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Both women began their meals, and Melinda was relieved to find her choice in restaurants hadn’t failed her. Neither spoke for some minutes.
“Well, how was it, then?” Melisa asked at last.
Melinda choked on her dolma. “It?”
“Yeah, it,” said Melisa. “It. I figure, we’ve known each other about a week now. That’s long enough for you to be able to comfortably explore your sex life with me, right?”
Melinda laughed.
“Plus, you teased me,” Melisa continued. “You told me you seduced him. I’m dying of curiosity over here.”
Why not?Melinda had no one else with whom to discuss her liaison. “It was...divine.” Melisa grinned. “It was exciting. I did things I’d never done before. I haven’t had that many lovers,” she said. “I’ve never experienced anything like the freedom I felt with him. Up there, in the mountains. Despite our lack of freedom,” she added, unable to enjoy the irony.
She picked up and then put down her fork.
“But what if that’s all it was? Magic up there? What if I fell for some guy because we had crazy sex and he’s a total jerk? What if it was just a hookup for him?”
“Have you talked with him about it?” Melisa’s face was open, but there was something else there, too. A small tension at the eyes.
She knows something.
“No. Well, he texted me once, but it was the first night back and I...I didn’t respond. I was too overwhelmed, just by being in my house, you know?” Did Melisa know? Had she experienced the same psychosomatic shutdown that Melinda had? And did she know when it would end?
“I totally get it,” Melisa said. “When I was freed from those men, and was done talking with the cops and being checked out by the doctors...”
Melinda winced. What manner of hell had happened to Melisa?
“When I got home, it was the last place I wanted to be. It was like I could hear the walls breathing, like they were watching me. Nowhere was safe, no matter how many times I checked the doors and windows.”
She smiled at Melinda. “Are you okay with this? Is this too much?”
“No!” Melinda jumped to answer. “It’s not too much. This is like someone articulating the way my mind works now. It’s great to not feel crazy!” She checked herself. “Not that you sound crazy. At all. Um.”
Melisa smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Nothing about the last week has been sane for you, and my experience certainly wasn’t sane, either.”
Melinda jabbed at her food with her fork. “Could I...” Would this be too far? “Could I ask you about being with Paul? After you got released and were putting yourself back together. You said it was too soon. How did you deal with having feelings for someone as you were simultaneously going through a breakdown?” She laughed. “Or at least, that’s what this feels like to me.”
Melisa smiled at her. “It was bizarre, is how it was. I felt guilty for getting all tingly over someone when I should be watching Jodie Foster movies and learning kickboxing.” Melinda laughed again and the other woman tilted her head at her.
“But this is about you and Grant, right? Why do you feel bad about being interested in him? He sounds like he really came through for you.”
“He did, later...” Melinda said. “But what kind of woman sleeps with a guy who ignored her when she was screaming for her life? The same woman who would fall for that guy, too, I guess.” She tightened her stomach, which was suddenly close to rejecting her meal.
Melisa watched as she wrestled with her shame. Again, there was no disgust on her face, only compassion.
“What’s wrong with forgiveness, Melinda? What’s wrong with allowing him to not be the jerk you feared?”
Melinda’s hands slid up to her shoulders, her arms crisscrossing her chest like armor.
“Why did I let him do that to me? What the hell is wrong with me? When did I become so bloody stupid?”
Melisa moved around to Melinda’s side. “What did you let him do to you? Care for you under extreme circumstances? There’s nothing wrong with that, or with you. You are not stupid. All of these feelings are totally normal.” She wrapped an arm around Melinda’s rigid shoulders. “You have a heart, you have a brain. You’re learning how to use both of them, just like the rest of us.”
Melisa sighed. “I want to tell you something, though,” she said. Melinda turned to face her from behind her personal barricade. “Grant gave me a letter to give to you. Maybe it will ease some of your doubts. Would you like me to show it to you?”
Curve ball. Would I?She dropped her hands to the table. Who was she kidding? Of course she would.
As much as she dreaded it, Melinda was dying for some kind of contact from him, and a letter was the perfect vehicle. His words, his realness, his essence, safely contained on paper where she could put them aside if they got too strong. Too strong? No, that wasn’t it. Too present. That was it. Grant had come at her with complexity, strength, vulnerability, and not a little bit of masculinity, and she had been completely thrown by it. He had put himself in her shoes and tried to help her. He hadn’t lost interest at the first sign of resistance. He had completely shaken up her world. No wonder she had ignored him.
