Chapter 14

Danielle had the dream again.

She was in her apartment, but everything seemed weirdly skewed—the colors were all wrong, tending to the browns and greens of decay, and everything seemed to be in slightly the wrong place. Everyone she saw, she thought she recognized—Nicole, her mom, Liz, Scott O'Connor, even people she hadn't seen in a while: Tom, Shelly Baumgarter, Emma Stanton—but everyone she saw looked slightly wrong—eyes too far apart, nose in the wrong place, skin the wrong color. As she walked, everything she saw seemed wrong.

She walked, it felt, for years. Never stopping, never still, never satisfied. She was looking for someone; she could not rest until she found him. She wasn't content without him, couldn't be still, couldn't be herself. She wasn't whole without him.

Until suddenly the moment came when she realized she was retracing her steps, that she had been here before, that she had been everywhere. That she couldn't find him. That he wasn't there to be found.

She felt the world drop out from under her, felt vertigo set in. Life was over; there was nothing she could do. She felt as though she was cast free of the earth, reeling through space. And yet she was still here; she knew this because people were walking past her, by her, around her, through her, with no sign that they could see her or that she actually existed. The babble of a million voices filled her ears, the scream of the wind; the raw sunlight seemed to burn on her skin. The knife was in her hands, and the flash of pain as it sliced across her arms was the sweetest thing she'd ever felt.

But even then, no blood came. Though she stared and panted and prayed, nothing happened. She had no blood. And with it came the realization that she was doomed to this existence forever, and that she would be trapped here, alone and unfinished, until time and dust were both ancient memories.

This was when she lurched upright in bed, screaming.

"Danielle!" said David. "Danielle!" He was calm—probably a sign that this had happened a couple times too many over the last few months—but she was in no shape to notice it. "Danielle, I'm here. Was it the dream again?"

Yes, it had been the dream again. But for the moment all she had time to do was dive into his arms and huddle there, shivering.

By the time she had calmed herself and wiped the tears from her eyes, David had fallen asleep again. She couldn't blame him; it was still dark outside, and both of them had work in a few hours. For herself, though, she could not sleep; the spectre of her nightmare still hung over her. Why should she keep having this dream?

It was May; she and David had been together for just over eight months. Once they got their differences worked out and started to realize—finally, finally—how to deal with each other, everything had fallen into place. David was her heart, her soul, her other half; she could ask for nothing more than what he gave her: his support, his love, his presence, his care.

In bed he was perfect; he had always been. He knew her body better than she herself did, or sometimes so it seemed; and she knew his wants and needs so well that he rarely had to say anything out loud. Everything about his body was perfect for her: his long frame, the warmth of his eyes, the lightness of his weight above her, even his cock—not too thick, not too short, but just right. She could not conceive of being happier.

They still had their fights; she sometimes had trouble remembering that his way of problem-solving was different than hers, and taking it all into account. But he would remind her, in that gentle way of his, that while he might be solving it differently than she did, that didn't mean he wasn't solving it, and she would subside into abashed silence. It made her feel better that, sometimes, she had to remind him of the same thing—not nearly as often, but every now and then. It made her feel less stupid that he wasn't perfect either.

And through it all was the sheer joy of having him back. Sometimes when he or she came home they would barely talk at all: just a few words here and there, and the conversations would be over, because they would have said everything they needed to. She could share a thought or an opinion with him and know that it would be understood; when he spoke, she knew that she was not misinterpreting him. So much of her life was simply easier and more sensible with him around.

They had begun to speak of the possibility of future again. They talked—casually, most of the time, but now with increasing interest—about where they wanted to live, how many kids they wanted to have, what sort of jobs they would need. Some of his opinions had changed, and so had some of hers; many of them were the same, despite the intervening years. He was spending so much time at her place, or she at his, that they had decided to move in together. Maybe not immediately; "As our one-year anniversary present, maybe," David suggested. She was glad he was willing to be careful, to not just jump into something merely because he wanted it. She was sure they would still be together in September.

