Exposed (Free Falling) (2 page)

I nodded to confirm. 

She set her pen down on her notepad.  “I hadn’t realized –“

“Makes two of us.”
  The tension mounted in my shoulders, tightening into a nice knot that was sure to stay there until this whole ordeal was over.  Staring at AJ’s initials on my wrist, I slid my cuff bracelet down to cover it and went on.  “I didn’t know until a few nights ago.  Up until then, he was supposed to be out of town on business from what I heard, but…his plans changed, I guess.”

The doctor was silent for a moment, probably watching the range of emotions that crossed my face.  “What are your thoughts on that?”

I only shrugged. 

“Are you planning to avoid him?”

“From what I understand, that won’t be necessary.  I’m pretty sure we’ll be steering clear of each
other.
”

“Why would you assume that?”

I laughed cynically.  “Because, Dr. Gill, I walked away – didn’t tell him where to find me, how to get in touch with me, never called, never wrote, nothing…”

“And with good reason, Samantha,” she countered.  “You were broken and scared – a victim of a violent sexual assault.
  And at the hand of someone you knew and trusted.  That’s not an easy thing to overcome.”

I cringed at
the thought of Antonio, fighting to ignore the vivid images that followed.  It was bad enough that I frequently revisited that memory in my nightmares. 

“There’s no fault in what you did
– in realizing that part of your healing process meant leaving everything behind. 
Including
AJ.  The sooner you accept that and forgive
yourself,
the better.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d accused me of projecting my
own feelings and views on the situation onto AJ.  She had this grandiose sense of optimism that led her to believe that he’d forgiven me for leaving him behind at Charleston; however, I didn’t get that vibe from Terrell, Maisha,
or
Deanna whenever AJ happened to come up in conversation.

“Will Jason be accompanying you
to the wedding?”  She asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I nodded.

She made another note before setting her notebook aside and giving me what I’d come to identify as
‘the mom look’
that she gives whenever she’s about to recommend something that she knows I’ll be uncomfortable with.

“Have you thought about seeing this as an opportunity to gain closure in –“

I burst out laughing before she could finish.  “I value your opinion, Dr. Gill, but…not happening.  There’s no way I’m about to make a scene at Terrell and Maisha’s wedding.”

“Why does it have to be a
scene?  You’re an adult.  He’s an adult. Not to make light of this or oversimplify it, but is it so farfetched to think that he would be open to this?” 

She really didn’t have a clue, did she?

More than once, Terrell avoided talking about AJ back when I used to even bother asking how he was doing.  Not only was AJ hurt and angry that I’d left, he’d moved on.  From what I could gather, she wasn’t just some girl either; they were pretty serious.  A pang of guilt sickened me and I lowered my head.

“Well…just give
it some thought.  You have time to mull it over, and we’ll have another session before you head to Boston.  We can revisit the topic then.”

I nodded, but had no interest in
our conversation going there…
ever
.

The rest of the session was
pretty routine. I hit the sidewalk and took several deep breaths, ridding myself of the heaviness I always feel after discussing my past and the subsequent side effects.  There was still another four hours left in my workday and I needed my head clear.  Putting one foot in front of the other, I took to the street and hailed a cab instead of walking so I wouldn’t be late getting back to the office.  The second one of the yellow vehicles pulled up to the sidewalk, my phone rang.

“Hey, M
a,” I answered without having to even check the ID.  She made a habit of calling every Wednesday at the same time, making it her personal business to help me detox from my sessions.

“Hey, sweetie.
  How was it?”

I held my hand over the receiver while giving the driver the address of my building before answering my mother’s question.  “Eh…it went alright.  More about Angel moving and stuff about Jason,” I replied, intentionally glossing over that last part. 

Of course my mother ignored my attempt and went in for the kill.

“Now…I’m no
t one to encourage cohabitation…” she started.

I laughed at the awkward
wording and because I knew what she was about to say.  “Mom, I’m not moving in with him.  I know you love Jason, and so do I, but…it isn’t going down.”

She sighed into the phone.  “I hate the idea of you being in that big city already.  But even more than that, I hate the idea of you living
alone
in that big city.”

I held on when the driver took a turn sharper than he intended to, nodding in response to the apology he made afterward.

“If I don’t just turn Angel’s room into an art studio, I’ll put an ad out for a roommate,” I assured her.

“Ugh, that’s even worse. 
A stranger, Samantha?  What about your co-workers?  Any of them looking for a place?”

I shook my head like she could see me. 
“Nope.  And if they are, they haven’t mentioned it, and I’m not asking,” I said before she could suggest it.  “I’ll be fine.  Cross my heart.”

I smiled, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t amused. 

She sighed into the phone and I paid the cab driver when we pulled up to the curb.  Closing the door behind me, I decided to set my mother’s mind at ease before heading back inside to work. 

“Mom, you’ve been to my place before.  The area is nice and there’s tight security at both entrances. 
I know almost every neighbor on my floor and we all look out for each other.  Relax…please?  You don’t have to worry about me.”  I said it, but my plea undoubtedly fell on deaf ears.  She’d made it her business to worry about me for the past five years.

“I hear you,” was as good
of a response as I was gonna get.  “Tell Dad I love him, and I love you, too, okay?”

“Love you, too, baby.  We’ll talk later,” she concluded.

