Pull Me Close: The Panic Series Read online

“Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” I whisper.

  “No offense, but I don’t really believe you.”

  “No offense, but I don’t really care if you do or don’t.”

  He smirks at me and says, “None of my business, your life. You forget, but I looked through your purse earlier.”

  “You’re right. It’s not your business. And I don’t need to explain myself to you.” My tongue feels too big for my mouth and my arms and legs feel loose and wobbly. “But you were nice enough to bring me home and then came back with my wallet. So I’ll tell you one last time that it’s not drugs. I swear, it’s not. I don’t do drugs. Never done a single illegal drug in my life. What you saw in my purse is prescription medicine for my anxiety.”

  “What happened at Panic? You passed out. That can’t be just anxiety.”

  “It was. I wasn’t feeling well,” I say truthfully, avoiding the mortifying details about my level of anxiety. “And I don’t like elevators,” I add.

  He looks at me as if deciding whether to believe my words. “Can I see your feet?”

  I’m too tired to question it, so I untuck my feet and lay them on his lap, hoping he doesn’t have some sort of foot fetish. He looks at my legs, particularly between my toes.

  “Toes are weird,” I say, and wiggle them. “Don’t you think? I mean, what’s the point? They’re like hands on your feet. They’re feet-hands.” I know I’m probably slurring and oversharing, but I don’t seem to have a filter at the moment. “Toes are gross.”

  He grabs my big toe and pulls. “Nothing gross about these,” he says. “They’re cute.”

  Cute? This big, dangerous-looking man saying the word cute takes me by surprise. I pull my feet away. “You have one of those foot fetish things? That’s weird.”

  He laughs for the second time. “I don’t. Just correcting you on the ‘toes are gross’ stance you’re taking.”

  “You were looking for track marks, weren’t you?” Even in my haziness, I know that’s exactly what he is looking for.

  “I didn’t see any on your arms and I just wanted to check.”

  I hold out my arms. “Nope. Don’t have any of those.” I’m beginning to feel loopy. “Did you want to see my thighs too? That’s the other place, right?” I lean my head against the couch and roll my neck to look at him, putting my legs back on his lap just because it’s comfy and I’m really tired now.

  His big palm trails up my thigh, bringing my long shirt up with him. I can feel the roughness of his hand and the metal from the thick ring on his index finger, and it makes all my nerve endings come alive. “Can I tell you a secret?” I ask, and he nods. “You’re pretty.”

  He looks down where his hand is touching me and pulls away. “Never been called pretty before.” His other hand is still on my ankle and I can’t help but look. I don’t like being touched, especially when I’m having an anxiety attack. But I am now in a calm fuzzy state, one where I could probably get on an elevator or even on a plane and probably not notice. The Xanax comes in rectangular tablets, called bars, scored into four quarters, and my tolerance level is one quarter; anything after that, I’ll completely pass out. The last quarter I’ve taken tonight, now that I’m home and somewhat relaxed, is hitting me hard.

  “It’s nice having company,” I admit. “Even if the company isn’t very nice.” I think my eyes are closed now, but I don’t know for sure. I also think I have a stupid grin on my face.

  He chuckles. “I’m nice sometimes.”

  “Doubt that.”

  “You don’t have much company?”

  “I’ve never had company.”

  “Never?”

  “You’re my first, besides my sister,” I say. “I’m just going to close my eyes for one minute, Nicholas. Okay?”

  “It’s Nico. Not Nicholas. And really, it’s just Nick.”

  “Nico,” I say dreamily. “That’s pretty too.” Then I whisper, “Don’t do anything weird to my feet-hands, Nico.”

  That’s the last thing I remember until I wake up alone the next morning, on my bed, with a note by my pillow written on his business card.

  Thanks for the dryer.

  P.S. You’re prettier.

  P.P.S. I did weird things to your feet-hands after you passed out.

  —

  A few days go by, and green eyes still haunt my dreams. I’m certain that so many years without male attention is contributing to my fascination with Nico.

