Chapter Eleven
I WAKE UP, BUT I don't want to open my eyes. I've been having this lovely dream about Joshua, about lying in his arms, in his bed. About surrendering to that sense of being absolutely cared for, allowing myself to depend on it.
I squeeze my eyes tight, but no matter how much I don't want to leave the dream behind, I am awake.
I open my eyes. And smile.
He's not here in bed with me; I can sense it before I turn to see the divot in the pillow where his head rested. But I can hear him. He's whistling from some far-off room, which makes me smile more. The acrid scent of coffee is rich in the air.
This must be what normal feels like.
The sun is shining through the heavy curtains. I glance at the clock on the nightstand; it's almost two in the afternoon.
The bed is like some enormous womb, and I lie there for a while, luxuriating in the soft sheets, the weight of the comforter on my body.
My mind, sleepy and on autopilot, wants to think about how I might fuck this up. But right now I'm simply too happy to allow myself to go there.
“Valentine, you up, baby? ”
Ah, there he is. So damn sexy in his dark blue pajama bottoms and nothing else. I am crazy about his bare chest. I really am. The muscles there are heavy, thick, his skin a perfect shade of light gold. And I know what it feels like to have my cheek pressed against his heart.
“Hi.”
“Hi, sleepyhead. I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
I'm sorry.
“Don't be.” He moves across the room, sits down on the bed, leans in and kisses me with his coffee-scented mouth. “Mmm, don't move.”
He slips off his pajama bottoms and gets under the covers, his body warm and strong next to mine as he pulls me into his arms. I rest my head on that curve of muscle that runs from the underside of his arm to his shoulder. Lovely. I want him. But I also revel in simply being with him, like this. I could stay here forever.
Tilting my head to look up at him, I touch the scar on his lip, as I often do, and he kisses my fingertip. He is idly running his fingers through my hair, his eyes half lidded, just a glow of green and gold peering out from beneath his thick lashes. “Tell me something, Valentine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something else about when you were a kid. No … tell me about the beginning of sex for you.”
“You mean when I lost my virginity?”
He's quiet a moment, thinking. “Not necessarily. I mean that time in your life when you first became aware of sex.” He's watching me in that penetrating way he has.
“I haven't really thought about it.”
“Haven't you? That's such a turning point in anyone's life. It seems that way to me, anyway.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“So tell me.”
I close my eyes, letting my mind drift. How far back? It seems a lifetime ago. Maybe it is.
With my eyes still closed, I remember.
“I was eleven when Billy Carrow moved into our neighborhood. All the girls were in love with him instantly. He was maybe a year older than I was. But so pretty. Not that he looked like a girl, but he had the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen. And dark, hooded eyes. Sleepy. He was a bit exotic to me, because he really was so … beautiful. He exuded sex, even at twelve. And he was bad. He had that aura of danger about him, even at that age. He was always getting into trouble at school. Getting caught shoplifting, stealing from a neighbor's garage, crashing his bike and breaking his arm. I remember watching him step out of his house for the first time and feeling that tingle between my thighs. It was frightening and exciting. I didn't know how to feel about it.
“But I always watched him. In school, around the neighborhood. He used to hang out at this liquor store down the street with some older boys, and I was always hunting for change to buy candy. Not because I wanted candy, but because it gave me an excuse to go to the store. No one stopped me. No one really cared what I did.”
I stop and think about that for a moment, about wandering the neighborhood, not having to report in at home like the other kids did. It was a little scary. And exhilarating. It made me feel grown up.
“I remember purposely putting on my shortest shorts, my tightest tank tops, to go to the store. Using Vaseline on my lips before I was old enough to buy real lip gloss. And walking into the store, passing Billy and those older boys, that thrill going through me when one of them turned to watch me. I didn't understand until I was a lot older how sexual even that was for me.”
“Did anything ever happen with him?”
I pause, looking at him, but his face is blank, innocent. He gets my silent question right away.
“Valentine. Come on, you were a kid. I just want to know you. I wish I knew you back then. I wish I'd seen you as a young girl.” He reaches out, strokes my cheek, and I go soft and loose all over, as I always do with him. He murmurs, “I bet that Billy kid was in love with you.”
“I don't know about that. But he was the first boy I ever kissed.”
“Oh, this you have to tell me.” He's grinning now.
I roll my eyes, trying not to grin back. But I tell him.
