Torment Me (Rough Love 1)

It’s Your Life: Recognizing and Overcoming Codependency. I’d been trying to get through the book forever, but it wasn’t helping much. It wasn’t giving me any practical steps, just warning signs to look for, which I absolutely recognized by now, and goals to strive for, which still seemed so far out of reach as to be ridiculous. There was a whole section missing out of the middle, namely explicit instructions on how to reach those goals.

It is unhealthy to rely on other people for happiness.

It’s better to have no love than to have dishonest love.

It is okay to be alone.

Fuck you, dumbass author. You don’t know. You don’t understand my struggles and my problems, or anything about my life. I closed the book and rested my cheek against the cover, emblazoned with bold primary colors to compel me to take action.

I tried to think about Simon and how to help him, rather than enable him, but my mind kept drifting to my date with W instead. There was something so sad and unfinished about us, some lack of understanding that had probably doomed us from the start. I didn’t understand how he could make me feel sexy and wonderful, and so horribly devastated at the same time. He’d given me more than any other client, and yet refused to give me anything at all.

I had to walk away. I had to stop thinking about his passion and energy, and all the attractive things about him, and remember all the ways he made me hurt.

It is unhealthy to rely on other people for poetry.

It’s better to have no love than to have violent love.

It is okay to save yourself.

My phone buzzed, displaying a number I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t unusual in my business. I answered with a noncommittal “Hello?”

“Chere?”

Oh God. It was W. It shocked me that he would call. I couldn’t believe he’d reveal something so personal as his phone number.

“Chere?” he said again, when I didn’t answer.

“How did you get my number?”

I heard him take a breath. “Does that really matter?”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hang up on him. I did not hang up.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You didn’t wait for me to say goodbye.” He sounded angry. Stern. Bad whore, leaving without saying goodbye.

“I had to go.” That was the simple truth. I had to get out of there.

“You didn’t wait for me to try to make things better.”

“You can’t make things better when they’re that fucked up.”

He was silent a moment. Then: “I don’t think we’re that fucked up.” Another pause. “I try to make things better afterward. I didn’t want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry. I felt like I had to leave.”

“Why?”

It felt strange to talk to him on the phone, to talk to him in a situation where he couldn’t hurt me. At least not physically.

“Why did you leave?” he prompted. “Because I hurt your feelings? Because I hurt your body?”

He didn’t say it mockingly, or I would have hung up. “Yes,” I said. “To both of them.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to hold you afterward. I think that’s important. I worried about you after you left.”

I tried to picture him in the Standard, worrying, pacing back and forth in front of the big glass window with all the voyeurs outside. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine him caring, but he’d called me. Henry would never have given him my number. He must have gotten it the day he went through my bag.

“I’m fine,” I said sullenly. “I was just reading.”

“You’re at home?”

“Yes.” Ugh, I shouldn’t have told him that. It was none of his business. None of this was any of his business. “I’m not supposed to talk to clients outside of our sessions,” I told him. “We’re supposed to go through Henry. I can’t talk to you.”

“Don’t hang up.”

I cradled the phone against my ear and waited.

“I like being with you,” he said.

I closed my eyes. There was something in his voice I’d never heard before, some longing or tenderness. My throat constricted in despair.

“I can’t talk to you.” I had to force the words out. My voice trembled. “I have to go.”

“Are you crying?”

“Phone calls aren’t allowed.”

“I don’t give a fuck what’s allowed.”

Goodbye, tenderness. Hello, scary person I didn’t want in my life anymore. I wiped my eyes put the phone down on the bed.

“Chere?” I could still hear him. I swallowed hard and steadied my voice as well as I could.

“I have to go. I’m sorry, but I can’t see you anymore. I have to…change something.”

I pushed the button on the screen to end the call. Goodbye. So easy, one finger could do it. Even so, I felt a terrible loss. The sobs I’d held inside broke free, ugly and desolate sounding. I buried my head in the covers, wary of waking Simon. I couldn’t stem the tide of grief.