Chapter 154: Chapter 154
PAOLO
Dr. Linda’s office smelled like cedar and old books.
I had noticed that the very first day I came here, fourteen months ago, when I sat in the waiting room for twenty minutes seriously considering leaving before she called my name. Something about the smell had kept me in the chair. It had ground me. Today it felt like a cruel joke. Nothing felt safe today.
I was in the leather chair closest to the window. Elbows on my knees. Hands clasped so tightly my knuckles had gone white. I had been staring at the floor for the better part of ten minutes.
Dr. Linda waited across from me, composed and unhurried the way she always was. Notepad open. Pen untouched.
"Wherever you are," she said quietly. "Just start there."
"I tried." My voice came out wrecked. "Last night. Our anniversary. Two years married and I actually tried."
She waited.
"I had been working up to it for weeks. Telling myself I was ready. That I loved her enough to push through whatever my body does. To fight my fear and actually do it." I pressed my clasped hands against my mouth. "We were close. Closer than we have ever been. She was right there. I could feel how much she wanted me. How long she had been waiting." My throat tightened. "And I wanted her. I need you to understand that. It was never about not wanting her. God, I have always wanted her."
"I know," Dr. Linda said. "I know exactly how you feel."
"And then it came. The way it always comes." I pressed two fingers hard against my temple. "One second I was there, with Reina. And the next second I was fifteen years old again."
The silence in the room shifted.
"I could see my mother’s face," I said. The words came out very quiet. Very flat. "Clear as anything. Clearer than Reina’s face right in front of me. She was crying. Begging." I stopped. Swallowed. "I could see everything. That room. My sister across from me with a gun to her head. And what they were forcing me to do to my own mother."
My voice broke on the last word.
"Ten years," I said. "Ten years and I can still feel every second of it. Like it never ended. Like some part of me never left that room." I looked up at the ceiling, blinking hard. "I was fifteen. She was my mother. And those men made me— they made me have...s...s..sex with my own mother." I stopped again. Shook my head. "And I did it. Because they had a gun on Elisa and I was so terrified and I didn’t know what else to do and I have hated myself for it every single day since."
Dr. Linda’s voice was very careful. "You were a child, Paolo. What happened in that room was done to you. You were not the one who—"
"My body doesn’t know that." The words came out sharp and exhausted. "I know it here." I tapped my temple. "But my body still thinks I’m that person. Still thinks that every time I try to be intimate with my wife, I’m back there. Doing that." I shook my head slowly. I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. "So it shuts down. Every single time. It just... collapses."
The tears came then. Fourteen months in this office and I had never once cried. Today I couldn’t stop. I bent forward, shoulders shaking, and cried the way I hadn’t since I was a boy — deep and wrenching and absolutely exhausted.
Dr. Linda let it happen. Steady and present and quiet.
It took a long time to pass.
When I finally straightened, the tissue box was nearly empty. My chest felt hollowed out. Outside the window the city moved normally, indifferent and loud.
"I got sick, I vomited... God, I vomited on my wife because I was fucked in the head and I... I froze" I said. "Right in front of her. And then I ran. Left her there alone on our anniversary without a single explanation." My jaw tightened. "She called me several times. I watched the screen and couldn’t answer because I couldn’t hear her voice and know she was lying there confused, thinking it was something she did wrong." Something cracked in my chest. "There is nothing wrong with her. There has never been anything wrong with Reina."
"No," Dr. Linda agreed quietly. "There hasn’t."
"She’s going to leave me." I said it plainly, like a fact I had already accepted. "If I can’t fix this."
"Is that your biggest fear right now?"
I thought about Reina. The way she moved through our apartment lately — quietly, carefully, like someone carrying something heavy. The particular quality of guilt on her face sometimes when she didn’t know I was looking. Something cold had been sitting in my chest for months that I couldn’t name.
"I’m afraid she already has," I said. "In the ways that matter."
Dr. Linda studied me carefully. "What do you mean by that?"
I shook my head. I didn’t have the words for it. Just instinct. Just dread.
"I need to go home," I said, pushing myself to standing. My legs felt unsteady. "I can’t leave her alone any longer."
"Paolo." Her voice stopped me at the door. "What was done to you at fifteen was one of the most devastating things a person can survive. The fact that you are still standing. Still fighting. Still trying to go home to your wife." She held my gaze. "That matters."
My throat tightened.
I nodded once and walked out.
I sat in my car for a long time with the engine off. Then I thought about Reina wearing my mother’s necklace on that yacht, emeralds catching the light, tears she tried to hide.
"What am I going to do with myself if Reina should leave me?"
