“Thank you so much.” I put the notebook away and sit back, a contented sigh leaving my lips.
I nod again, stretching my lips out in a smile. I rub my thumb over a charm on my wrist, glancing around the room. I don’t know what to say or what to expect. I’ve noticed her sometimes wacky take on things, like the aspect of the room’s decor, but I don’t know how good of a therapist she is. Like, how will she dig inside my brain? Is she capable of making me react strongly, like crying? Screaming? It’s happened in the past, and I don’t want either of them to happen. Not in front of her. She’s my superior, and I want her to have some level of respect for me, as I do so strongly for her.
“Olivia?” She sounds as though she’s been calling my name for a while. I hum and look up from my charm bracelet, finding her tilting her head with a notepad and pen on her lap. “Where did you go just now?”
“Sorry, I just—I was thinking of all the other times I had therapy sessions. Sometimes, I reacted to the therapist with rather…strong emotions.” The smile I give her doesn’t fit my face and drips down my chin like an ice cream on a hot summer day.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you lose your mind. That’s already happened. It’s why you’re here.” She coyly winks at me, and my lips spread into a smile. “Just start with what happened. What brings you here?” I eye the pen to the paper in her lap. May as well get this over with.
I bow my head before taking a deep breath. “Ten years ago, my family and I got into a fatal car accident. Drunk driver came into our lane and hit us head on. My parents were okay, physically, and so was I…but my little brother wasn’t so fortunate.” Tears grappling in the back of my throat wrap around my next words and stop me from speaking. I chew on my bottom lip and clear my throat. “He died. He…um…he bled out before help could come.” I curl my fingers around each other and bite on my inner cheek. I hate talking about this.
“This still affects you to this day?” she asks, looking up from her notebook. Her dark green eyes feel like blades cutting through my flesh. I give her a frantic nod and cup the bracelet, crossing a leg over another. She gives me a slow once-over and adjusts in her chair. “How?”
I pause. “I have night terrors every single night. There isn’t a night where I don’t see his face…pleading for help, but I couldn’t—I couldn’t save him.” My chest is tightening. The image of him crying floats before me. I blink the image away and find her staring at me with an unreadable expression.
“But you were also involved in the crash. There was nothing you could have done to help him if you were also hurt.”
“I could have at least tried,” I say, gesturing with my hands. “I couldn’t just watch him die when I could have helped in some way.”
“And did you?”
“No, because he died. I—I tried to find a driver on the road, but it was dead silent. No cars were coming. But I could have gone through the forest and run into town.”
“How injured were you?”
I falter with my words. I don’t even remember how banged up my body was. All I could do was think about saving Jonah. He was the only thing that mattered.
“A broken arm, sprained ankle? I—I don’t remember. But I do remember I was bleeding, but I don’t know where.”
“So how could you have saved him?” she questions, slightly screwing her eyebrows together. “If you were in so much turmoil yourself, you had no way of helping him. You did the best you could—”
“I did nothing!” I snap, my voice louder than I intended. “I pranced around like a wounded gazelle, but I couldn’t help him. I was supposed to protect him. I buckled him in; I made jokes with him. I did everything I was supposed to. And I tried to save his life, like I was supposed to do. Yet I couldn’t do that simple task.” I take a deep breath and slump in my chair. “His death is on my hands.”
“You couldn’t have done anything, Olivia. Please, believe that. You did everything you could; his death is not on your hands.” She’s wrong; it is, but I know better. I know she will keep persisting with her point, so I keep quiet and nod. “Now, let’s talk about your controlling mother. She has to be pretty traumatized to control your life the way she has.”
“What do you mean?”
She nods at my twitching knee. “She has you in here talking about something that will clearly not fade away from your mind. You’re scarred. And sometimes scars can’t go away, no matter how much bandaging you put over it. And I’m sure you don’t want to be here. You are an adult; a parent shouldn’t go as far as setting up a counseling session for an adult. What do you think her true reasoning is, and why are you following through with it?”
I frown and shrug. “She has her reasons.” Ms. James raises her brows as if to say which are…? “She cares about my future. And she wants my mind to be in tip-top shape. She’s a little over top with it, but her heart is in the right place. And I’m listening to her because I am supposed to. She’s my mother.”
“I understand a parent doing everything for their kid’s future, but she has to realize that you are an adult foremost and that you are supposed to do adult things while in college. Like going to parties, or pulling pranks, or even doing homework on the quad—not this.” She pauses and nods at me. “She has a pretty tight leash on you, doesn’t she?”
“Excuse me?”
“Meaning you listen to every little thing she says without so much as a word back.” She sits up in her seat. “Why do you think that is? Maybe because she lost a child, so she’s placing twice the amount of expectation on you…?”
