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“Well, I suppose I’ll have to change this number.” He regarded the phone on the desk with his hand wrapped around his chin.
How could he just sweep those horrible words under the rug? How could he ignore this? Stephen was outing Neil and framing what had happened between them as though it had been romantic. “I think you need to do more than just change your number.”
“I’ll contact Joe Davis at Elwood and Stern. They’ve helped me with damage control before.” He almost picked up his phone, then turned to me and asked, “May I use your phone? If no one has ferreted out the number yet?”
“Why would they—” Because I was his wife. I was public knowledge now; our wedding had been in the papers, and we’d even profiled it in the August issue of Mode. Oh god, with this out, people would definitely have questions for me. “We have to do more than just change our numbers and get some PR guys.”
“Like what?” he demanded. “What would you have me do?”
His mood had understandably changed, but his anger now focused on me, so ferocious that it shocked me. Worse, I didn’t have an answer for him; I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. I wanted him to fix this, somehow, so it would all go away. And I felt selfish for wanting that, because I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to go away for his sake, or for mine. What I’d experienced during his chemotherapy and transplant had been so similar. I’d had moments of private crisis during which I couldn’t tell if I wanted him to get better because he was in pain, or if I wanted him to get better because I was tired of seeing him in pain. That kind of confusion is hard to deal with, and I was out of practice. I’d put myself on the spot, now, and I didn’t know how to back out.
“I want to know, Sophie, what you would have me do to handle this situation, over which I have no control, and which does not affect you!” he shouted, raking a hand through his hair.
“I’m not affected?” My breath exploded from my gaping mouth in a hoarse puff of disbelief. “First of all, I’m going to be affected when people start trying to trick me into saying stuff about you. Second, do you think it doesn’t affect me when you’re hurting?”
“I’m not hurting! I’m annoyed to have my private number given out to a pack of vultures who want to, to…revel in my public humiliation.” His voice cracked, and he turned away from me, a hand over his eyes.
I wanted to go to him, but he was so angry, it wouldn’t have done anything but piss him off more. He hated feeling helpless. But I couldn’t just leave him like this.
“Neil…this wasn’t your fault.” My heart ached for him. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Stephen raped you. He’s the one who should be embarrassed by all this.”
Neil squinted and rubbed his forehead. “Will you please stop calling it that?” he scolded, trying to sound reasonable above the weariness in his voice.
“Why not?” How could he not see that this was an injustice being done to him? How could he not understand that any freak out he might have over this would be totally understandable? “Why are you sitting here, diminishing what he did? Protecting him? Why can’t you just call it what it was?”
“Because that’s not who I want to be!” he shouted. “I don’t want to be a victim or a survivor or whatever the hell you expect me to call myself. I don’t want it to have happened to me. I don’t want to know exactly what it was. I’m not stupid, Sophie, I know what happened that night! The man I trusted, the man I believed I was falling in love with, had no regard for my safety, my feelings, my body… It was emotionally damaging, and yes, it has made me wildly suspicious of my romantic partners for years after, but it’s what happened to me. You don’t have a say in what I call it!”
Shame shocked through me like electricity. My fingertips tingled, and my heartbeat sped up. I would never be able to grasp the enormity of the violation he’d experienced; Neil would nev
er rip apart my trust and abuse my body. I would never have to go through the fear and betrayal that he’d experienced, and I’d lectured him on how to feel?
Now, I couldn’t even think of how to apologize without it sounding like I was making it all about me.
Struggling with a way to phrase it, speak it without sounding like I was asking to be excused, I said cautiously, “You’re right. It’s not up to me to tell you how to react to this. I haven’t been respectful to you.”
“No, you haven’t.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. He looked upward and blew out a breath. “At this point, Sophie, all I want is for this to be gone. I don’t want this hanging over me anymore. I don’t want to be afraid, when I’m with Emir, for example. I don’t want to worry that every new partner we’re with could do that to me again. Or do that to you.
“This thing… It’s ruined a part of me. I’ve been talking to Doctor Harris about how to confront that. But I can’t. I can’t acknowledge what Stephen did. It feels like he’s winning. It feels like he’s doing that to me all over again.” His shoulders sagged, and he dropped his arm, all the defensiveness bleeding from his posture. “At the same time, I want him to acknowledge what he’s done. I want… This sounds so contradictory.”
“No, come on. You can tell me anything,” I promised, when it seemed as though he wouldn’t continue.
Neil took a breath. “I want to confront him.”
That did sound contradictory, but I understood. On that score, it was kind of how I felt about my dad. I didn’t want to see him, but I wanted to, at the same time. One part of me wanted to scream and shout and tell him how much he’d hurt me, while another part wanted to go on with my life, pretending he didn’t exist. Yet another part wanted to pretend he didn’t exist, but wanted him to yearn for a relationship with me, so I could reject him. Though our circumstances weren’t the same, I could definitely sympathize with Neil wanting to hide from someone and still wanting to call them out.
I assumed he’d spoken about this to Dr. Harris, so I asked, “What does the doctor have to say about that?”
“That in my present state, I may not be healthy enough for a confrontation to be helpful.” He crossed his arms then dropped them, as though he were unsure of where to place his hands. “I want to see him. I think it’s best for me.”
The thought of Stephen being anywhere near Neil physically sickened me. “You wouldn’t meet him somewhere private, right? You wouldn’t be alone with him?”
“Never,” he said quickly, his eyes widening in terrified disbelief. “Sophie, that would be like you being alone with a spider.”
“I do hate spiders,” I said with a hesitant smile. I didn’t want him to think I was making a joke out of this. “But a spider isn’t going to attack me.”
“You certainly behave as though they will.” His mild good humor faded. “I would be far too frightened to be alone with him. Doctor Harris said that should I insist on going through with the meeting, he would supervise. And I’d like for you to be there.”
Torn between wondering why he would want me there, after the shitty interfering I had done, and wanting to leap for joy that he’d asked for my help, I agreed. “Of course I’ll be there. And, if the time comes, and you change your mind about me going, I’ll understand that, too.”
