Heartless (32 page)

“Josh isn’t his father,” said Miranda, cutting through my sobbing. “He’s his own man, with his own wounds from his father. What if you’re here to help each other? To heal each other?”

My head was shaking side to side seemingly all by itself. My resistance felt huge, but so did my heartbreak. I didn’t know what to think or feel anymore. The person I loved was part of a past I wanted to forget.

“I have to forget that I love. I have to forget him along with everything else.”

“Heather, you don’t have to
forge
t what happened to move on in your life. You have to
forgive
. First yourself. Then Ethan, Pastor Guthrie, your parents,
and
Josh.”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

My sob caught in my throat. I had expected her to argue with me, to say, ‘yes, you can,’ and ‘you’re strong enough now’, and other things that I could keep saying ‘no’ to. But she’d asked me a question, a question she was expecting an answer to.

“Heather, why can’t you forgive?”

I closed my eyes, tightened my arms over my chest. “It hurts too much.”

“I wonder though if the pain of not forgiving hurts you more. And now the extra pain you must feel by rejecting your true feelings about Josh.”

“I can’t forgive what happened! Pastor Guthrie sexually molested me! Repeatedly! He killed my parents! He stole my family, my innocence, my future! I had sex with the son of that monster without knowing who he was and now I feel molested all over again!”

I was punching the couch now, ripping the pillows from their places and throwing them to the floor. Miranda let me. She let my storm rage as long as it needed to . When it subsided, I felt sweaty, exhausted, and my throat was sore from yelling and crying.

Miranda looked at me. Her tenderness and concern had not abated.

“Pastor Guthrie did not take your life, Heather. He changed it, yes. He damaged all that you believed your life to be up until that point. But your life is still yours to do with what you choose. You have the freedom to choose to live in love or hate, to live with truth or with denial, to keep fighting to forget what happened, or to try your best to forgive and move on into a new future.”

I felt limp as I laid back against the couch. I wanted to curl up into a fetal position. I wanted someone to hold me. I wanted Josh. After everything, I still wanted him. I loved him. I loved who I was when I was with him.

I wept again, but quietly this time, with resignation and acceptance. With a willingness to try. When I calmed down, a profound sleepiness gripped me again.

“Listen, I have an idea, an unorthodox one,” said Miranda. I listened.

“I want you to come to your regular appointment tomorrow. Just like every week. But I want you to keep an open mind. Can you do that?”

“Sure, whatever.” I would have agreed to anything in my state of fatigue. I felt my phone buzz through my hoodie pocket. It was a text from Brian. He was parked outside.

Brian gave me Tuesday off as well. I slept most of the day while Leo wrestled appliances into place. The house felt empty without Josh there, too.

When I got to Miranda’s later that day I was shocked to see Geena and Josh in the lobby. That was Miranda’s unorthodox plan? I was half inclined to turn away, but Geena had seen me through the glass and waved. She smiled at me, but her smile looked worried, a little frightened. I almost ignored her and kept going, but then I saw Josh standing there next to her, his helmet in one hand, his gaze sliding around the dully decorated lobby, and that made me stop in my tracks. He hadn’t noticed me yet, nor had he picked up on his mom’s slight wave. He was just standing there waiting. For what I wasn’t sure. Me? Miranda? Watching him without him knowing I was watching felt so intimate, so private. I felt, in every cell of my body, how much I missed him. Here was a young man with hopes and dreams of his own. He’d come into my life for some reason, whether it was Fate or the stars or some higher power; he had found me and I had found him and together we had discovered a profound love between us, and a dark secret.

But together we might be able to heal that darkness. Together we might be able to create more light.

I had promised Miranda I’d keep an open mind. I took a deep breath and pushed through the glass door into the lobby. Josh turned at the sound, his eyes and smile as worried and as nervous as his mom’s.

“Your therapist, Miranda, invited us,” said Josh by way of explanation.

I gave a small nod. “Then she must know what she’s doing. Hello, Geena. Good to see you.”

