Page 23

CHAPTER 23

NATE

This is my worst fucking nightmare. My version of Hell. If I could teleport, I would beam my ass out of this office and to another planet.

My shirt sticks to my chest, slick with sweat like my forehead, neck, and palms. Fanning myself with my hand, I suck in another deep breath. As if my nightmares are not bad enough, I have to relive this shit during the day.

“You are not responsible for what she did to you,” Dr. Swanson lilts, her tone calm and sweet. “Many victims of sexual assault justify what happened to them by blaming themselves. You didn’t do anything to provoke her.”

My mind wanders back to the first few months with her . It’s dark in my bedroom when she wakes me up. Panic immediately sets in as her hand inches down my chest.

“You’re so big, Nathaniel.” Her hand dips beneath the waistband of my boxers. She grabs my dick and strokes it until I start to feel something. “Look at you growing for me. You like it, don’t you? That’s my sweet boy.”

Did I like it?

Yes and no.

That was the problem.

I got off on her but hated myself for it later. And since I was so young, I didn’t understand sex and how she used it against me.

“Where did you just go, Nate?”

It’s Dr. Swanson.

I blink a few times and focus on her face. “Um… I was thinking about her.”

I don’t want to do this anymore. Searching the office for a clock, I don’t find one. So, I reach into my pocket and check the time on my cell phone.

Thirty more minutes.

No fucking way!

“Can we talk about something else?”

Dr. Swanson crosses her right leg over the other. “Sure.” Then her gaze drifts to River. “Can you tell me about your relationship with River?”

That’s easy.

“He’s my best friend.”

“It’s not that simple,” River adds.

“How so?”

“I asked Nate to see you because he has a sex addiction.”

She clutches the pen in her hand, her face expressionless. “Much like other addictions, sexual compulsion is a serious condition. That’s not a diagnosis I would give out lightly.”

“He has one,” River says without hesitation. “And he makes me participate.”

Her eyebrow raises. “Makes you?”

“No,” River says to clarify. “Nate has never forced me to do anything. He needs me to be there when we have sex with women. So he feels safe.”

“Do the two of you have a sexual relationship with each other?”

He shakes his head, then stops moving, lips parted. “Well, not exactly. Sometimes, he asks me to give him handjobs. More recently, he’s been making porn for me. Once, he jerked me off. But never sex.”

“We also watch porn and masturbate together,” I admit. “And have done so since we became roommates at boarding school.”

“How often do you ask River for help with your sexual desires?”

I shrug. “On occasion.”

“It happened twice on Sunday.” River wraps his arms around his middle as if he needs a hug. “The first time in the movie theater. And then, again that night in his bedroom when Nate showed me a porno he made for me.”

She takes a few notes. Then her eyes dart to River. “How did you respond?”

River folds his hands on his lap and sighs. “I wanted to help him. So I did. But it’s confusing for me.”

She scribbles onto her pad, eyes pointed down. “Why is it confusing?”

“Nate is straight,” he says, tugging at the ends of his dark hair. “Yet he’s asking me to get him off. And I’m… Well, I’m still trying to figure out my sexuality.”

“I like how your hand feels,” I say, even though it’s fucking humiliating to admit aloud. “It’s the closest I can get to doing it myself but more gratifying.”

His head snaps to me. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So my hand is just a hand?”

He looks hurt but also doesn’t seem surprised.

“What do you want me to say?”

He inches away, elbow rested on the arm of the couch, and peeks down at his lap.

“I’m not gay,” I state to clear the air.

Even as I say the words, they feel wrong. Dirty. The first time I crossed the line with River, I stopped being straight. Maybe I’m bisexual. I don’t fucking know anymore.

“When it comes to sex addiction,” Dr. Swanson says, her eyes on me, “it’s not about the sex or attraction to another person. Sex is only a symptom of the underlying problem. If you have a sex addiction, it would likely be a result of your trauma.”

I take a second to digest her words, letting them roll around in my brain until they make sense. All of this comes back to that bitch. Of course, it does. On some level, I have always known that.

“If it’s not about sex, then why am I jonesing for an orgasm all the time?”

“Because what you crave is an emotional connection to someone. You want to feel some form of intimacy. You desire an emotional connection with your partner, but you seek it elsewhere when you don’t find it.”

“I don’t have a partner. I’ve never even had a girlfriend.”

“River fills that void for you,” she says, not a question but a statement.

“He’s the only stable relationship I’ve ever had.”

“Do you feel close to him?”

I nod. “More than anyone.”

“Do you trust him?”

“With my life.”

River slides over to my cushion and grabs my hand. I feel the nervous energy slithering down his arm, but he appears calm on the outside. He’s so good at masking his feelings.

Dr. Swanson glances down at our linked fingers. “You care about River.”

Another nod.

“Do you feel intimacy with him?”

“No, we don’t have sex. I already told you that, Doc.”

“You can have sex without intimacy. But you can also have intimacy without sex.” When I narrow my eyes at her, she says, “You have a bond with River, one that’s emotional, mental, and physical.”

“Not physical,” I snap.

She tips her head to our joined hands to prove her point.

My lips form an O , but I don’t interrupt her.

“I watched how you responded to him when you entered my office. You can be yourself with River. He makes you feel validated and safe. You can be vulnerable with him.”

“I’ve never felt that way with anyone else. He knows everything about me.” I hang my head low, ashamed of forcing River into this mess. “I need him there.”

“Because he makes you feel safe?”

I nod in answer. “We don’t have sex. But we fuck the same girls. Isn’t that being intimate?”

She shakes her head. “Can you name a time when you were vulnerable with anyone?”

“With River,” I admit. “When I told him about her .”

“Have you ever shared this with anyone else?”

“Only my parents and former therapists.”

She pauses for a beat and takes a sip from her coffee cup. “How did your parents respond when you told them?”

“They sent me to boarding school and brushed it under the rug. After I turned eighteen, I stopped going home on my college breaks.”

“Where do you go instead?”

I shrug. “Wherever River wants. We usually spend our summers at his house in The Hamptons. Aspen for the winter break.”

“You have a special bond with River,” Dr. Swanson says to break the dark thoughts swirling around in my head. “On some level, your connection is linked to the trauma. He was there for you right after it happened. Instead of helping you through that time, your parents sent you to boarding school, and you sought comfort in River.”

At least this doctor isn’t a fucking quack. She seems to get me. River said she specializes in both trauma and addiction. And she knows her shit.

“I still do,” I say with my eyes on my best friend. “I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes when he’s not around.”

That sounds super unhealthy… and maybe it is a little fucked up. But River is my lifeline. Without him, I would probably be dead right now.

River squeezes my hand. “It’s okay, Nate. I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s not true,” I spit back. “When you sign with an NHL team, you’ll leave me behind.”

This is my greatest fear.

Once we graduate, our relationship ends. My life will crash down on me once and for all, and no one will be left to help me pick up the pieces. It’s my childhood all over again.

Abandoned.

Unloved.

Afraid.