“It was the summer I turned thirteen. Billy had two older brothers, and one of them had a room off the garage. He took me in there. I mean, he just came up to me on the street one day and took my arm and said, ‘Come with me.’ It wasn't a question. I went. I remember the smell of the garage: dry and dusty with a little motor oil mixed in. I remember how warm his hand was on my arm as he led me through the garage and into his brother's dark room. I remember my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn't sure what would happen. But simply being alone with him in the half-dark room seemed forbidden. Exciting. And then he just pulled me to him and kissed me.”
“And…?”
“And I was wet instantly. I didn't know what it meant. It almost hurt. He pushed his tongue right into my mouth and I was shocked and ridiculously turned on. And he was pressing up against me; I could feel his erection against my thigh. I was squirming. I didn't want him to stop. I don't know what would have happened if his mother's car hadn't pulled into the driveway right then. He pulled away from me and I was just… stupid. I couldn't speak. I could see him smiling at me in the dim light coming in through the curtains. Then he said, ‘Come on, let's get out of here.’
“Nothing ever happened with him again. He moved away a few months later. But I thought about that one moment for years.”
Joshua runs a finger over my lower lip, down my jaw, my neck. His voice is quiet. “Do you know how your voice lowered as you were telling me this? How your cheeks flushed?”
“Really?”
I smile at him, take his hand and slip it between my thighs. He goes instantly to where I need him most, his fingers sliding beneath the edge of my panties.
“Do you have any idea what that did to me? Hearing the desire in your voice …”
He pauses, his fingers slipping into my wet cleft, and I am as hot and wet as I ever was with Billy.
“Come on, Joshua.” I arch my hips into his hand.
“Come on, what?”
“I need to feel you inside me.”
I can't wait; I climb on top of him, reach down and wrap my hands around his already-erect cock. Nice. I lean over, grab a condom from the nightstand, sheath him with shaking hands.
He holds onto my hips, lowering me onto his shaft, sliding in, clean and smooth, driving into me. And it is better than anything I felt with Billy Carrow. Better than what I've felt with anyone else, ever. My memories fade, and all I am is this moment, right now, with him. Nothing else matters.
WE'RE STILL IN BED an hour later. Lazy. Lovely.
“Are you hungry, baby?” he asks me. “You must be starving. I swear I was going to bring you breakfast.”
“This was better.”
“It was. It is.” He runs a hand over my side, down my thigh, and I shiver. “But we have to eat eventually. I didn't have anything here but crackers and beer, so I went down to this little café this morning. They make the best croissants. And I got apple juice, some fruit, a few other things. What can I get for you?”
“No, you don't have to do anything. I'll get up.”
“I want to. Stay right here.”
He disappears for a few minutes, comes back with a big red ceramic coffee mug in one hand and a plate in the other. He sets them both on the night table, a large, dark piece, like everything else in the room. Imported furniture, like my own.
The coffee smells wonderful. I pick it up, sip it, let him feed me bites of pastry and fruit while he tells me what he's seen on the news that morning, how the stock market is doing.
I'm hardly paying attention. I am in some dreamlike space, and I want to hold on to it. It's too precious to me to let go.
“Do you want a shower?” he asks me. “We should go down to the beach. It's not too cold. I actually love it when it's like this, gray and cool. And there aren't too many people there on a weekday.”
“I'll shower later. I can be dressed in five minutes.”
Suddenly I want to see his beach, if only because he wants me to.
I get up, slip on my linen pants and a tank top. He gives me one of his hooded sweat jackets with some hockey team logo on it, and I slide into my sandals, then we're out the door.
The sun is still fighting the fog, but I'm warm enough. And his hand is warm in mine. I feel good. Better than I have in a long time. Lighter, somehow.
We walk the one block to the beach, and soon we're on the sand. I take my sandals off and carry them as we move closer to the water. There are only a few other people there. I'm glad it's quiet, uncrowded. It helps me to maintain this fantasy bubble I've constructed around us.
At the edge of a shallow dune, we stop, and Joshua pulls me down to sit on the sand beside him.
“It's beautiful, isn't it?” he asks me.
I look out at the Pacific Ocean, thundering against the shore, the blues, greens, and grays out beyond the swells, where water meets sky in a rippling line.
“It is. It's a little sad on a day like this. Maybe other people need it to be clear and sunny to think this is beautiful. But I like it just like this.”
He squeezes my hand. “You see? Everything doesn't have to be someone else's idea of perfect to be beautiful, Valentine.”
I look up at him and he's watching me in that way he has.
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“You don't really believe it yet, though, do you? Even after I told you what I'd done, about my own glaring flaws?”