Dropping my phone back inside my purse, I ran a hand up through the back of my hair and headed for the elevator.  I stared at my reflection in the brushed-metal doors, assessing my sleeveless black dress while the numbers counted down from the fifth floor –
Jason’s
floor.  Speak of the devil…

The smile that met me when the doors parted was familiar and comforting.  Moving aside to let out the others who’d ridden the elevator down with him, Jason
stepped back inside to accompany me to my floor, abandoning whatever plans had brought him down to the building’s lobby in the first place.  Looking him over in his tailored, gray suit, I welcomed the hug that we exchanged once we were alone.  My eyes closed and I felt a little of the tension leave my shoulders from earlier.

“How was your session
, baby?” he asked, still holding me close while we climbed to the next floor. 

“Fine…it went fine,” I said, finally releasing him.  Based on the look he returned, I gathered that he didn’t believe me.

“Fine?”

I nodded. 
“Yeah.”

He let it go.

“Where were you headed?  You didn’t have to ride up with me.”

Jason shrugged. 
“Taking a late lunch.  I have a brownstone to show in an hour and a half, so I just figured I’d eat and then head over there to meet my client.”

I smiled at him -
my
man – one of New York’s most promising, up and coming realtors.  “Not that you need it, but good luck.  I know you’ll land it.”

He smiled and touched his lips to mine once in response.

When the bell sounded, signaling that we’d reached the third floor, I still hadn’t stopped staring into those greenish-gold eyes of his – compliments of his mother’s Dominican heritage.  However, he owed his light-mocha skin tone to his Haitian father.

The doors parted and I
took a step forward to exit; however, my head whipped back in Jason’s direction when he gently caught my hand.  “Hey…can I take my beautiful lady to dinner tonight?”  He asked, the corner of his lips turning up into a smile.  My eyes drifted down to our interlocked fingers.

“Sure…I think I can pencil you in.”

He laughed a little at that.  “Perfect.  I’ll pick you up at seven.”

*****

My eyes shifted toward the trash pile and then back to the letter in my hand.  It’d been in my possession for three years and yet it remained unopened.  It was the one tangible letter AJ had written since our breakup – all the rest had been short email messages trying to talk me into giving him some other form of contact information.  It didn’t take him long to figure out that I was at least in New York with Angel and her family, but not knowing their last name made it nearly impossible to get any other information than that.  Even
this
correspondence had only made it to me because of Terrell’s craftiness.  I still remembered seeing AJ’s letter folded inside the 21
st
birthday card Terrell and Maisha mailed out to me three years ago.  He knew that once I had it, I wouldn’t get rid of it without knowing what it said.

Shaking my head, my hand lingered over the trash pile, but then I remembered what Dr. Gill said about me needing closure.  She’d been urging me
, since the beginning of my coming to see her, to face my past head on.  Reading this letter could be a first step in that direction.

With a sigh, I scolded myself for even starting this project before my date with Jason.  Now that Angel was moving, I’d set out on a path toward minimalism – ridding our apartment of any and all clutter as sort of a fresh start.  If I’d
remembered this letter was in that box of old papers, I would’ve left it at the back of the storage closet where it was.

My eyes shifted to the clo
ck – 5:47.  I’d designated 4:30 to 6:00 as my cleaning time before hopping in the shower for a second time that day to get dressed for dinner.  Thinking I might call it quits early, I stood from the floor where I sat Indian-style, and walked to my bedroom with the letter still in hand.  The bed creaked a little when I plopped down on the edge of it, flicking the corner of the aged envelope with my thumb.

“What the hell are you scared of?” I asked myself a
loud as I tore through the flap.  I slipped the two sheets of paper from inside and unfolded each.

If only Dr. Gill could see me now.

A deep breath left my lungs and I let my eyes settle on the familiar handwriting that I hadn’t seen in years.

Sam,

                            Two years….

That’s how long it’s been and I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that I waited
all this time with patience and open arms for you to come to your senses and realize that you’d made a mistake.  However, today, for my own sanity, I’m forcing myself to see the truth – I’ve been chasing your ghost all this time. 

But no more.
  I’m done.  I’m letting you go. 

The endless stream of email and begging will stop, partly because I’m tir
ed of being in love alone and partly because I can finally feel myself getting over it.  You can only be ignored and blown off for so long before it starts to take a toll on you, I guess.  Either way, the scales are tipping and a new emotion is filling the void in my heart that used to be reserved for my feelings for you – indifference. 

I don’
t hate you – don’t think I could even if I tried.  However, having you walk away has taught me something valuable; I’ve come to realize that losing you wasn’t the end of my world…because when I get up in the morning, the sun still rises, the Earth still spins, and I’m alive despite the way I felt in the beginning.

This letter will probably never reach you, but I’m doing this for me…not you.  Clearly, you’ve f
ound peace wherever you are, whatever you’re doing in life, but I needed to write it all out just so I know for myself that it’s been said. 

Not one single day passes that I don’t think about you or wonder what you’ve been up to.  That’ll probably never change. I miss things about you that I didn’t even realize I noticed until you weren’t around anymore
…but I’m okay with knowing that memories are all I have left. 

I hope that one day you find whatever it is you were chasing when you left, be it peace, wholeness, stability, or all of the above.  I even hope you find love. 

I will no longer be asking myself how this all fell apart.  I won’t wonder what else I could’ve done to make you stay.  I won’t even let myself fantasize what our life together would’ve been like if we’d made it all the way.  You wanted to be left alone, so consider your wish granted.