“I’m not sure why you’re surprised. You had confessed your feelings for him had changed, but you didn’t know if it was mutual. You saw him as more than just this friend, but didn’t want to compromise a pretty amazing friendship by telling him you were falling for him… which, I’m certain happened way before you were willing to admit it to yourself.” She’s absolutely right. “In any case, it was killing you because you were living in no man’s land—too chicken to just tell him, yet, tormented by the fact you felt compelled to keep it bottled up. I guess Rod made the decision for both of you.”
“He did, but now things are really awkward between us.”
I can’t lose this friendship. I’m an only child. I’m distant from my family in Europe. My dad never looked back after leaving us. My mother and I barely talk. Rod is all I have.
“Do you want to start from the beginning?”
Over the next half hour, I spill my guts, keeping the more salacious parts of the story to myself.
“Wow! It’s like a volcano waiting to erupt. Talk about combustive. So why did you end up fighting?”
Leave it to Elsa not to miss a beat.
“You know how uncomfortable I can get––more like weirded out––about sex. It’s not nearly as bad as it once was, but there’s always that underlying fear—”
“Even with Rod?”
“No, not with him. Some of his questions were potential landmines and I guess he sensed my uneasiness. Rod being Rod, he started scratching the surface. My defenses went up and I pushed him away. The second fight happened yesterday before I went for dinner with Joel Banner—”
“Wait. What? You had dinner with the lead singer of Brawn Impulse?” Elsa shouts. “After you made out with your best friend the ex-rocker?” Her voice goes up several octaves. “Girlfriend, you’re my new hero.”
“You make it sound so sordid.”
“How many women make out with two rock stars within the span of twenty hours?”
“I wouldn’t know because my dinner with Joel was purely business.”
“Oh.” I hear the disappointment in her voice. “Nothing happened?”
“Other than a mind-bending proposal that could alter my life forever, no.”
I quickly tell her all about Joel’s offer.
“Holy shit! You have big decisions to make.”
“I do.”
We both remain silent for a few short seconds.
“I’m glad Rod is the one who helped you move forward. At least you felt safe with him.”
“I always feel safe with him. Everything was amplified when we were together. I not only felt safe, but I also felt cherished beyond belief. He was patient, caring and considerate. I know those adjectives don’t necessarily come to mind when you think about sex with a bad boy like Rod, but for some incredible reason he managed to make it kinky and loving.”
“Sometimes, you need a good man to wipe the slate clean,” Elsa says.
“Can you ever really forget an asshole?” I ask.
“I didn’t say forget, Dom. I doubt people like us can ever forget the monsters who robbed something from us, but we can’t let them prevent us from enjoying intimacy. I know exactly where you’re coming from. Last summer, I had to call in reinforcements.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was stuck. Every time I started dating a guy, I would stress out to the point of being physically sick, dreading when he’d want to have sex. My anxiety was so high, it was a self-sabotaging exercise. Of course, the guy would break things off because I was a mess. Jason had moved back to my parents’ house after his latest company had failed.” Her brother is determined to become the next dot-com king. “Alex was hanging out with him for the evening. Jason drank a little too much and fell asleep. Alex and I started talking and one thing led to another—”
“Alex? Your older brother’s best friend?”
“Yeah. I had a long-time crush on him and it turns out it was mutual. I told him what had happened to me and how I desperately wanted to get past my trauma—or at least not freak out like I always did when it comes to sex. So last summer, Alex taught me how to trust again.”
“Wow. You never said anything.”