So why these dreams? Why this fear of losing him?

Though their lovemaking had resumed in earnest on Thanksgiving weekend, it wasn't until the new year that they began to spend nights together on a regular basis. Around the same time, the dreams began. She wondered what Katrina Stanton would say on the topic: coincidence? Or more? His presence in her life, his importance, had grown proportionally to the amount of time they spent together; now there was barely anything in her life that he didn't affect, one way or the other. It was just like it had been before ... Right before they broke up.

If things went south and she and David had to break up again, could she survive? She couldn't say. Back when they first contemplated getting back together, it had been easy to say, 'Oh, I'm sure I'll be fine.' Now, today, it was harder to say. She had underestimated just how pervasive his presence would become, just how interwoven their lives would be. Perhaps it would have been wise to remember Ned Stanton's analysis, that the break-up had been more like a divorce than anything else. It certainly would be now.

But fear of something was meaningless if that thing would never happen. She didn't for a moment think that it was impossible for them to break up; but it sure did seem unlikely. She had no complaints about their relationship, or at least nothing that could not be resolved without too much trouble; and while David might be keeping all manner of things to himself, she thought she'd be able to tell, and she didn't think he was. What was to worry about?

Her wrists were itching again.

She looked down at them. The scars on the insides of her wrists had faded with time; they looked almost like the normal creases of bent skin. Hands were not something David ever paid any attention to. Good thing she hadn't tried to open her veins the right way—cut down the arm, which was where the veins actually were—or the scars would have been a fair bit less inconspicuous. Just thinking about it made her a little queasy—the idea of David's reaction upon finding them, and the idea of the pain and the blood.

Because she had no doubt that David would freak out. He simply wouldn't know how to deal with the fact that Danielle had gone so far astray, that she had been so tortured that she had sought release in death. He was so innocent; to him, those things were a realm that belonged only to unknown, unstated others, to people who were strangers to him. There was no way they could happen to anyone he actually knew. He was so young that way. Maybe, one day, when tragedy finally befell him, she could tell him the awful secret of her five missing months; maybe one day. Until then she would need to keep it secret.

And that was the painful part. Whether she liked it or not, that phase of her life was a part of her; it had informed every decision she had made since then. She was a different person because she had once been left broken, half of herself torn away, and succumbed to the hopelessness of the situation. She was a different person because she had succumbed and then risen up again. It was part of who she was. I am Danielle Mayer; David Glass is my other half—heck, it was still part of who she was! David wanted to tap into that, wanted her to be whole with him—which she wanted too, to be certain—but could he handle the costs that came with it?

... Did David feel the same way? Did he feel that she was his other half? He had moved on with startling alacrity, or so it seemed to her. She could only assume that he didn't, and that the burden would terrify him ... Well, maybe it wouldn't; he seemed fully committed, and in a good way. But the thing was, she could never find out. She could never ask him. If she told him, and he freaked out ... Well, that would be the end of her. For her own sake, she would have to keep this silent. The last thing she needed was to lose him again.

But could she? How well could she act? How well could she hide it from him? As well hide from him that she had breasts, or eyes, or that she was a bitch; these things weren't going to go away. But how long could she hold him off before he started noticing, and asking questions? Would he mature quickly enough that she could finally confess to him the whole truth? Or would she lose him? It was bad enough having to cross her fingers and wait; the anxiety was killing her already. No wonder I'm having stressful dreams!

She didn't know what to do. She just didn't know what to do.

She couldn't ask Nicole, of course; even Nicole didn't know about her breakdown, and Danielle was not about to tell her. She couldn't even tell her soul-mate, for heaven's sake!—and besides, Nicole was even more sheltered. It would take her months to get used to the idea—if she ever could at all.