“Is it, Heather? I really hope so. All I want to do is say sorry. For everything. I told Josh he should tell you the truth about his past, about us. It was my fault.”

I shook my head. “Of course it wasn’t.”

Geena looked like she might cry. “Yes. Yes, it was. It is my fault. It all started with me. If I’d never met Jim…”

It seemed that I wasn’t the only one who needed to forgive myself. I crossed over to Geena and held out my hands to her. “But if you’d never met Jim, Josh wouldn’t have been born, and then we’d both be missing something in our hearts.”

Geena and Josh just looked at me.

“Do you mean that, Heather?” said Josh, taking a step toward me. He didn’t touch me though. Maybe he didn’t want to risk my reaction. He was being very tentative with me. I guess I’d given him good reason to be.

Before I could answer his question, Miranda opened her door.

“Hello, Geena and Josh. Please come in.”

They went in ahead of her. Miranda stayed back to talk to me.

“Are you ready for this?”

“Probably not,” I said.

Her lips curled into half smile. “Are you at least willing to give it a shot?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. It seems I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“That’s my girl.”

Miranda had set up extra chairs for Josh and Miranda. After our hellos, a bit of chit chat about Miranda’s therapeutic process and an basic explanation of the hypnosis method she wanted to try today, she asked me to stretch out on the couch.

“So I’m going to put Heather into a light trance and take her back to the day of the fire. I think her willingness to relive the trauma, with you as her witnesses, will help her to let go of the past and transform her impulse to run away from it. Now this might be hard for the two of you, as well.”

“Don’t worry about us,” said Geena.

“Right,” agreed Josh. “This is about Heather. We’re here for her.”

I had no idea if Miranda’s plan would be effective. I
did
want to let go of the past and stop trying to run away from it, but was hypnosis therapy going to work? It had only taken us so far before. But Miranda was convinced it could only help pave the way to forgiveness, and she thought Josh’s willingness to support me through it might create an emotional breakthrough. My worry was that I might end up in emotional breakdown. But I really didn’t have anything to lose. Except that I made Miranda promise not to bring up any of the sexual abuse. I was willing to work through that on my own. I just didn’t want Josh to bear that burden, too. If I could work on forgiving and forgetting, Josh and I might still have a chance.

I laid down on Miranda’s couch. I had done this before, but now I felt very self-conscious with Geena and Josh in the room. It took me longer to do the breathing exercises, but eventually I calmed my heart rate down and got my limbs to feel heavy and cool. Miranda guided me through the descending staircase exercise, and I proceeded down a dark hall until all I was aware of was the darkness and Miranda’s voice. She guided me to a door, and I knew I would have to open it. I was pretty sure I knew where it would take me, because I’d gone through this door before when we worked on my first encounter with Ethan in the cornfield.

“I’m at the end of a long dark hall and there’s a door in front of me, not a normal floor to ceiling door but a cold cellar door, one that opens up and out from under the house.”

I was pretty sure I was speaking out loud to Miranda, and she was speaking to me, but it felt more like we were talking in my head, through thoughts only. Like being in a dream.

“Go ahead an open the door,” said Miranda.

I push upwards and a gap of bright blue sky appears between my hands. I push both panels aside and the flop down on either side of the square leading to the cellar. I feel an urge to look behind me, but the blue sky and green wall of rustling corn on the far side of the yard are so inviting in their colors and textures that I ignore this urge to look back and I continue up the last few concrete steps until I am standing next to the house. I feel heavier than normal, as if some force is pulling me back to the cellar but I also feel strong enough to go forward, so I do.

“I’m in the yard of the farmhouse,” I said. “It’s warm. I hear birds chirping. I’m breathing kind of fast but I’m not sure why. I’m glad to be outdoors. I’ll have to go in again soon, to listen to a sermon, which I don’t want to do, but it’s my mom’s birthday and I’m trying to make an effort to make her happy.”

