind me. I feel his hand on my shoulder. And I stop. I stop looking for my phone. I stop looking for a way to leave.
My body moves back until it touches his. It is disconnected now. It doesn’t listen as I remind it of the things that are wrong.
“Shhh…” he whispers. “It’s all right. Catch your breath. Your phone is dead, remember?”
A chill races through me. His voice is soft, but his words … are they ominous? Is he trying to remind me that I am helpless now, trapped between the counter and his body? The door on the other side. Another hand touches another shoulder and suddenly no part of me is free.
We have different phones. Different chargers. It’s already been discussed and acknowledged that I can’t do anything until I get back to Rosie’s. The chill morphs into a heat wave.
And I like the heat.
“Do you want me to get you home?” he says then, but he might as well ask a child to put down an ice cream cone.
“It was a black Chevy Impala,” I say. Suddenly I need to finish the story. I need to know why he’s been asking me to tell it, and if he knows the ending, maybe the truth will reveal itself. He’ll have no further need to pull it out of me.
I have to know what this is. From ignorance comes insanity. And he seems so real to me, this man. I have been observing him. Listening with such care, making my list, those little things that seem wrong. But there are so many things that seem right.
“I used to tease him about his car because it was an old man’s car. His father gave it to him when he upgraded to a Lexus, so it was, actually just that. An old man’s car.”
Jonathan’s arms grow tighter around me, locking together in front of my chest. I can feel every inch of him now. The metal buckle of his belt against the small of my back. The front of his thighs pressing into the back of mine. His chest running up my back, so warm and strong.
He whispers again. “You don’t have to do this.”
But I don’t stop.
“I’d been there with him before—in the back of that car. Many times. And many times he had asked me. Many times he’d pulled me just a little closer to that point they warned us about in school.”
I laugh then, and when I do, I realize I’ve been crying. The tears that come find old tracks down my face.
“Sex Ed…” he says, laughing as well. “The point of no return.” He says this in a deep, mocking voice and I feel his body move with the laughter that rolls from his belly.
“Exactly,” I say. I don’t know why I’m laughing as hard as I am. It’s not funny. A few more words and a boy will be dead. But