She didn't have the money, but she called the Stantons anyway. This was worth spending on. But Katrina failed her for the first time in living memory. "I know it isn't the best of advice, Danielle, but I think you're just going to have to tell him. I'm sure you can come up with some ways to soften the impact, or to build him up to it ... But what I'm hearing is that it's important to you that you be able to share this part of yourself with him. And that's wholly up to you, Danielle. Whether you do, and when you do, is something only you can decide."

Danielle couldn't help but feel irritated with Katrina for a little while. How much more useless advice could she get? I want to share this with him. Well, duh! Ned had warned her at the beginning that sometimes a therapist's job simply came down to repeating what the client was saying, but most of the time that was actually a useful exercise: he or Katrina would be able to phrase it in a new way, or connect it to something else that had been said, and shed new light on the subject. But this time... 'Find a way to soften the impact, ' indeed. Now if only she knew how!

But perhaps she should take heart and stop focusing on the negative. Yes, she had a tough conversation in her future, but there were good things to celebrate as well. She had never met a problem she couldn't handle—after all, she was still here, wasn't she? She could conquer this too.

But it was still a long time before she could fall asleep again. And when she woke up she clung to David for a long time. Both of them were almost late for work that day.

They had settled into a daily routine by now. They all had jobs, of course, because there was rent to pay, and bills, and student loans to pay off. But they had friends too, and family. Sometimes they would meet Danielle's family for a meal or some activity, or David's family; more often than not, David would simply come over to Danielle's place, and sometimes Liz or Carmen or Heidi as well, to spend some time with Danielle and Nicole.

Nicole was beginning to make some new friends, which delighted Danielle more than she could say. Her coworkers at the music school were supportive and friendly, and Nicole had been invited to a few functions with them and even gone to one of them. She described them as an eclectic mix: some were her parents' age, some her grandparents' age, and others younger still in college or even high school. They came from all walks of life, but Nicole said she felt at home there: all of them were passionate about music. "It's different when you're working with amateurs," she said. "You have to be so ... Delicate. You can't always tell it like it is, because sometimes they don't want to hear the truth. They just want to hear that they're good, even if that's not true ... Which doesn't mean I can be rude or anything, it just means ... I don't have to lie. It's refreshing."

She had found a church to go to, after trying out several in the area. She had been raised Catholic and gone to Masses during her college years, but with decreasing frequency as she grew older. "It's not that I stopped believing in God or anything, it was that ... Well, what I was hearing from the pastors, from the other attendees ... I didn't agree with it. I think maybe there was a, I dunno—I mean, it was a college campus, it's pretty liberal, right? So the preachers felt like they had to swing extra-conservative. And ... I just didn't agree with what I was hearing." She had settled into a much more liberal church here; Danielle was surprised to hear that it was Catholic as well.

Nicole wasn't. "I used to hear my parents—and a lot of other people—condemn the cafeteria Christians," she said. At Danielle's confused look, she explained, "You know, the ones who pick and choose which parts of the religion they believe in? Cafeteria Christians. There was always this feeling that those people were lazy or not devoted enough. But now ... Well, I mean. What do you do when there are certain things you just don't believe?—because you've seen them played out, and you know that what the priests say about it just isn't true? I can't make myself believe something. Now I understand those cafeteria Christians a lot more ... And I'm glad I've found a church that doesn't turn people away."

"I thought the whole point of Jesus was that you don't turn people away," Danielle said.

"It is," said Nicole. She gave a wan smile: "But some people don't pick and choose that part at the cafeteria."

What Danielle really wanted to know was whether Nicole was meeting men. Danielle had David to occupy her time, but she knew that, if she didn't, she'd be hard-pressed to make any new friends. Being out of college had done a number on her social life. Having said that, there wasn't really anywhere she went; Nicole at least had church. Was she meeting anyone? Danielle would hate to see her while away without anyone to love, or to love her. Everyone needed somebody.