  Nico.

  I’m so pathetic that I crave human contact any way I can get it, and the little he gave me, even though most of it wasn’t friendly, makes me want more.

  My new phone, the one I ordered online after I threw the other one against the wall, arrived. Everything I need, I purchase online, and most everything is delivered overnight, making the world an enabler to my reclusiveness. And since I’m not around people, I rarely get sick, so I don’t have a need to go to the doctor.

  I do my job as an editor through emails and random Skype sessions. That’s the great (and terrible) thing about living in an age where technology rules—you don’t have to leave your home. Not really. Not unless you want to.

  And I don’t want to.

  And I do.

  I search online for a psychiatrist I visited years ago. I dial the number and say I’d like to talk to Dr. Cole. Immediately the receptionist tries to make an appointment, but I explain the problem. An hour later the receptionist calls me back and says that Dr. Cole has agreed to a video chat session; we schedule it for later that afternoon.

  “Of course I remember you, Katie,” Dr. Cole says later that day during our video chat. She looks older, which is to be expected, since it’s been nearly thirteen years since I’ve seen her. I was still living in New York when I visited her, and I was far from agoraphobic at that time. I was a nervous wreck but the depression trumped the anxiety I felt. I went to her at the urging of my father, which was also the reason I eventually moved to Miami. He lived here with my stepmother and my half sister, and he insisted I needed to be close to family. So, after I finished my undergrad degree at NYU I moved out of the only home I’d ever known to be closer to the only family I had left.

  Dr. Cole’s face is still kind. She’s scholarly-looking, with her thin wire-rimmed glasses that fall to the end of her nose, and her messy hair now has streaks of gray.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me like this, Doctor,” I say into the laptop’s microphone, and then go on to explain everything that has happened in the last few years, specifically the last week.

  “So, eleven months? That is very severe.”

  “I know. I didn’t realize it had been that long since I’ve left my apartment. I thought I had just been too busy to leave or that I didn’t have a need to leave. I know that doesn’t even make sense, but that’s the way I was justifying it, I guess. And before that I only left when I truly had to.”

  “When was the last time you went anywhere? I don’t mean to run to the grocery store, but something like visiting your sister, or going to the movies, or going out with friends. Before the club, of course.”

  Friends? I don’t have any of those anymore.

  I shake my head and quickly wipe away a tear that’s leaked out. “Three years,” I say, looking down at my hands.

  “So, eleven months since you set foot outside your apartment, but three years since you went somewhere you wanted to go, as opposed to needed to go?”

  I nod.

  “I see,” the doctor says while writing something down. “Katie, I want to set a goal for you,” she says. “I have a colleague down in Miami, Dr. Glance. I want you to see him in his office, in person. He’s great and I think he’d be a perfect match for you, but he’s on a sabbatical at the moment. Anyway, you aren’t ready to step out yet, so it gives us a little time to work on that first. Let’s plan on chatting Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next three weeks, and then the week after, you’ll continue your therapy in person with Dr. Glance. He’s d
oing wonderful things with EMDR. It’s a little controversial, but I think you’d benefit from it. I’m going to email you some links with some information on it.”

  “Okay.” I make a mental note to research EMDR.

  “By the way, we can’t do actual sessions through Skype because of HIPAA laws. I’m going to also send you a link to a HIPAA-approved program that works like Skype. I agreed for today because I remember you and this is just a short introductory conversation, but in the future we have to use the other program.”

  “Okay, Doctor. No problem,” I say. After a pause I add, “What if I can’t meet Dr. Glance in person?”

  “And what if you can? Your life will be so much better if you can leave that apartment, don’t you think?” She does that thing therapists do—they tell you the thing you know but which you need to hear from another person’s mouth.

  “I suppose.”

  “I’ll contact Dr. Glance’s secretary as soon as we hang up and get the ball rolling. He’ll probably contact you directly as well,” she says. “And Katherine, I’m only asking for ten minutes at his office to start. That is all, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Any night terrors?”

