Warmth in Ice (A Find You in the Dark novella) (6 page)

I didn’t say anything, instead choosing to look out the window. Dr. Cary let out an audible sigh. “I’m sure you get tired of rehashing the same thing over and over again. I don’t want this to be painful for you. This is your therapy. You dictate how this is going to go. So how about, instead of me asking you questions, you tell me what you want to talk about and we go from there,” she suggested kindly and I turned my attention back to her.

She was right of course. These meetings were part of my outpatient plan. I didn’t have a choice. But I did have a choice in what I got out of it. I had come a long way in how I thought about therapy and talking about my feelings. I now recognized the necessity of it.

“Okay, well, I got a letter from my parents’ attorney this week. With a check. Basically, they told me to never contact them again,” I said, feeling kind of relieved to talk about it.

Dr. Cary frowned. “That had to have been hard. What did you do when you got this letter?” she asked, making more notes.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Do you mean did I cut or think about using?” I asked hatefully. Shit, would it always come back to this? The answer was yes. It would.

Dr. Cary dropped her pen and gave me a hard look. “Yes, that is exactly what I meant. That had to have been a strong trigger for you. I know in the past your parents have always brought about your most negative and self-destructive behaviors. So lets talk about that. Re-frame your coping mechanisms,” Dr. Cary suggested.

She was right…again. There was a reason she got paid the big bucks to listen to a bunch of crazies talk about their impulses and feelings.

“Yeah, I thought about cutting. That was my first instinct actually. But I didn’t do it,” I finally admitted.

Dr. Cary gave me a small smile. “Well, what did you do instead?” she asked.

I picked at a thread on my jeans. Talking about this shit never got any easier. The need to cut myself continued to sit like a shadow in the back of my mind. Always there, ready to make me feel better. It still whispered in my ear that just one slice would make all the noise in my head go away.

But with each passing day, I was getting stronger and the pull of that shadow was becoming easier to ignore. And I hoped like hell that one day soon I’d stop hearing it all together.

“I called Maggie,” I told my counselor.

Dr. Cary made a few more notes. “Maggie. That’s your girlfriend right?” she asked, pulling a folder off her desk and looking through it until she found what she was looking for. I recognized Dr. Todd’s handwriting on the paper in her lap.

“Yeah, she’s my girlfriend,” I answered, trying to get a look at the notes in her lap.

“I’ve read through your case file from the Grayson Center. There are lots of mentions of Maggie in Dr. Todd’s notes. From what I can gather, in the past, Maggie has also been a trigger for you. Is that not the case anymore?” she asked, still reading whatever was written in the file.

I felt myself get instantly defensive. This was usual response to any supposed criticism of my relationship with Maggie.

“No, she…well…she helps me. She has always been able to help me. Just for a while there, it was all mixed up with my fucked up feelings. But she gets me. She knows what can set me off. She’s not my trigger!” I said louder than I meant to.

Dr. Cary gave me a sharp look. “It’s important that you be honest with yourself. If she is still a trigger for you and she is someone who is in your life, then we need to address that.”

I shook my head. “No, we don’t need to address that. It’s not a problem.
Maggie
is not the problem,” I grit out. I was about to add a
back the fuck off
for good measure but stopped myself.

Crap.

“Okay, maybe there is a problem with Maggie. And maybe it triggers some intense stuff,” I grudgingly admitted. Dr. Cary’s face relaxed and she sat back in her chair.

“Thank you for being honest, Clay. Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently.

Like I had a choice. She had opened this can of snarly worms, there was no putting the lid back on.

“Maggie goes to college in Virginia,” I started. Dr. Cary watched me quietly, doing that thing that therapists do best. Waiting for me to spill my guts all over her carpeted floor.

“And I’m down here. So it’s been hard. Really there hasn’t been a moment of our relationship that
hasn’t
been hard,” I said, shocking the hell out of myself for admitting this to a stranger.

“Long distance relationships are tough in the best of circumstances. But given everything you’ve been challenged with, it must make things even more difficult,” Dr. Cary stated as a matter of fact.

