AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We all took our seats at the large dining table laden with a variety of dishes. The food was delicious, and the company even better.
The conversation shifted to lighter topics, with everyone chiming in. I listened, contributing on occasion, feeling more and more like a part of this wonderful family.
As dinner wound down, it was time for dessert. I warmed the apple pie, then served slices of both the apple and the lemon, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Chris leaned over to me, whispering, “You’ve outdone yourself. They love it.”
Sitting there, surrounded by laughter and the warmth of family, I felt a deep sense of belonging, and as the evening came to a close, I helped with the cleanup, feeling content and happy. This dinner had been awesome.
I wanted so many more of them.
ChapterTwenty-One
Chris
“How has it been going?”Dr. Trent—please, for goodness' sake, call me Susan—asked.
This was our fourth meeting, and I still hadn’t called her Susan because she’d been riding the roller coaster of emotions about Noah right alongside me, and it just felt wrong she seemed more like a friend, than a therapist.
“Fox… Noah’s son,” I qualified in case I was one of a hundred clients and she’d forgotten. “He knows about us and doesn’t seem to have any problem with it. He’s respectful at school, he’s joined the baseball team I run, and he’s mostly a good kid who attempts to push boundaries when we meet up because I’m with his dad.”
Everything fell out in a rush, only because I’d rehearsed how to say that on the way over.
“That’s wonderful.”
“I eat dinner with them sometimes, and I always go in for breakfast, and Fox sees me there, so, yeah…”
“And the physical intimacy?”
“It’s good,” I blurted and felt my face heat. “I mean, yes, there’s been physical intimacy.”
“And how is that going?” I know she meant the sex in general, and not anything about the sounds Noah made, or how we’d said we were falling for each other.
“It’s going well… he um… he moves a stool so I can rest against it.”
“Does that worry you?”
“Worry me how?”
“That he’s fussing over you?”
“I love it. I love that he is considerate but doesn’t treat me as though I’m about to break. I love that,” I repeated. “I think he’s dangerous because I think…”
“Yes?”
“This is it for me. I really like him. He makes me smile, and I think… I’m falling in love, and shit…”
“It scares you?” Susan finished, almost as if she was reading from a script of things I didn’t want to answer. Did how I felt about Noah scare me? Did I imagine more than just the stolen moments we had? Did I imagine a forever?
“Some,” I admitted. “I worry about the…” I waved at my leg. “About the long-term effects of the prosthetic, the altered gait, joint pain, bone density, the psychology of getting old with it, getting tired, not keeping up.” I stopped, then, because I hadn’t even been aware I was worrying about those things, but clearly, it was all there bubbling under the surface. “But Noah and me having sex? Yeah, the mechanics of it might be different, but none of it scares me when I want to be intimate with him.” God, I was even using words like intimate in full sentences—Susan’s influence was messing with me. “Noah doesn’t care about that,” I added, “he makes me feel… sexy. Like we’re having fun.” I stopped then, because everything we’d done was in the semi-dark, in low-lit places, we’d not been naked yet, not managed to get to a damn bed. “But, he hasn’t seen it yet. Not really.”
She nodded. “What do you think his reaction will be?”
“Iknowhe doesn’t feel sorry for me; he accepts I am who I am, and you know what, I think he’ll probably hold me, tell me he wants me, and that will be it.”
Wow, that was some epiphany. I was more than the sum of my broken parts, and Noah saw that, and best of all, I knew it in my heart.
“That’s all positive,” Susan said. “So, to take away from today, be aware of negative thoughts about yourself and continue to actively challenge them. Replace them with positive affirmations about your strengths and qualities, particularly when you are intimate.”
“I will.”