I shake my head, look away, digging my toes into the sand. It's cold beneath the surface. Calming, somehow.
“Joshua … I don't quite know how to believe. I'm trying. But I need … I need practice. My whole life has been one thirty-year lesson in how not to trust anything. It's going to take some time.”
“And meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile I guess I'm living on faith. Which is pretty damn hard for me since I don't have much of that, either.” I look back at him. His eyes are still on me. Beautiful in the pale sunlight, like everything else about him. “Except for my faith in you.”
He leans in, kisses me. And I curl my hand around the back of his neck. His skin is so warm beneath my palm. He pulls back.
“I meant what I said, you know.”
His hazel eyes are on me, searching for something. I don't know what he's getting at.
“You meant what?”
“That you don't need perfection for something to be good enough.”
I nod my head. I want to understand.
“Let me tell you something, Valentine. About my family.”
“Okay. I want to hear whatever you want to tell me.”
He pulls his knees to his chest, settles in, holding on to my hand. “I told you how crazy my parents were about each other. I grew up with the understanding that this was possible. But their relationship wasn't always easy. They worked hard for what they had. And they had a rough start.
“My mother was one of those debutante girls from a rich Connecticut family. Maybe that doesn't mean much anymore, but in her day it was everything. My father was from that same set of people, East Coast society. Their families knew each other. And my parents were friends growing up, although Dad told me later he'd been in love with her since he was fourteen years old. When my mom turned up pregnant at nineteen, unwilling to name the father of the baby, her family was ready to disown her.
“The father was someone who had passed through town, one of the summer people. A fling. This was unacceptable in that culture. My dad stepped in and married her, knowing he wasn't the father. But he loved her. He went against everything their social circle believed in, and he took her away from there so they could have a life together. So her child wouldn't have to grow up with that stigma.”
“That baby was you?”
He nods. “I'm grateful to them for that. Growing up, I spent time with my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins. And there was always this tension. There still is. The elephant in the room that is the circumstance of my birth, but they're all too polite to mention. I don't see them much anymore. It's such bullshit. But I didn't know any of this until later. Not until my dad died. Until then, I had no idea why we lived in California, so far away from the rest of the family. I had no idea why we were always treated as outsiders.”
“That must have come as a shock.”
“No. I don't know. Maybe a little, at first. I couldn't think of my dad as anyone other than my dad. But I was only twenty, and it was more the idea of my mother having had sex with someone other than my father. I couldn't care less now, but at the time, well, you don't think of your parents having sex, do you?”
I look away. “That was inescapable in my family. I was locked in my room for hours with that soundtrack playing in the background.”
“Shit. I'm sorry, Valentine.”
I just shake my head, turn back to him. “Forget it. Go on.”
“So. Mom and Dad got married and it wasn't all happily ever after. Mom was so relieved to be saved from a life of shame and rejection, she was grateful. But she wasn't in love with my father. He knew that. But then I was born, and my dad stepped in, really stepped up to being a father, and it all came together for her. That's when she fell in love with him. She was able to forgive herself because he was able to forgive her. That was a first step for her. And my life was good because Dad was able to forgive her. Once I knew the truth, I couldn't help but understand that.”
“And the guy? Your biological father? Did you know him?”
“No. I still have no idea who he is. I don't care. I don't need him for anything. I wanted to know for about five minutes, and then … I realized very quickly that he wasn't important. My father, the man who raised me, was my dad. This other guy who had disappeared wasn't a real person to me.”
I nod again, feeling a bit the same way about my own father, other than a lingering resentment. But it all seems vague now. He seems vague to me now, ghostlike.
“But my point is,” he goes on, “even after I was older and Dad was gone, even after I found out that their life together hadn't been without its problems, I understood people can still love each other completely. That love exists despite our flaws. Despite my own flaws. Despite yours.”
He takes my chin in his hand, forcing my gaze to meet his. My heart is fluttering at a thousand miles an hour.
“This is why I'm here with you, Valentine. Regardless of what you've done in your life, how hard it is for me to process it all. And believe me, just because I'm not hammering you over the head with it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it, that it doesn't hurt.”
“No. It's okay. It is. I'm still here, aren't I? I'm trying to tell you it's because I believe.” He reaches up, tucks a windblown strand of hair behind my ear. “And because I'm falling in love with you.”
My heart tumbles in my chest, a long fall into a warm darkness. “Joshua …”
He's looking into my eyes, his gaze so intense I can hardly stand it. But I can't look away. I don't want to.