I had forgotten about my mom’s birthday…Odd to remember that detail now. And I’m aware of remembering it, so a part of me is deep in hypnosis but another part is observing what’s going on in the present even while I’m immersed in the past. The sense of being in the past, and yet aware of the present, is stronger than in any other session I’ve had with Miranda. Is it because there are others in the room? Somehow that amplifies the energy, or my focus?… The sense of being in two places at once is disorienting, but also feels very powerful.

“I want to find Ethan,” I continued. “I want to make out with him before we have to go back in. I feel almost desperate to do this. I don’t know why…”

“What else do you see and feel?”

“The grass has been mowed recently. I smell that fresh cut lawn smell. But there’s another smell too. A strong smell of cars I think. I know there’s farm machinery in the barn nearby. It might be that. I hear something.”

It’s Ethan coming around the side of the house. We see each other and rush to each other’s arms. He kisses me, hold me tight, and I devour him. He’s surprised by my ardor. I feel as if I want to rip his clothes off.

“What did you hear, Heather?” said Miranda.

“Ethan’s with me now. We’re kissing. I want to sneak out to the cornfield. Ethan tells me yes, but later. We have to go in now.”

I feel awash in my disappointment, and my reluctance to go in to the sermon, but I know it’s the right thing to do and I know that my cravings are the wrong thing. I feel something bad, something sinful at the center of me. When the feeling passes, the setting has changed.

“I’m inside now in a chair near the back. My mother is craning her neck to see me. She smiles when she does, though only with her mouth. It’s been years since I saw her eyes light up with a true smile. They look sad and haunted. I think I learned the look of those eyes. All the little kids in the congregation are super excited about something over by the kitchen nook. I lean over to get a better look. I see about a hundred cupcakes lined up on trays, plus big urns of lemonade. It must be for my mom’s birthday. I had forgotten about that…”

Pastor Guthrie takes his place at the podium by the fireplace. Smiling, he looks out at all of us. He makes eye contact with me. My stomach flips. His eyes seem to stare right through me like he knows all my secrets. I want to run out of the house. My legs are tense and twitchy. I try to catch Ethan’s gaze, tell him, ‘let’s go now’. I’m super horny all of a sudden.”

Once Pastor Guthrie starts talking my mom won’t look back at me again and she’ll never notice me sneaking out. Ethan gives me a nod and we shift in the crowd. First looking like we’re trying to get a better view. Then trying to get to the washroom. Soon we’re out on the lawn again. I notice I left the cellar door open. I feel compelled to go down there, but my hormones are raging, and I drag Ethan toward the tall corn stalks.

I didn’t remember this sexual drive either. I had always thought it was Ethan pulling me. We weave through the first few rows and then beeline toward the tiny clearing we made weeks ago. We left a towel there last time and it’s still there. Ethan pushes me down and I start tugging at his belt buckle while he pulls his shirt over his head.

“What’s happening now, Heather?”

I realized that I hadn’t been saying those memories out loud.

“Um, Ethan and I are in the cornfield now.”

I feel a wave of shame wash over me, and I take a deep breath until it passes. We’ve worked on this before. I had nothing to feel ashamed about then. I was a normal teenaged girl with healthy drives. But this wave of shame feels a little bit different now that I’ve remembered that I was the one dragging Ethan to our secret clearing. I wanted him. I wanted him bad. I feel that so strongly now and I’d never been aware of it before.

“He’s on top of me.” How much detail do I share? He’s impatient. He’s pushing into me, already bucking to make his friction. I lay there. Earth digging into my back, corn leaves rustling around me, blue sky above. I feel myself float above the whole scene. And then I’m not in it anymore.

“Ethan’s gone now and I’m standing by the cellar door. I’m looking down into the darkness.” This doesn’t feel like a memory. I feel like a ghost. A part of me is back in the corn under Ethan’s thrusting body while another shimmery part of myself descends the concrete stairs. And then I skip forward somehow. I’m farther down the hall without having finished walking down the steps.