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The passage I chose is one of her longest—and it’s inspiring more comments than usual, people tagging lost loves or commiserating friends. People lonely on a wintry Sunday afternoon.
You said
When you leave, turn out the lights
Lock the door behind you
Close the gate
How can you not see
When you’re gone, there are no lights
The door won’t shut
The gate is a cage.
I miss you.
That was three hours ago. I’ve watched my account like it’s a ticking time bomb, deleting any comment or message she might take the wrong way. The last thing I want is for her to see something that might wiggle its way into her head and convince her she’s not good enough. If she feels she has nowhere to turn without me, she might fall into a black hole.
A knock on the front door makes me sit up. I gave Halston a key, so my mind jumps to the worst case scenarios: she sent someone for her things; she called Rich to confront me; she’s hurt, and the police are here. Holding my breath, I cross the apartment quickly and look through the peephole. Halston sags on the doorstep, weighed down by a backpack I don’t recognize.
I yank open the door. She falls into my arms. “Oh, Hals,” I murmur, gathering her close. Her nose and cheek ice right through my shirt. “You’re freezing, babe. You should’ve come home. You could’ve been mad here where it’s warm.”
She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Home?”
“You know you belong here with me. Don’t you?” For a moment, I’m afraid she doesn’t know that, even after I’ve done my best to make her feel safe here. It’s the same feeling I had when my mom would go to her cabinet in the afternoons.
To my relief, she nods. “I forgot my keys.”
I bring her inside and sit her at the kitchen table where I just agonized for hours. “What do you want? Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?”
“I want you. I don’t care about anything else, not even what we’ve built.” Her eyes water. “You were right. Our relationship is more important.”
She looks defeated. That isn’t what I want. She shouldn’t have to give in just to keep me. That’s probably what Rich expected from her. I lean back against the counter. “I’ve given it some more thought.”
“Wait. Before you continue.” She puts the backpack on the table and unzips the top. “These are for you.”
She pulls out three thick journals in varying shades of brown leather.
“Halston.” My chest tightens with anticipation. “Are those . . . full?”
“I didn’t bring them all. I started when I was fifteen, in counseling.” She picks one up. “This was the first one. It’s flowery and juvenile. Hormone central. So, it sucks.”
“Can I read it?”
She swaps it for a bigger one. “This one’s emotional. Angry, not sexy. It’s from when I moved out of the denial stage. Each book has a personality.”
“What’s that one?” I ask of the third journal.
She looks at me from under her lashes. “It’s . . . darker. When the guilt over my mom gets too much, I write in here. It’s more explicit than what you’ve read so far. There isn’t much in here, because it’s not a place I go very often.”
Like a conditioned response, I salivate. My greedy hands tingle. I’ve devoured what I have, and getting more feels like a gift. “Did you bring them for me to read or just to torture me?”
She takes a breath as if steeling herself. “You can read them. I want you to. This is what I hide from others, but I don’t want to hide from you. If it’s too weird for you—”
“It won’t be.”
“You don’t know that. If the dark corners of my mind freak you out, I have to know now.”
“I mean, what are we talking here? Sex with animals? Incest?”
Her mouth falls open. “Finn. God.”
I can’t help laughing at her reaction. “Well, you’re making it sound dire.”
She stacks the books on top of each other. “They’re just words. Fantasies. It doesn’t mean I want all of this, but sometimes it just bubbles up.”
“Just because I take photos of a park bench doesn’t mean I want to fuck it.”
She blushes, looking down. “Before I met you, I would’ve burned these before I let anyone see them.”
“Why, Halston? Don’t you understand everyone has fantasies? Everyone has at least one dirty, dark thing they want that they won’t even admit to themselves?”
“Yes,” she says. “Why do I have to be one of those who admits it, though? And then shares it? Broadcasting it is like stripping in public and asking people to evaluate me.”
I did the right thing deleting those comments. I decide here and now to do it with every post so she never questions herself like this again. She’s come so far since we met. “I know opening up isn’t easy, but you might find it to be a good thing.”
She picks up the “flowery” journal. “When I was younger, I got so excited about stuff. I wanted everyone to experience my favorite books, movies, plays the way I did. People made fun of me.”