When she broached the subject with David, he was not as supportive as she'd expected. "Nellie, sometimes it's nice to be single, you know? You aren't beholden to anybody, you can do whatever you want. There isn't someone telling you what they think you should do—well, that's not true, there's always someone telling you that. But you feel less guilty about ignoring them when you're not dating them. Sure, there are downsides, but it's not all bad being single."

"It's not that," said Danielle. "I'm thinking long-term here. Don't you want to see her get married and have children one day? Don't you want to see her happy?"

"Well, yes, Nellie, but that is long-term thinking. We're not even twenty-five yet, none of us. We have years. You and I—we have years. We don't think that way, because of the lives we've led, but most people don't settle down until 25. Or maybe even 30. Do you have any idea how unusual we are?—finding someone we want to marry, at our age? That's how the fairy tales work, but most real life is different."

What happened was that Liz stepped in. In retrospect, Danielle didn't know why it didn't occur to her earlier. Liz had a biting, sarcastic streak, but that would make her perfect for looking out for Nicole. Besides, Liz was smart enough to know when to tone it down. And maybe Nicole would help soften her. The Liz who had needed to see Katrina Stanton was not that deep under the surface; she was cynical, and she was hopeless. Nicole's gentle cheer would help alleviate that. But the long and the short of it was that Liz needed a wingman, and Nicole needed to get out more. It couldn't have been more perfect.

(Aside, of course, from the difficult task of convincing Nicole to agree with it in the first place. She didn't know Liz all that well, and—being who she was—wasn't particularly confident about going out with someone she didn't know. It took a fair bit of chaperoning, all four of them out on the town, before Nicole felt enough trust in Liz to befriend her. But it happened. Eventually.)

In the meanwhile, Danielle decided to resume her sessions with the Stantons. That was tricky: David didn't know she was seeing, or had ever seen, a therapist, and Danielle was perfectly happy to keep it that way. But she had only so many spare hours in the day, and they liked to spend them together. Naturally, he wanted to know where this new two-hour-a-week appointment had come from. Coming up with the excuse was harder than finding a weekly time slot. She was lucky enough in that regard: just about the only slot the Stantons had was on Friday right after she got out of work. So she called it a staff meeting.

It only somewhat worked, and it was David's suspicions that brought things to a head.

It had only been a few weeks since she'd renewed her weekly appointment. Nicole was in her room, and David and Danielle in her's; they had gone out to a nice dinner, and then returned to her bed to watch a movie. Sometimes they actually made it through the movie, depending on what it was, but at others their attention would wander. Tonight was one of those nights. Now the movie itself (Finding Nemo) was coming to a close, and they were watching it—but they hadn't watched most of it. David lay on his back, her arm around her, and she sprawled next to him, her head on his chest, listening to the deep whoosh of his breath, her pussy still full to the brim with his warm quivering seed.

It was as good a time as any to share some of the things Ned Stanton had suggested that afternoon, and so she did. "I've been thinking."

"Oh?" he said. "While we were doing it?"

She gave a snort. "No. It occurred to me that part of the problem is that you feel like getting a career is a really big barrier. Maybe even insurmountable."

"Oh?" he said. "What makes you think that?"

"Just..." Ned said it, and I think he was right. "Just ... Signs."

"Uh-huh," he said, smiling but skeptical.

"What I thought," she said, plowing on, "was that ... It might be easier if ... If we sat down together and broke the problem down into smaller goals. That way you'd feel more confident about it—and you'd feel more of an overall sense of achievement. I know it looks monumental, but I'm sure we can make it into more of a ... More of a manageable thing."

David turned on his side to face her. "And where did you get this idea?" he said. "Your staff meeting? Was it that boring?"

Danielle said nothing.

"Nellie, you think I'm stupid?" He kissed her nose. "This week it's about how I can get over my fears. Last week you talked about how you need to learn to give me space, complete with reminders on how to do that. The week before it was about learning to compromise and seek each other's goals and not fight each other—basically the same thing you said at Thanksgiving, but with a lot more detail. Now, I respect that there are some things you'd prefer to keep to yourself," he said, smiling, heading off her protest before it could begin. "But just so you know, you're not fooling anybody. And, just so you know, you don't have to fool anybody. I love you. Whatever it is you want to say, I will listen."