  When the anxiety and the nerves are especially high, I know I wake up in a cold sweat, but I don’t have anyone to tell me whether it’s a true night terror. My dreams are only of darkness, an all-consuming darkness. In the dreams I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they never do, and I’m sitting for hours and hours in that darkness while things I can’t identify touch my legs, my neck. I hear loud voices, but I don’t know where they come from. When eventually I step outside the dark room, I don’t recognize anything. I’m on a different planet—when I look up at the sky, I see Earth, and I’m alone in a barren place. “Yes. Not all the time, but yes, sometimes.”

  “I’m also going to call in a prescription for Lexapro. It’ll help with everything. It’s a mood stabilizer. You may feel somewhat odd at first, but we can adjust the dose. I want you to monitor how you feel on it. A lot of new drugs have come onto the market since you were last on anything.”

  “Okay, Dr. Cole. I’ll email you my pharmacy information, and I’ll have them deliver everything today. I want to get better.”

  “I am also going to send you some breathing and visualization techniques you can practice. We’ll work on each phobia a little at a time for the next few weeks, and then you can continue with Dr. Glance. I won’t sugarcoat it—it’s going to take a lot of work. It won’t be easy and it’ll take time, but I’m willing to put in the effort if you are.”

  “I am.”

  “You were stuck on that train for hours, dear, and you were young at the time. It’s not unusual that you are still exhibiting these symptoms of PTSD all these years later.”

  PTSD? “Thank you for working with me again, Dr. Cole.”

  “No problem. See you on Wednesday.”

  I log off and sit back in my chair. It’s been years since I thought of the day. PTSD? Isn’t post-traumatic stress disorder what military personnel get? I start googling PTSD, and my mind wanders to a dark place it needs to avoid.

  “I’ll call you later, Mom. I’m running late,” I said, hoisting the strap of my messenger bag higher on my shoulder. I had just started my first semester at NYU and was about to hop on the train. I’d gone to my first sorority party the night before, and I was definitely feeling the effect of it that morning. “I’m about to lose you, Mom,” I said as the doors shut.

  “ ’Kay, Katie. Make time on Saturday, okay? Love you always, my heart.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  I remember rolling my eyes at her sappy words. Sappy words she said all the time but I never truly appreciated. She had always called me “my heart”. She said her heart started beating the moment I was born. Whenever I was sad, growing up, she’d press the top of her palm against her heart and tell me that when I hurt, her heart hurt too. “See you on Saturday, Mom.” I closed my flip phone and stuffed it in my pocket. My mother was the CEO of a big bank and I hadn’t seen her for about two weeks. She’d been on my case to visit her since I moved out just two weeks earlier when school had begun. I only moved a few blocks away, but with school having just started, and pledging into a sorority, I hadn’t made time for her.

  I wish I had seen her the previous week. I wish I had told her how much I loved her. To this day I don’t remember the last thing we said to each other in person. But I’ll never forget the words she said over the phone: “Love you always, my heart.” Because those were the last words she said to me. I press my hand to my heart, where there is still a painful void.

  Ten minutes after I got on, the train screeched to a halt, the lights went out, and I heard a series of loud noises. And for the next sixteen hours everything stayed pitch-black.

  It wasn’t until the next day, September 12, 2001, that I saw light again.

  But by the time I stepped out, my life and the city I called home were irrevocably changed forever.

  Four

  Trembling

  Nico

  “You’re the only man who leaves for a vacation and comes back looking worse than when you left,” Matt says as he unloads a shipment of liquor from the truck. I push his helmet onto his head, slide the visor down, and then shove him aside. I can faintly hear him chuckle as I lift a case from the truck. He takes the helmet off. “So I guess you didn’t get laid?”

  “Shut up,” I say, picking up another box. “How’d you hold up here?”

  “Well, except for the fire, public orgy, and armed robbery, it was an uneventful week.”