I nodded my agreement. She was good. Better than I gave her credit for. Because I found myself unloading all the screwed up and beautiful history between Maggie and me. I told her about how pissed I got over Maggie’s new life. How I felt left out and left behind. How bitter I was that she wasn’t making more of an effort to see me, when if the roles were reversed and I was able to leave the fucking state, nothing, and I mean,
nothing,
would have kept me from her.

“And now Christmas is coming up and it’s just another freaking holiday where we won’t be together. I know she needs to be with her family but I need her too,” I said angrily.

Dr. Cary clicked her pen a few times and then tapped her chin with the tip, leaving an ink stain on her skin. “Don’t you think you’re being unfair to Maggie?” she asked me. Her statement had me flushing in shame.

“Probably,” I conceded, knowing the doctor was spot on.

“Maggie has stood by you through a lot. She put everything on the line to be with you more than once. She is doing something for
her
and you have to be selfless and let her. I understand this stirs up a lot of negative self-talk for you. But that is about you and not about Maggie. Which is why the two of you are doing the best thing for each other.
You
are working on things here while Maggie is building a life outside of your relationship in Virginia. Your life can’t completely revolve around each other. That isn’t healthy in the long term,” Dr. Cary advised and I wanted to argue with her.

Because my world
did
revolve around Maggie. It always had since the moment I met her. Dr. Cary didn’t understand how things were between us. Just because she had a few letters after her name didn’t make her the expert on my relationship.

I was ready to dismiss this entire conversation out right. But her next words sank in. And they sank in deep.

“You told me you left Maggie once because you thought it was the right thing for her. Right now, you have to let her live her life and you need to focus on your own. If you spend your time divided, you will never be whole. Use this time apart to create something for
you
. If what you have with Maggie is as strong as it seems, then it will be there when you’ve done that. But the biggest part of your outpatient treatment is to do things that are good for
your
health and
your
progress. To build a positive life for
you.
And once that happens, then you can share it with another person.”

“Walk slowly with Maggie. The two of you jumped from A to Z rather quickly. Now it’s time to take a step back and learn all the other letters. See the distance between you not as a barrier but as a way to do things the right way,” Dr. Cary said with a smile.

I nodded. I thought it was time I learned what the
right way
looked like.

“And remember to be open and honest. It is the most important component of any relationship. If you’re feeling insecure or unsure, tell her. Listen to Maggie if she is upset. If you have that foundation of trust, then the rest falls into place naturally,” Dr. Cary said.

I felt a flare of guilt because I had planned to keep Maria’s upcoming visit to myself. I didn’t want to rock an already floundering boat. But Dr. Cary was right, if things were going to work between Maggie and me in the forever sense, I had to be honest. I had to take things slow. And I had to be comfortable with letting her finding her way…by herself.

“I
have to tell you something,” I said after I called Maggie later that night.

Maggie was quiet and I realized how I came across. God knows what those words sounded like to her.

“What?” she asked quietly.

“Maria called me,” I told her and then waited.

But the reaction I received wasn’t anything that I had been expecting.

Maggie started laughing.

Huh?

“Uh, what’s so funny?” I asked, completely confused.

Maggie snorted. “Jesus, Clay, I thought you were going to tell me something really horrible. I mean, Maria sucks, but shit…okay…” Maggie started laughing again and I started laughing with her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just thought you’d be pissed,” I said once she had calmed down.

“Pissed? Why would I be pissed?” she asked.

Had I entered some crazy chick alternate universe? Or was I walking into a trap without realizing it?

“Because Maria was a bitch to you? Because she made it obvious she wanted to sleep with me? Because you have every right to ask me not to see her?” I supplied.

I could almost see Maggie rolling her eyes. “Clay, Maria’s got some fucked up issues. I get that. But I trust you. Yeah, I don’t trust her, but that doesn’t matter. She’s not my boyfriend. You are.”

I sagged in relief, not sure I deserved her understanding. “If it were Jake calling you,
I’d
be fucking livid,” I admitted, feeling ashamed.

Maggie didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yeah, well, that has more to do with the things you’re dealing with than with me or our relationship. You know you’re the only guy in my life. So sure, you’d be angry, but I would hope you’d trust me to be faithful to you,” she said quietly.

Trust. Such a hard thing to give when you had been burned so much in your life. But if being with Maggie and living with Ruby had taught me anything it was that there were people in your life that you
could
trust.