“Do you love me, Valentine?” he asks quietly.
“Yes. I do. I love you.”
My heart is going to burst, it is pounding so hard. He kisses me again, then. And all of the world's imperfections melt away beneath the soft press of his lips.
My heart is still thundering; I'm so damn scared. But it feels good, too. Incredible.
He keeps kissing me and kissing me, until my body is flooded with heat and desire.
Finally, he pulls away, says gruffly, “I need to get you back to the house. I need to be alone with you.”
He pulls me to my feet and we make the walk back to his place as quickly as we can. His arm is around me, and I can feel the heat of his big body through my clothes, feel it in the pit of my stomach. Between my thighs.
I can smell the desire on him. Or maybe it's my own?
He jams his key in the front door, pulls me inside. I still haven't had a chance to really look at his house, I realize vaguely as he pulls his shirt off, then mine. Then he slides my pants down my legs, pulls his own off, and I am unable to think anymore. We are naked together, which is what I want at this moment more than anything. To be naked with him, to touch him, to have him touch me. And as he fills his hands with my breasts, as he kisses me until I am breathless, the only thing I can hear are the words he said to me. The words no one has ever said.
I'm falling in love with you.
My heart throbs; my body throbs. It is all one sensation as he touches me, loves me. And I need to feel him inside me, as much a part of me as he can possibly be.
He is pushing me down hard on the wide brown leather sofa in that way I love. But I put my hands on his shoulders.
“In the bedroom, Joshua. Please. In your bed.”
He freezes, tenses a little all over. The current of our desire is dampened suddenly, even with his body pressed against mine, flesh to flesh. Even with his rigid cock lying on my belly.
He says, very quietly, “You cannot clean me up, Valentine. Sex with me is not always going to be soft and pretty.”
“That's not what I'm trying to do.”
“Isn't it? The shower, the bed.”
I'm silent. I don't know what argument I can make.
His voice lowers even more. “Sometimes, Valentine, all I want is to throw you up against the wall, pin you there, and fuck you so hard you scream. Fuck you so hard I hurt you. I want to do everything to you. With you. I want to tie you up. I want it to be dirty, raw. And not because of what you've been. Not because of some twisted idea of it being a novelty with you. But because you are so damn beautiful, and I want you so badly I can barely control myself.”
I'm shaking all over. With the fear of being so open to him. But even more with need. I am melting inside. Hungry for exactly those things he's talking about.
“Joshua … you're right.” My voice is trembling. “God, you're right. I want… I want it all, too. I want it with you. Only with you.”
He picks me up then, shifting me in his strong arms, pushing me against the wall beside the big window overlooking the ocean. I can hear it, smell it, the thundering waves, the salty air. I can smell him again, or still, his scent stronger than ever as he pushes his tongue into my mouth. Soft, sweet, yet his hands on me are rougher than ever, gripping my hips as he lifts me, spreads my thighs, and I wrap my legs around him. Then he spreads my pussy lips with one hand, plunging two fingers into my wet heat. Desire, molten hot, shafts deep into my body, and I gasp, writhe against his hand.
“I'm going to fuck you, Valentine.”
“Yes!”
He pulls his fingers from me, brings them to my lips, watches my face intently as he presses them into my mouth, and I can taste my own juices, salty sweet, before he lowers his hand. He grasps my hips, lifting me.
“Now, Valentine,” he growls before impaling me on his hard cock.
He slides right in, up to the hilt. Pain and pleasure all at once. Too good, this sense of being commanded by him.
Possessed.
That's becoming my favorite word.
His hips begin to piston, and he drives into me, pleasure knifing into my body. Pleasure and a sense of belonging I can hardly describe, even to myself.
“Just need to fuck you, baby,” he says between teeth clenched in pleasure; I can see it on his face. “Just fucking you.”
He slams into me, and the wall is hard and cold against my back, and he's fucking me so damn hard. Desire builds inside me, hot and shimmering, my sex filling, swelling. My nipples hard against his chest.
“Joshua … more!”
He drives deeper, and it really does hurt now. The wall is digging into my spine, his cock is digging deep inside my body. But he feels so good. Better than anything I've ever felt before.
“Joshua … Joshua … God …”
“Tell me you love me, Valentine,” he demands, his voice rough.
“I love you. I love you …”
His hands tighten their grip, his nails biting into my skin. And I hold on to his shoulders, gouging his flesh as he thrusts into me, over and over, driving my pleasure higher and higher.