  I stop dead in my tracks because none of the things he says is out of the realm of possibility when dealing with a nightclub in Miami Beach. “Kidding. Kidding,” he says, holding his hands up. “Well, I did catch Jason forgetting to put a twenty in the register.”

  “Did he put it in his pocket instead?”

  “Yep. Together with seven more twenties.”

  “Motherfucker,” I say, slamming the box down too forcefully. “What did you do?”

  “Fired him. Called the cops too.”

  “Good,” I say. The police are basically just sitting and waiting for us to fuck up, but when we catch something like stealing or drugs, we always report it. We want them to see we’re fixing up our act. That we are not our father.

  “Hired a new bartender. She’s cool. I like her. Seems to keep to herself. I’ll introduce you tonight,” he says. “Oh, and Geo and David are in town. We’re going to grab a quick bite to eat tomorrow before they fly out. Want to join us?” David is my closest friend. He lives in France with his fiancée, Geo. They come back and forth often because of David’s work, but I always like to catch up with them when they’re in town.

  “Sounds good,” I say. “I went to see Julia.” We both have a soft spot for our sister. “Jake and Lara are huge,” I tell him, about our twin niece and nephew.

  “Man, I miss them. Maybe I’ll take off next week for a visit.”

  “Yeah, you should. Thanks for watching the club.”

  “Why do you do that?” he says, his voice thick with irritation. “I’m half owner. You’re not more in charge of this place than I am. You don’t need to thank me. It’s what we do. We help each other out.”

  I run my fingers through my hair. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what’s with the shitty face? Why aren’t you all fresh and ready to work?”

  I shrug, walk behind the bar, and take out a beer. It’s Saturday midday, and the club’s empty except for a few employees. I lean my elbows on the bar. “Don’t know,” I admit. “I just…” I take a drink of the cold beer and think. What is my problem, exactly? “I’m mad, Matty. I’m mad at Dad, at Naomi, at the world, and I can’t shake that shit off. I drove all the way up the coast and almost got to Georgia. It’s spring break, and I stopped in Daytona. You know how easy it would’ve been to hook up with a college chick?”

  “Why didn’t you?”
r />   “Don’t know.” And that’s the truth. It’s not that I can’t get it up. It’s not that I’m not horny. It’s that I’m mad. When I see an attractive woman, I remember how much I hate Naomi, and that makes my dick shrivel up. It’s been a year, so I should’ve gotten over that shit by now. I can’t stand myself most days. When I look in the mirror I see a man who’s so mad at the world. Running my father’s club was not in my plans. I was stuck here after a bad situation. But Panic was a legacy, a Miami landmark, and for years it had been practically my home. I couldn’t see it close down, especially not with the way shit went down. Negative publicity tainting decades of class and worldwide fame. The Moreno name would not blow up in a cloud of smoke if I had any say in the matter. That’s why I was putting heart, soul, and an ulcer into making it what it once was—minus the drug trafficking and prostitution, of course. Then, and only then, would I consider selling it and trying to go back to my old life. Or maybe staying to run it permanently.

  “You still in love with Naomi?” he asks, taking me out of my thoughts.

  It’s a good question. A question I’ve asked myself over and over. But no. I am absolutely not in love with her. Not even a little bit. “No. I can say that with absolute certainty.”

  “When’s the last time you got some, man?”

  “None of your fucking business,” I say, tossing a crumpled-up napkin at him. “Aren’t you tired of all the bitches who come in here night after night? Same tight dress, same big hair, same big tits?”

  “No!” he says incredulously.

  “That’s bullshit. You were really into that chick. What was her name?”

  “June.”

  “Yeah, June. She was hot.”

  “Yeah, and she’s also fallen completely off the fucking grid. One day she’s all over me, and the next she’s gone.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Tell me about it.” He sighs, and I look at Matt for the first time in a long time. Really look at him. He looks sad. I think he really liked that June chick. I finish off my drink and think about those big brown eyes that looked sadly at me a week ago. I can relate to Matt’s feelings.