“She’s screaming.” My words are but a whisper, but my therapist looks up from her notes. I wasn’t surprised that she heard me.

“What is she saying?”

“No words. Just screams.”

“And why do you think that is? What do you think she’s screaming about?”

What indeed…Damned if I knew. Angel just always screams. I felt myself slipping again. I do this. I painted the house. Went to the store. Bought my husband a painting. Thought of Raven and then…Raven. I wanted to pull my hair out of my head. I had told my therapist about Raven. She seemed adamant that it was a fantasy I was in love with. She and I didn’t quite see eye to eye on that.

The screams were louder.

“What were you doing when she started screaming? Do you remember?”

I did remember. And so I nodded.

“Yes.”

“And?”

I recalled this morning. “I was aroused,” I said. “But it was different.”

“Different how?”

“I wanted to…to curl up in bed with my husband. I wanted to touch him. Just touch him.”

“How did that feel?”

“Nice…” I shook my head. “But that isn’t what I want to say.”

She waited for me to continue. She is very good at her job. She seems to always know when to be silent.

“Like I’ve spent my whole life at sea, riding the waves through a thirty year old storm and…for the first time in thirty years the waves were calm, the winds ceased, and the skies cleared. And just then…just then I could see right down to the bottom. I dove. And I sank. Everything around me was like a coral reef. Clear and cool and peaceful. So peaceful. And suddenly I realized this was how everyone else must see the world. Experience relationships. But for me…the storm was too great to see…to even know these things were here the whole time.”

“What things?” she asked.

“I felt…lonely. But…physically…lonely. Yes. Physically lonely. And I wanted to touch to…not feel so alone. Is there such a thing?” I asked. “As physically loneliness?”

“Yes,” she said. “Very much.”

I never knew.

“And what did you want to do with your husband this morning?”

“Not sex,” I said. “But yes…sex. only…this was different. I wanted closeness. I wanted to touch and to be touched. It was all just so different. The storm is back. I must return to the surface.”

“And that…that is why you crashed.”