“I'm going to come,” he tells me, “into you, baby. Love you, baby …”
“Yes …”
I am right there with him, my sex clenching, clasping him, pleasure like a hammer, shattering me inside. And as he cries out, my body convulses, a long, shuddering wave. I am coming so hard; coming itself is that same pain and pleasure, intensified, overwhelming.
It goes on and on, our shivering bodies sealed together by sweat, by heat, by our unwillingness to separate. I don't know how I know this, love being such an unfamiliar concept to me, but I do.
We are both panting. But his grip on my body, holding me up, is as strong as ever. He carries me back to the big sofa, lays me down, settles in beside me, an arm around me, our legs entwined. Lovely. I breathe a sigh of… I'm not sure what it is. Gratitude? Relief?
I have never felt so happy before. This is bliss to me.
The sun is dipping low in the sky, filtering in through the wide expanse of glass that is the front of his house. No drapes in here, just wooden shutters, folded back now to let the view inside. There is enough light still that I can see the room. So oddly like my own house: the imported furniture, all dark, heavy pieces, some of them carved, inlaid, and painted in the way Indian and Balinese and Moroccan furniture often is.
There are enormous pieces of gorgeously carved teak on the walls, from Indonesia, I know, because I have two of them myself. A small collection of baskets that are clearly African sit on a hand-painted Indian chest. Beautiful. And again, amazingly similar to the things I have in my own house.
I smile to myself, feeling a new surge of familiar comfort.
Don't get too used to it.
I really have to shut down those old tapes in my head. I'm going to have to find a way if we are to have anything together. Because I am damn well going to get used to it. I am going to get over all the shit that is my life so I can find some sort of life with him. I have to learn not to believe those voices.
It's going to be hard. Because the fact is, I still do. Everything I'm doing right now is pretend to me, on some level. Deep down, I'm still afraid the idea that this is going to last is nothing more than illusion.
Don't think about it.
No, just be here with him, with this man who says he loves me. With this man I love. Keep pretending as hard as I can.
I had no idea love would be so overwhelmingly wonderful. I had no idea love could hurt this much, simply at the idea of losing it.
WE MADE LOVE ALL weekend, ate, walked on the beach, got coffee at the funny little café down the street from Joshua's house. Then made love again, letting it turn into raw, lovely fucking, in his big bed, on the floor, in the backseat of his car on the way home from dinner.
I hate Monday mornings. I always have. I remember as a kid, that sinking feeling of waking up on Monday morning, time for school. I never wanted to let the weekend go.
I feel like that now.
Joshua had to go to work. He's asked me to stay at his house, which I'll do for a day or two. But eventually I'll have to get back to my house, check on my orchids. Deal with the lingering ashes of my life.
I need to go talk to Lydia. Joshua has offered me the use of his other car: a black Lexus sedan. An incognito car. I like that idea. I don't want to be myself today.
He's left already. The scent of coffee and toast lingers in the kitchen, and as I clean up the breakfast dishes I have this odd flash of myself doing this very thing forever.
Don't be stupid.
No, it's Monday, reality time. Hasn't that always been what Monday is for?
I shower, dress in a pair of jeans and my cashmere sweater. Then I call Lydia. She can see me in an hour. I'm not sure if this is fate intervening, but it feels like it. It feels almost ridiculously important that I see her now.
I get into the car and pull out of the garage, a knot of dread in my stomach at leaving the womblike safety of Joshua's house. But I swallow it down as I hit Pacific Avenue and head north toward Santa Monica.
At Lydia's office, she greets me with a warm smile, as always. Why is my pulse racing?
I sit in my spot on her sofa and she settles in opposite me.
“Tell me what's happened, Valentine.”
“How do you know anything has?”
“You called and asked for a same-day appointment, which I assume is somewhat urgent as I know you're no longer working and don't have a full calendar. And even if that were not the case, you're pale as a sheet.”
“You don't beat around the bush, do you?”
“Would it be at all helpful to you if I did?”
“No.” I have to smile a little. bo …?
“A lot has happened. A lot.” I pause, catch my breath. “I told him. Everything. About what I do. What I've done. I told him how it happened, how I ended up here. That I've quit. I told him that I love him.”
“Ah. And what does he have to say about it?”
“He's been incredible. So accepting. I mean, it's been hard for him. He asked me some pretty tough questions. He wanted details. And I really did not want to tell him that stuff, but I felt I had to. He said I owed him that, and he's right. So I told him. How I got into the business, the kinds of things I've done with my clients, with the other girls. But he still wants me, still wants to try. And I still only half believe it.” I stop, run my hands through my hair, take a breath. “I'm afraid to … I'm afraid to let myself depend on that. But he says he loves me. I don't know why.”
