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“Stop being sorry,” Ali told him again, picking up her bag from the floor. “Just understand that of all the things I’ve been wrong about—of everything I will be wrong about later—not one of them was, is, or ever will be you.”
* * *
“I wasn’t expecting to see you,” Linda said as Ali sank onto the couch.
Ali bit her lip and shrugged. After emailing Beth that she wasn’t feeling well and staying home, the next thing Ali did was wait for Linda’s office to open and beg her receptionist for an emergency appointment.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she began, “but I don’t really have anyone else to talk to.”
Linda chuckled. “If everyone had the perfect support system and willingness to use it, I would’ve been out of work a long time ago.” A gentle smile formed on her face. “How have you been?”
The instinct was to let the words flow freely from her mouth. I’m fine. Not bad. Everything is going okay.
“Not good,” Ali admitted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not good at all.” She focused on the rug between them and shook her head. “I don’t really know where to start.” She took a sip of the coffee she bought—the third cup she had gotten since she drove back to Fort Worth, waiting for Linda.
“I don’t know if it’s wrong to want to have sex right now. But I want to.” She looked up at Linda. “With Cornell, that’s what I want.”
“There is no one way to do things after sexual assault, Ali. Some survivors shy away from sex. Others desire it. In a healthy relationship, sex can offer you a sense of control that you might feel like was previously taken away from you.”
Good. Can you write a prescription so Cornell believes it?
Linda held her hand up. “But, it’s not a solution.”
“What is, then?”
“First, it’s realizing that you don’t have a problem that needs to be fixed. Trauma of any kind rarely goes away. I know it’s not what you want to hear. But what you need to consider is that the only way to ever overcome trauma is to find the tools that work to allow you to live with it, but not live in it. Sex can be one, yes. But you’re not going to be able to rely on that if you’re triggered in your office in the middle of a workday.” Linda smiled.
I could’ve in the past, Ali thought.
“Are you two having intimacy troubles?”
“We aren’t having trouble because we aren’t having intimacy.”
Linda tilted her head. “Have you discussed what happened?”
Ali nodded. “I mean, before this morning, he knew what happened, just not what happened.” She shook her head as the early morning’s events rushed back at her like the league’s best linebacker, plummeting her into the ground. “Now he knows everything.”
“Did he push you to talk about it?”
“No. I… it was like an explosion.” She looked up from her lap. “I couldn’t stop.”
Linda smiled kindly. “It’s a lot to keep to yourself.”
“It was a lot for him to hear,” Ali rebutted, scoffing at her own understatement. “When I realized what actually happened, I wasn’t planning on telling him. I thought I could hide it. And then… ”
She thought back to the morning Cornell came to pick her up when she woke with the sun from a dream that tried to keep her in the dark of night. In her mind, she could hear her mother and John trying to calm Cornell down, remembering how confused, how hurt he was. The brokenness in his voice forced Ali to tell him. I couldn’t stand for a second to let him think he did something wrong when really, I did.
And another part of her—the smallest part that wasn’t left damaged and broken—wanted to tell him. Because Ali had learned over the last year that Cornell was the person that just made everything better even when he wasn’t trying. And that piece of her needed him to make it better in that moment.
“I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to fix it,” Ali said before shaking her head. “But you know what? He… I didn’t feel like a victim until he looked at me like one.”
Linda sat back in her chair. “Do you feel like one right now? A victim?”
Ali nodded.
“You were victimized. But Ali, you also survived. If you look at it that way, you aren’t any more of a victim than you are a survivor.” Linda paused for a moment. “Choosing to tell someone—anyone, even me—about what happened isn’t an easy thing. Some survivors never do. It’s good that you wanted to share it with him.”
“Really? Because I regret telling him anything.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I ruined everything between us when I let him know something happened. We just tiptoe around each other. At home, at work. It’s awkward. It’s never been awkward.” Looking up at Linda, Ali continued. “Do you know how we met? I threw myself at him, like literally. At this gross bar in Dallas. I grabbed him and started to kiss him. I mean, it’s a long story, but I needed him in that moment like that. And then he shows up at my work. Of all places. And everything with him happened so fast. Sex, dating, relationship, moving in together, and you know what? I was fine with that. More than fine. Because two months ago we were talking about having kids, and now I have to beg for a kiss. I have to beg for him to touch me, and he… can’t.”