“I don’t deserve you,” I said quietly.

“Clay, when will you realize that you deserve the world?”

I
shoved a few more shirts into my suitcase. I tried to make room but it was already extremely over packed. My plane left for Florida tomorrow morning, Christmas Eve.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous as hell. Clay still had no idea I was coming. I had received a package in the mail yesterday from him. My Christmas present I assumed. I took it out of the box and put the still wrapped gift in my suitcase along with the things I had gotten for both he and Ruby.

I had been home for two weeks. My parents hadn’t been thrilled when I said I’d be spending Christmas in Florida with Clay. My dad had shot down the idea the second I mentioned it over Thanksgiving break.

“Clay lives in a group home! There is absolutely no way you are staying with him there!” my dad had said vehemently. He turned an alarming shade of purple when I said we’d be staying in a hotel instead because overnight visitors in the group home were prohibited.

My mom had stepped in and tried to put on the parental guilt trip. “But it’s your first Christmas in college. We’ve missed you so much, we just want to spend the holidays with our little girl,” she had reasoned.

I had almost caved. My parents knew exactly what buttons to push to make me feel like an ungrateful child. But I stuck to my guns. “I’ve been working to save up for the ticket. I haven’t seen Clay since June. I plan to go whether you are okay with it or not. But I’d prefer for you to be okay with it.” I had been so proud of how strong I sounded. Maggie Young was pulling up her big girl panties!

My parents shut the subject down and refused to discuss it any more over break. I had spent most of my time with Rachel and Daniel anyway, so there hadn’t been much time to say more about it. But my mind was made up; I just hoped I could go with their blessing.

It wasn’t until I had gone back to school that Mom had called and said that I was an adult and I could do what I wanted. She hadn’t sounded particularly happy about it, but I was relieved that they had conceded.

So after that, I had booked my flight to Florida. I would be arriving at Orlando International Airport at ten-thirty in the morning on Christmas Eve. I planned to stay for three nights (because that was all I could afford) and fly back to Virginia on the 27
th
.

I booked a room at a Holiday Inn not far from where Clay was living. I had gone out and gotten myself a small, fake Christmas tree already decorated with lights. I was going to make this the most perfect Christmas possible.

Hiding my visit was proving extremely difficult. Clay didn’t seem very enthused about the upcoming holiday. He talked about Ruby coming up to visit and about some of the activities the group home was doing for the residents. But he seemed a little sad.

I only hoped that once I was there I could make up for the years of shitty holidays he had experienced.

But the truth was I didn’t know what to expect. As hard as we tried, the tension between Clay and me hadn’t gotten any better. I blamed the distance but a huge part of me worried that it was more than that.

That maybe while he was moving forward, he was going to walk so far away from me that I’d never be able to catch up.

I tried to hold onto the belief that our love could overcome anything. We had already climbed the mountain, this should be the easy part, right? Why couldn’t my heart believe my head?

“Knock, knock,” a voice called out from the hallway. My door flew open, bouncing off the wall. “There you are!” Rachel said, coming into my bedroom with a huge smile on her face with Daniel right behind her.

Rachel grabbed me in a huge hug and without hesitation, I held her back. Once upon a time, physical demonstrations of any form would have been a huge no-no. I didn’t do the hugging stuff. But times had changed.
I
had changed. And now I didn’t think twice about kissing Daniel’s cheek and giving Rachel’s long, brown hair an affectionate tug.

“Hey you two,” I said, pulling my suitcase off the bed. It landed with a loud thud on the floor.

“Think you packed enough?” Daniel asked, cocking an eyebrow before taking his usual spot on my bed. Rachel sank down beside him, her body leaning into his.

I had been worried that when my two best friends decided to go to school together, that they wouldn’t make it. That their relationship would die a fiery death and as a result we’d lose the friendship that we have had our entire lives.

But they seemed stronger than ever. I watched as Daniel tucked a piece of hair behind Rachel’s ear and she gave him a small smile. They were cute, in that so-adorable-it-makes-you-want-to-vomit-kind of way.

“You’ve seen how your girlfriend packs for a weekend away, so don’t start with that shit,” I warned Daniel who laughed before being elbowed by Rachel in the gut.

