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“At your last appointment, you said Casper made you feel grounded, which was new for you.” She tilts her head. “Do you still feel that way?”
“Yes.” I sit up straighter on my sofa, then nudge the laptop screen back a little. “Even more now. He’s gentle, but still very . . . masculine, I guess? Solid. He listens. He doesn’t shut down or make everything about himself. If something is wrong, we just talk about it—and the weirdest part is, I feel like I can tell him anything.”
Her eyebrows lift. “That’s a big shift from where you started.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “It really is.”
She tilts her head to the side. “What else feels different with him?”
“He takes care of me. He notices things. If I’m hungry, food shows up. If I’m overwhelmed, he helps me solve whatever I’m stuck on.” A nervous grin slips onto my face, because I know how it sounds, and Joan knows I know too. “Not in a controlling way. He’s patient, like really patient with me. It doesn’t feel like before.” It’s not like when Steve love-bombed me and then took over my life. I want her to know Casper isn’t like that.
“How does it feel to be cared for that way?”
I exhale, thinking of my answer.
“At first? A little suspicious. But there was a friendship first, there wasn’t any pressure for more. He’s never asked for more, he doesn’t even touch me without asking first.”
She gives a nod of approval.
“But now he feels safe.” I glance down at my hands, tugging at a loose thread on the cuff of my sleeve. “Which is still kind of hard for me to say out loud without wanting to immediately take it back.”
“Why would you take it back?”
I shrug. “I don’t want to curse myself.”
She nods. Then she flips back a few pages in her large notepad. “A few months ago, you were telling me how hard it was to imagine feeling safety and desire simultaneously. That the two things had never really gone hand-in-hand for you. Do you still believe that?”
Recalling that appointment feels like it was so long ago. I shake my head. “No. Not with Casper.”
She narrows her eyes. “There’s something else, what is it?”
I huff out a laugh. “It’s weird when you do that.”
She replies with a laugh. “So, what is it?”
I exhale. “I told him about my scars.”
“Wow!” Joan blinks a few times with raised brows. “That’s huge, Anna! How did he react?”
I nod. It felt huge. My throat feels tight all of a sudden.
“He just listened. He didn’t shut down or talk about how mad he was and make it about him. He didn’t pity me. He didn’t blame me or ask why I didn’t leave sooner. He held me while I shared with him—” My voice cracks and I blink away the stinging tears. “Then he told me that he loved that version of me too.”
Joan exhales softly. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah,” I say, rolling my lips together. “That was kind of my reaction too.”
“Did you say it back?”
“I wasn’t ready.” I shake my head. “He knew I wasn’t, and didn’t expect it back.”
“Good.”
“So, what did it feel like to hear that?”
A wet laugh escapes and I swipe my cheeks. “Terrifying. But also . . . kind of perfect? In an imperfect way. In his weird, Casper way.”
“In his weird, Casper way,” she echoes with a smile.
