I shake my head. Not really. This is going to hurt.
“How to reconnect with your daughter. How to build relationships with your children. You affect them. Your addiction affects them. Missing parts of our lives isn’t a solution, it’s a problem.”
I understand what she’s telling me. I hear the words, and they make a great deal of sense. But what’s my alternative to satiating this addiction? Getting help? Kicking it? How do you eliminate something that’s a part of life? I can understand being sober, but being celibate? It’s unnatural.
Rose must see me processing because she adds, “You start with counseling and someone who has been through this before.”
“I want to wait to talk to Lo,” I tell her. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my crutch, even though I know it’ll make everyone else happy. I hate myself for it, but stopping sounds beyond my reach. “I’m going to go to bed.” Mechanically, I rise from the chair.
She follows suit. “I’m spending the night. I’ll be on the couch to give you some space.”
“You don’t have to stay. Really, I’m…” She gives me a sharp glare and I rephrase my automatic response. “…I’ll be okay.”
She nods and tucks my flyaway hair behind my ear. “I know you will. I’ll see you in the morning, Lily.” Before I pull away, she wraps her arms around me, squeezing harder, holding tight. “I love you.”
I almost start crying again, but I bottle the feelings. I love you too. “I’ll be okay,” I murmur. With this, I disentangle from her and glide to my room. My head has finally separated from my body.
{24}
It takes me hours to shut off my brain and fall asleep, to stop the endless tracks where I bounce between justifying my actions and condemning them. Sometimes I think Rose is right, that maybe therapy would be good for me. But some medical physicians barely even consider sex addiction a real thing. What if I end up at the mercy of a shrink who scorns me and makes me feel even more worthless?
Plenty of other reasons bomb my mind, keeping me firmly on a destructive loop. And when I finally wake, I watch the red glowing numbers change on my digital clock. Weighed down by a strong force, it feels too strenuous to lift my numb body from the mattress.
I hear Rose crack the door and peek into my room every so often, but I feign sleep and she slips out just as quickly. So much has changed in the past twenty-four-hours that I’m struggling to grasp onto something familiar. Lo, my one constant, will no doubt hear about the events last night. I wish they would come from my lips, but it’s already mid-afternoon and I still can’t pry myself from the sheets.
Curtains encase my room in total blackness, refusing to let in a shred of light. The only source belongs to my glowing phone as I search Tumblr for naughty photos, but it only makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t stop. Not until the door opens. I quickly click off the screen and close my eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Concentrating on the footsteps, I wait for Rose to leave again. The door closes, and I let out a breath before returning to the pictures.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
I jump at the deep, hollow voice and quickly yank the dangling cord on the lamp. The room illuminates and Lo squints in the dark. Eyes pink and swollen, and hair matted like he’s been pulling at it in distress. They must have told him what happened. As I assumed.
He stays firmly against the wall beside my dresser, putting a great deal of distance between us. I try not to overanalyze what it means, but it hurts regardless.
“I’ve managed to fool everyone this long,” I say under my breath. “What gave me away?”
He licks his bottom lip before saying, “I asked Rose if you had your TV on. She said it was pitch black in here. So I knew you must have woken up and turned off your porn.” Almost every night I fall asleep to videos playing in the background. Most of the time on mute.
“That doesn’t make me a bad liar,” I refute softly. “That just means you know me too well.” I slide up on the bed, resting against the oak headboard and pulling my knees to my chest. “I had to tell Rose everything.”
“I know.” His expression stays inscrutable, not letting on if it bothers him. So I make the leap myself.
“I think it will work out. She doesn’t seem like she’ll tell anyone else. And she said that she’d give me as much time as I needed.” That’s what she was getting at, right? “And with Rose, that could be forever. So we’ll just move on from last night and everything will go back to normal.” I give a self-satisfied nod to seal the proclamation.