“I wouldn’t have called except that someone else is involved and I need confirmation of what I know is going on,” she said, confident again as she heard herself speak.
The name on her phone…another flashback of angst-driven anxiety…had triggered her stomach for a second. All part of the surge.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Sandra said, her tone as calming and authoritative as always.
“Nothing really,” Iris said, taking a deep breath of ocean air. Then glanced back at the cottage. She’d left the dogs inside with Scott. Should have brought them out with her. Had to get the call done.
“It’s just a trigger,” she said quickly. “I’m good with it. But, unfortunately, the episode happened when someone else was around. I really just need to confirm that these flashbacks to experiencing over-the-top emotions apply, not just to the original types of feelings or source of feelings, but to any emotion I might be experiencing at the time.” She was still down by the water but couldn’t take her gaze off the back door. Willing the girls to show themselves, stand there, asking to be let out with her.
“In theory, that’s certainly possible.” The doctor’s voice shut out all other thought, sound, for the moment as Iris sank into it. And relief came, making her weak for the second it took Sandra to continue.“However, that’s not the only possibility. Tell me what’s going on.”
No.
She was no longer under Dr. Livingston’s care.
Didn’t need a counselor anymore.
Her life was good. Great. More than she’d ever hoped it could be following the accident.
“Iris? You called me.”
Right. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Please don’t hang up.” The words came quickly. Loudly enough that she could hear them even as she was lowering her phone to see the button to end the call.
Dr. Livingston had known. Which sent another wave of alarm shooting through her. “I’m still here,” she said, forcing calm into her words. And, with steps on the beach, into her demeanor, too.
She could pretend with the world. She’d promised herself, and Ivy, who always watched over her, that she would never pretend with Sandra Livingston. The woman was the sounding board that had helped her find a healthy life again. She was Iris’s checkpoint.
And so she told her, in just a few sentences, about her friendship with Scott and Sage, about the wedding, and the way she’d leaned into Scott as they were dancing, tempting him in a way that had introduced a sexual component neither of them wanted.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sure that my surge inadvertently tempted him?” she asked. Needing to hear the diagnosis so she could get on with the cure.
“Sure that neither of you want your friendship to be more?”
“Positive.” She didn’t have to pretend on that one at all.“On both sides.” With another two sentences, she told Sandra about Scott. A workaholic confirmed bachelor. And then, facing the door again, as mentioning the man brought back her worry about him alone with the dogs, she said, “I swear, I’m not wrong about this,” she finished. “I’m panicked about the thought of losing what we had. I miss him. And I’m already on the way to being back to my healthy self,” she said, when she’d meant to be done talking. “I had a great afternoon. Doing what you taught me to do. And found the peace and clarity that have seen me through.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” The voice over the phone sounded truly pleased. A familiar sound, even if not heard in a while.
“I just need to know that I’m not missing something,” she said then. “That I’m on the right track here. I don’t want Scott to get hurt.”
Truth rang so loudly she felt like everyone in every cottage on the beach must have heard it.
“I can’t tell you that,” Sandra said. Then, while fear surged through Iris again—ripping her breath out of her lungs as it went—the woman continued, “I know that you might be. What you’re saying is most definitely feasible. Believable even.”
Then what was the problem? She didn’t ask. And felt as though she should have when Sandra left a long pause before saying, “It’s also possible that your psyche is not only ready for more, but that you’ve healed to the point of yearning for more.”
Shaking her head, Iris let that one go even before the psychologist had finished the last word. There was no way anyone would ever know her as completely, love her as unconditionally as Ivy had, and she couldn’t settle for less. Nor could she let someone else give her their all when she knew she’d be settling.And, on another, more selfish level, she couldn’t risk loving and losing again.
“Picture it as your emotions having been in a deep sleep.” Sandra said what Iris already knew. A part of her had gone permanently to sleep along with Ivy. They’d died together.
Waiting to be able to end the conversation without being rude but needing to get back up to the house—to check on the dogs—Iris headed in that direction as she listened to Dr. Livingston saying, “It’s possible that they’ve woken up.”
They hadn’t. It wasn’t like she was surging all over the place. Or even for more than random moments in a whole day’s worth of hours filled with hundreds of normal minutes.
“But it’s just as likely, if not more, that Sage’s wedding, a twin sister, though not mine, and me being maid of honor, triggered an emotional setback,” she said, halfway to the door of Scott’s cottage.