“She’s right, baby. Who needs five pairs of shoes for one night?” he asked, moving out of striking range. Rachel scowled but then shrugged.

“I can’t believe your parents are cool with you being gone for Christmas,” Rachel said, her eyes wide.

“Well, I’m not sure
cool
would be the appropriate word to use,” I admitted.

Daniel sniffed the air and got to his feet. “Your mom’s making snicker doodles. Later,” he announced and was out the door before either of us could say a word. Rachel and I laughed.

“I would have thought he had beaten his snicker doodle addiction by now. It’s really concerning. Maybe we need to stage an intervention,” I snickered. Rachel shook her head.

“That’s all he could talk about on the way over here. Those freaking snicker doodles. It’s a sickness,” Rachel mused, getting up and going to my jewelry box. I watched as she picked out a pair of gold hoops and put them on. “I’m taking these. You never wear them,” she informed me.

I waved my hand in her direction. “Take them.”

Rachel continued to sift through my jewelry and I just sat there, a bundle of nerves and overloaded anxiety.

“Are things still good with you and Daniel? I mean, they seem to be, but has going to college changed anything?” I asked. Rachel looked over her shoulder, her eyebrows knitted together.

“Things are great. We make sure not to spend every waking moment together. I have my friends and Daniel is rushing a fraternity. My class load is insane so it’s not like we have a ton of time to be together. But that’s probably for the best. I don’t think being in each other’s back pocket would be the right thing for us. Why do you ask?” She gave me a pointed look and I sighed, lying back on my bed, my hands folded under my head.

“I guess I’m just worried,” I answered.

Rachel came over and moved my legs so she could sit down beside me. “About Daniel and me? Why?” she asked.

I stared up at the ceiling. “I’m not worried about you two. That was my less than subtle attempt at telling you I’m scared as hell that things will be different when I see Clay again. What if we’ve moved too far away from where we were before?”

Rachel patted my foot. “Well of course things will be different. I’d be more worried if they weren’t,” she said.

I rolled my head to look at my best friend. She rolled her eyes. “Mags, if I thought you were flying all that way to spend time with the Clay that we knew last year, I’d never let you go. I’d chain your ass to your bed and keep you here. He needed to change. Otherwise a relationship between the two of you would never work,” she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What if I don’t know how to be with
this
Clay? What if I fly down there and we both realize that our time is over? That the people we are now don’t fit together anymore? I don’t know if I would be able to survive that.” I sounded sad and more than a little pathetic but the fear in my gut was consuming.

“Look, I’m not expert on relationships but I do know that what you and Clay have is something special. And if it’s meant to be, it will. Though I can’t imagine two people who have fought so hard to be together allowing anything, least of all time and distance, to destroy what they have. But if for some reason things
are
different, then either you learn to be these new people together or you move on. Those really are your only options. So stop driving yourself crazy with scenarios that may not even happen,” Rachel lectured.

“I’m not sure if that was helpful or not,” I muttered just as Daniel came back into the bedroom with a plate full of cookies. When Rachel tried to take one, he pulled the plate out of her reach.

“These are mine, go get your own,” he warned, stuffing his face.

Rachel looked at me. “Great boyfriend huh?” I laughed and allowed myself to be pulled to my feet. “Let’s go raid the kitchen. Your mom gone has into Christmas cookie overload and since Mr.
Stingypants
isn’t sharing, we had better get our share before there isn’t anything left.”

“M
a’am,
the pilot has turned on the seatbelt sign. We’re starting to descend,” the flight attendant said, waking me from my fitful nap. I wiped my mouth, checking for drool and smiled in thanks.

Realizing I was so close to Clay had my heart racing in my chest. After boarding the plane two and a half hours ago, I had immediately fallen asleep. I had stayed up late last night with Rachel and Daniel after having our Christmas dinner and opening presents.

I knew that my parents were upset about not having me around for Christmas day but they had tried to hide it as best they could. They shocked the hell out of me by giving me a small wrapped gift before leaving me at the airport.

“This is for Clay, from your dad and me. It’s not much. Just a little something,” my mom had said, pressing the package into my hand before I went through security.