I rub my jaw. This isn’t something I can relate to as a man, except that I have a daughter turning nine. Already, I’ve noticed her feigning disinterest in “uncool” hobbies, like the sticker collection we’ve been working on since she was four. It reminds me of the eight-year age gap between Halston and me. “Then you should be even more proud of yourself.”
“Sometimes I just wonder if being myself is worth the price tag.”
Her honesty is brave. I wish she could see that. It’s taken a toll on her—the things she said earlier, the way she ran off instead of talking to me, this deep-rooted fear of being abnormal that’s stuck with her so long. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t concern me, especially with how quickly she weaned herself off her meds. I’ve bitten my tongue about it, opting instead to monitor her behavior for warning signs that she’s not handling it well. Nothing up until today has really worried me. But are there things going on in her head that even I don’t see?
I clear my throat. “Have you thought about talking to someone about that stuff from your past?”
“I spent ten years talking to someone about it.”
“Not your mom. The other stuff.”
“We talked about all of it.” She frowns. “Why? You think I need to go back into therapy?”
“No,” I say quickly. She’s already wary of people telling her what to do after enduring a decade of it with Rich and her dad; it’s why I haven’t brought this up before. “I just meant you can always talk to me about any of that if you want. No judgment.”
She nods distantly and after a few seconds, says, “Maybe I do need to go back. I’m sorry about earlier. I think . . . this isn’t easy for me to say, but my moods are a little more extreme now. I don’t know if it’s still withdrawals or just . . . who I am.”
“Withdrawals?” I ask. “You haven’t mentioned any before.”
She lifts a shoulder. “I’ve had a few headaches. Nausea.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing major compared to some of the horror stories I’ve heard.”
I want to take her in my arms again, soothe it all away. It doesn’t feel like the right moment for touching, though, not while she’s working through her feelings. “I still want to know,” I say. “Will you tell me when it happens?”
She nods. “This afternoon, I overreacted.”
“So did I. I just wish you hadn’t run off like that.”
“I understand. I’m going to leave these with you.” She shows me the journal. “We can talk tomorrow, or whenever you get to them—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I push off the counter. “Nah-uh. You’re not going anywhere.”
“I can’t deal with watching you read them. If you hate them, if you find the behavior ‘alarming’—”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
Eyes down, she raises her palms. “It’s fine. I just need to know now, before I get any deeper with yo
u.”
“I don’t think you understand just how deep this goes for me. I’m at the fucking bottom here. So don’t try and convince me of what I want.”
She looks at me finally, small and lonely in her chair, swallowed up by her puffy coat and scarf. She’s still wearing her mittens for God’s sake, like she’s about to make a quick exit.
I pull a chair in front of her and start removing her gloves. “I mean, incestuous fantasies would be an adjustment for me, but it’s not enough to scare me off.”
She smiles. Her fingertips are cold, so I bring them to my mouth, blowing hot air on them. “If you’ll agree to let me control the photo shoot, then my answer is yes.”
Her eyebrows meet in the middle of her forehead. She glances at the journals. “Don’t you want to read them first?”
“You don’t have to hide from me.” I don’t have to think too hard to figure out what’s in the journal. She mentioned her guilt. From the start, Halston has responded to dominance in the bedroom. I’m sure whatever she’s ashamed of involves some kind of punishment for her past. I’ve never been into BDSM, but I’m sure as hell not about to walk away from the possibility of exploring it with her. “I’ll never think you’re strange for what turns you on.” I squeeze her hands in mine. “It’s human nature.”
“Thank you,” she says softly. “I’m sorry we fought.”
“I wasn’t hearing you. When you brought up money, it got to me because you’re right.” It’s my turn to look away. It’s not about the money. I hate that it’s been a year, and I still haven’t booked any solid, non-commercial work or sold anything off my website. I meet her eyes again. “I want you to know, I’m still doing fine. But I can’t live like this forever. I need more money to come in.”
“It’s not my place to say,” she says. “I don’t know anything about money. My dad gives it to me when I need it. He pays my rent and most of my bills. I have a 401k and a brokerage account, but his people manage it.”
Having been one of the Wall Street guys her dad would hire, I don’t like the idea of that. It’s just another way to control her. “Get your bank information from your dad,” I tell her. “You shouldn’t put that in someone else’s hands.”