Danielle looked at him for a long time in silence. The door was open.

"I'm seeing a therapist," she said finally.

He blinked at her. "Okay. And... ?"

"And ... And what?" She sat up, astonished. "Davey, don't you know what that means?"

He blinked. "Well, I thought I did, but perhaps I didn't get it right. What does it mean?"

"It means..." She struggled to articulate the thought. "It means I need help. It means there's problems in my life that I can't handle alone. Big problems. Things that I need professional help for. It means I'm damaged."

"Whoa, okay, hold on," said David. He sat up, his hand touching her face. "Nellie, talk to me here. What's going on? Are you addicted to drugs?"

"No," she said, affronted.

"Are you an alcoholic?"

"No."

"Do you need to take pills or something? Are you schizophrenic? Are you hallucinating that aliens are trying to control your brain?"

"No," she said. "David, what kind of a loser do you think I am?"

"Well, you're the one who said you were damaged," he said, his brow furrowed in concern. "I'm just trying to figure out what you meant by that. I mean, it must be something big, or you wouldn't be worried about me finding out."

" ... Maybe we have different definitions of 'big'," she said. "David, I'm not like psycho or something. It's just ... I didn't..." She sighed. "I swore I would never tell you this. I swore that part of myself was behind me."

"Danielle, I love you," he said again. "That includes the parts of you you don't like." He gave a little smile. "Hell, that includes the parts of you I don't like. It means not caring about those things. It means knowing that other things are more important. It means loving you even though you're not perfect."

She remembered what Sonya had said. "Love isn't what you buy. It's what you buy with."

He smiled. "That's a wise analysis. Did your therapist say that?"

She gave a hapless snort. "No, my sister."

"I've always thought Sonya was smarter than she let on. But Nellie, that's neither here nor there. If ... If you want to keep this secret, you can. But you should know that I love you. No matter what."

"Even if I'm schizophrenic and I start peeing all over the bed," she said.

He laughed. "Wow. Are those things related?"

"I don't know," she said. "I'm not schizophrenic. And I don't pee beds anymore."

"Oh good," he said with a sardonic laugh.

She took a moment to compose herself.

"David," she said. "Didn't you ever wonder what happened during those five months when I was gone?"

"Five months?" he said. "I only counted two. You stopped coming to school after about Thanksgiving."

"And you never wondered?" she said.

"Well," he said. He ran his hand through his hair—the gesture that meant he was uncomfortable. "I ... I suppose I should have. But, Nellie, I ... I mean, we had just broken up, you know? I was dating Angela Wentworth, and, and trying to love her, and focus on her, and pretend that I was happy with her even though we didn't know each other all that well, and she wasn't as willing to compromise (which was weird because simultaneously she was extremely pleasant company), and that she wasn't ... She wasn't ... She wasn't you.

"So there I was, and then you disappeared. Yes, I wondered. But I couldn't afford to care. It would've hurt too much."

She nodded. "I understand. I ... That was why I disappeared, really."

He tilted his head. "Oh?"

"The, just the..." She tossed her hands. "How do I explain it! It was like I didn't know how to live anymore. There wasn't ... There wasn't anything in my life that you weren't involved in somehow." She grimaced. "Kind of like now. There's ... I mean, fuck, we even do dishes together. It's even worse now. And it was hard enough the first time."

"Why, are we going to break up a second time?" he said.

She gulped. "I hope not. Because the first time we did, I just broke down. It ... I mean, I just ... Disengaged. I stopped doing homework, I stopped paying attention, I stopped ... I stopped caring about ... Everything. It was like I—what, I didn't know how to function. At all."

David said nothing.