I blinked in surprise. “That’s really sweet of you, Mom. I’ll make sure he gets it,” I had said, giving her a hug. Then I had turned to hug my dad.

“Call us when you get there and please call us on Christmas. And make sure you keep your phone on you at all times and pay attention to your purse. There are pickpockets everywhere,” my mother rambled. This was hard for her. Perhaps even harder than leaving me at school. I was traveling, over a thousand miles away, on my own.

“I will. Stop worrying so much!” I insisted, still trapped in my parents’ death grip.

When I was finally able to pull away, I gave them a reassuring smile. “Love you and thank you, for everything,” I said, holding up Clay’s gift.

My dad patted my cheek. “We love you too, Maggie May. We hope you and Clay have a wonderful Christmas,” he said warmly. Then I had left them, feeling better than I had in a long time.

When the plane touched down on the runway and taxied into the gate, I was a ball of restless energy. My brief nap had energized me and I could barely contain my nervous excitement.

I had spoken to Clay last night and tried to surreptitiously ask about his schedule for today. With it being the day before Christmas, Clay hadn’t planned to do much more than to stay at the house and wait for Ruby, who unbeknownst to him wouldn’t be coming into town for another two days.

I couldn’t get off the plane fast enough. I got my carry on out from the overhead compartment, almost smacking the guy who had been sat beside me in the face. Which would have been a nice case of karma, given that I totally caught him stealing my pretzels while he thought I was asleep.

Mr.
Pretzel Stealer
made an exasperated noise under his breath and shot me a look of perturbed annoyance that I barely noticed.

“Sorry,” I muttered. I was way too fixated on my complex mixture of emotions to give it another though. Nerves and excitement warred against the overwhelming urge to freak the fuck out. Which was so ridiculous. This was Clay. And he was everything to me.

You would think after walking into the dark so many times for this boy, that making an impromptu visit to Florida in order to surprise him for Christmas should have been a walk in the park.

I wish I could sort out why this felt so monumental. Why my entire world seemed hinged on what would greet me forty-five minutes away.

After waiting for what felt like forever for my bag, I finally left the airport and walked out into Florida’s warm December air.

I hailed a cab and gave him Clay’s address. I sat in the back seat and stared out the window, my heart hammering in my chest and trickles of sweat, that had nothing to do with the heat, dripping down the back of my neck.

The cabbie tried to engage me in meaningless chitchat about the unseasonable warmth. Apparently this was the warmest Christmas on record. I nodded my head and feigned interest but my mind was definitely not on the weather.

My phone buzzed in my hand and I looked down to see a text from Clay.

Singed and burned I yearn for the warmth of your beloved ice.

I smiled as I texted him back.

Did you write that?

His response came a minute later.

Just a Japanese poem I know. You should read it sometime.

His words echoed those he had said the first time he had left me his first butterfly with similarly beautiful words written along the bottom. I grinned with the wave of bittersweet nostalgia. This came at just the right moment when I needed to be reminded that we loved each other beyond any obstacle. And that no matter what, this visit, my being here, it could only serve to reinforce something I already knew.

That Clay and I were in this forever.

Grinning I quickly responded,
You sure do like those Japanese poets.

Clay replied with
they say all the right things when my own words aren’t enough.

I was trying really hard not to sob like a baby in the back of this poor guy’s cab. He was already looking at me in the rearview mirror curiously as I started to sniffle loudly.

My text back was a simple heart. Anything more and I would be a mess.

“You alright back there?” the cabbie asked.

I nodded, giving him a watery smile before returning my attention to the palm trees and buildings whizzing by my window.

Twenty minutes later the cab stopped in front of a non-descript two story house. I peered out the window and was a bit taken aback. This looked so…normal. I hated to admit to myself that I expected something a lot more institutional. I wasn’t expecting pretty potted plants and a porch swing.

The cab driver got my suitcase out of the trunk and handed it to me. I paid him and he wished me a Merry Christmas before pulling away, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, staring up at the house like some sort of idiot.

I walked up the steps, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. And then I waited. And waited some more. And still no one answered.

Shit. What if no one was home? I’d feel like a complete ass if I had to text Clay to come and get me because I was stranded on his front porch.