“Why not?”
“Come on, I'd think that would be obvious.”
“Valentine, you don't have to sell yourself short because you earned your living in the sex trade. You don't have to punish yourself that way, you know.”
“No, I don't know that! I don't know that at all.” I'm angry. But none of this is her fault. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to be sharp with you.”
“You don't have to apologize to me. Part of what we do in this room is to help you face your feelings, and some of those feelings are going to be anger.”
“Yes. I have a lot of anger. I know that.”
“What is the main source of that anger, Valentine? Because once you identify it, you can really begin to deal with it, to process it and move forward. Do you know where the anger begins?”
“Of course I know. That's something I've never been in denial about. It begins and ends with my mother.”
“And how have you dealt with it? With her, with those emotions?”
“I haven't seen my mother for years. I put her behind me.”
“Did you?”
“What are you saying?”
“Refusing to see her doesn't mean you've put her behind you. It may mean that you've done nothing more than ignore her, and all of those feelings of anger and sadness that are attached to her.”
“I never said I was sad.”
“You don't have to.”
“No, you're wrong there. I'm not sad. Not about her.”
“Okay.” Lydia nods, smiles. She's being patronizing. And I'm getting angrier.
“So, what do you suggest I do, Lydia? That I go and see her and look for some sort of closure? Well, it won't work. That woman will never change. She's still exactly the same, I'm sure. Just a stinking, rotting alcoholic. She'll never change.”
“But you have.”
“Not that much!”
Fuck. I hate it when she makes sense that I don't want to hear.
I'm quiet, absorbing.
“So … you really are saying I need to go see her. Is that it?”
“I am suggesting you think about it, yes. But you have to go in with an open mind, or it won't accomplish anything. Are you ready to do that?”
“Yes!” I stop, tug on the ends of my hair. Am I really going to do this? It's been so long. “I don't know. I'd like to think I am. To think I'm ready for anything. I know my life has to transform completely, that I have to. I know you're right about dealing with my mother. But it's not like she's going to welcome me with open arms. It's not as though she'll apologize for anything.”
“No, she probably won't. This isn't about what she does. It's about adjusting your own perspective. And perhaps seeing her through adult eyes, eyes that have been opened a bit, will color your worldview a little differently.”
I nod my head. “I understand what you're saying.” And I do. It's almost habit that's keeping me from going. But look where habit has gotten me. “I know you're right. I know I need to do this. I need to face her. To stop running from her.” How did Lydia manage to turn this around so it seems like my idea? “Okay, I'll go. Maybe I'll even do it today. I might as well get it over with.”
“It's entirely up to you.”
I nod, knowing damn well it's not. I would never have thought of this if it weren't for Lydia.
“Okay. Okay. I'm going to do it.”
We talk a little more, but it feels like filler. I can't forget that I am going to see my mother this afternoon. That I have to face her, and everything her presence in my life has meant for me.
I do not want to do this. An evil necessity.
When my appointment is over I get in the car and head into the Valley. If I don't do this now, I may never do it at all.
The trip goes quickly. And as soon as I come up over the rise of the 405, the San Fernando Valley spread out before me, my stomach lurches. But I make myself do it, following the 405 to the 101, taking the too-familiar exit.
The houses become more run-down with each passing block as I get closer to my old neighborhood. Pale. Miserable. The neighborhood has changed, fallen apart over the years. Maybe she doesn't even live there anymore. Maybe she's dead. Anything could have happened. It's been at least eight years since I drove down this sad street.
It looks a lot like it did when I was growing up, but dingier, more depressing than before. Houses and apartment buildings with faded paint, weeds in the yards. And I know the moment I pull up in front of her house that she is there, inside it.
I park the car and have to breathe, pulling air deep into my lungs, fighting the nausea.
Just do it. Get it over with.
It would be easier if even a small part of me was convinced it would do any good. If I believed it would make creating a new life for myself, being with Joshua, any more possible. But I have to try, don't I? I have to practice believing.
I get out of the car, holding my purse tightly in my hand, as though it's some sort of talisman. The house is in bad shape. The paint is absolutely peeling off the walls. The weeds are knee-high, and the hardy rosebushes that once bloomed against the front windows are dead and dried. A victim of neglect. I can relate.
Heart hammering in my chest, I reach out and ring the bell.