"And that's why it was five months for me, because I was just ... Gone. I barely remember anything from that time—not like memory loss, but just ... You know how it's like, when you know that things happened to you, but they weren't important enough to remember? That's the whole five months. But it must've gotten bad at some point, because..." She took a deep breath—and then held out her hands to him, wrists up.

David accepted them wordlessly.

"In retrospect, maybe it was for the best," she said, "because it ... It kicked me out of my fugue. I woke up in the hospital and started to be ready to live my life again, and God only knows how long it might've taken for me to get there otherwise. But that was how I got into therapy. And that ... That was what happened."

David pressed her forearm against his face, his eyes closed. After a moment, she felt wetness, and realized he was crying.

"No, it wasn't your fault," she said. "Davey, it ... There was no way we could have guessed that this was going to happen. I..." She looked around, helpless to comfort him. "I'm sure similar things happened to you."

"They did," he whispered. "Haven't you ever wondered where I went right before the end of senior year?"

Now it was her turn to feel uncomfortable. "Well, I ... I mean, I noticed, yes. But ... At the time, there was ... I had Weston to deal with. And I was trying to be happy with him, and deal with him, and deal with the fact that I'm not Jodie. And that he wasn't ... Wasn't ... Wasn't you. And having to decide whether I was gonna do it with him, when just the thought of doing it with him was already skeeving me out ... I had ... Other things on my mind."

He nodded. "I understand. I ... It was what hurt. Seeing you trying to be ... Trying to be good with him, and knowing that that part of my life was over, that ... All the things we had shared, once, were going to go to him now. Thinking of him..." He grimaced. "Thinking of him doing it with you skeeved me out too. Hell, me doing with Angela was ... There was always something wrong with it."

"With the sex?"

"No, not just with the sex ... I mean, yeah, she was just, you know, lying there and taking it, which was kind of a turn-off. Actually it was kind of creepy. All of it was creepy. It was like doing a corpse."

Danielle shuddered.

"And then here you were, and what we had shared was so different, and ... Now you were going to share it with Weston." He grimaced. "And I ... I ran away."

She stared.

"That afternoon, when school was over, I just ... I got in my car, and ... I'm not even sure where I went. I don't remember. I got hopelessly lost and had to print out directions at a public library. But that was Tuesday morning. By Monday night I had gotten myself hopelessly lost, and I was just ... I was standing on an overpass, looking down, and thinking. Thinking, Maybe it'd be easier if... "

Blindly, tears overwhelming her, she reached out and pulled him to her. She wasn't sure if she was giving comfort or seeking it. His skin was warm against hers; his voice rumbled against her chest.

"But ... I couldn't," he mumbled. "I was a coward. I was too afraid to face death."

She clung to him. The thought of losing him, of his not being here...

"And I knew that ... That if I couldn't choose death, then I was choosing life. And ... I had to face that. So I did. I found out how to get home, and ... I went home." He gave a humorless laugh. "Mom almost grounded me to death. It took a lot of explaining before she would let me go to prom and not, you know, waste all the money I'd spent on tuxedos and limos and stuff. I almost didn't want to go in the first place, but that was a lot of money."

"It was," she said. "It was crazy."

"So, no, Danielle, I'm not going to judge you if you like to talk to a therapist," he said. "There are problems that are too big to carry alone. Most of the time, that's what you've got me for. But I know there are some I can't help you with. You know, like, the ones where I am the problem."

She gave a helpless laugh.

"So..." He pushed back to look her in the eye. "So don't feel bad. I love you. And whatever you need to do ... I'm with you, all the way."

"Good," she whispered. "Because what I need is you. David, I can't live without you. We made mistakes, we tried it, it didn't work. I can't live without you."

He kissed her. "Then you won't."

"But what about ... David, what about everything that pushed us apart? The arguments we had ... That we still have. I'm worried. They don't come up much, but these things are ... I mean, they aren't avoidable."

He gave her a wry smile. "Well, what do you think your therapist is for? Danielle, just because we love each other doesn't mean we can't change."