“No. She just cares about me a lot.” What is she trying to say? That my mother wants to make up for what she wanted with Jonah and is projecting that on me? That’s insane! “Because of that, I have to do everything in my power to make her see all she’s done for me worked. I have to make her proud. I have to—”
“Olivia, your obsessive need to please her is a little frightening. You’re a new adult. It’s all right to make mistakes and then—”
“But I can’t!” I shout. “If I don’t make her proud…then what’s the point of any of this? I’ve worked too hard—too hard for her to let her down. That’s why I dropped Grey and began to truly focus on my education, as I should. He was just a roadblock—a—a chink in my blueprint. I did what I had to!”
“Okay, take a deep breath—”
I jump to my feet, eyes wide, arms gesturing all about. “I can’t even imagine disappointing her. She’s the reason I’m here. She talked to the chancellor and helped get me in here. My future is so clear, I have everything mapped out. If I can just—if I can just focus properly, I can achieve it and make her happy, like she was when she found out she was pregnant the night of the accident—!”
The words cut at my throat, and I choke on air and step back into the chair. I nearly fall but tip forward, catching my balance. Tears surround my eyes and leak out of my bottom lids. My chest tightens, and my lips tremble. I should have done so much more to prevent all of that from happening. She lost the baby, and she lost her mind. I guess she did take it out on me, pushing school down my throat and expressing my need to have the perfect life, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t love me, right? No. Why am I questioning her? I should never question her. She loves me and cares for my future.
I need to leave. This isn’t helping. If anything, my wounds have peeled open even further, leaving them fresh and ready to be infected with poison. Plus, Ms. James is only insinuating my mother doesn’t really care for me, which isn’t true.
Without another word to her, I pick up my backpack and storm out of the room. She calls after me, but I ignore her and walk across the front of the room. I feel intense eyes on me but continue my race to the door.
Her condescending words slice through me, leaving my thoughts askew and wild. I want to scramble to put them all back in order, but I can’t focus. My vision becomes hazy while my stomach lurches forward.
I lean against one of the brick columns for suppo
rt and lay my head gently against it. I take in deep breaths and fish around my pockets for my phone to text Mason. But the minute I find it, some piercing split cracks my brain, and I groan in pain and hear the phone drop. I press the ball of my palms against my closed eyes and shake my head. What is wrong with me?
A hand touches my shoulder from behind. I turn around, expecting to see Mason, but my face drops, and I take a step back.
Grey.
“Are you okay?” He bends his head and holds a hand out. He sounds worried, but why should he be? We’re not friends.
“Yes,” I lie.
“You’re lying,” he says. He takes a step forward, and I take one back. He huffs out in annoyance like I’m getting on his nerves. But he’s the one bothering me right now. I just want Mason. Where is my phone? I look to the ground to look for it, but big black boots clog up my vision, and I groan, feeling another spike in my head. “Are you sick or something?”
“No.” I push my hands out and connect with his chest. “Just leave me alone—” I hit the ground before I finish the sentence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I awake with the weight of the world pressing on my forehead. I try to lift my head but fall back because the pain is too much to bear. A groan filled with agony leaves my dry lips, and when I try to swallow, my throat feels like sandpaper gliding along each other like violent ocean tides. I attempt to open my heavy eyelids but can’t, as hard as I try.
Where am I? I wonder. I try to remember what last happened before I awoke, but nothing but blinding pain bangs against my head. I stop trying.
But I can hear voices whispering, feet shuffling, and a door creaking open. I stiffen, not knowing where I am or who is entering the room.
“Psst,” the voice whispers. “You dead?”
“Maybe,” I manage to croak out.
The person lets out a sigh of relief, and I hear the door shut behind them. I listen as their heavy shoes stomp across the room and stop beside me. Even though my eyes are closed, I can sense they are hovering above my body. The sound of a chair scraping against the floor rips through the air, followed by a huff as they sit down. There’s a pause. Strange…I don’t know who it is…but I can feel a familiar air between us…electricity. It makes my heart widen and pound against my rib cage, but I keep quiet, anxious to know who this person is.
“You sure?” they ask again.
“Yes,” I answer in growing annoyance. Do they think I’m a zombie or a ghost? Because those should be the only ways I am able to talk if I am dead.
“I only ask because you still haven’t opened your eyes,” he says. I can tell it’s a guy by the slight gruff to the voice. A voice I am very familiar with and am really surprised to hear in this moment. A poke to my cheek and a whisper of, “You feel that?” confirms my suspicion.
“Grey?” My throat constricts, begging me to stop talking, but I swallow and scrunch up my nose when he pokes it. It’s him.
“What’s up, Princess?” I can practically hear the smirk on his face. A smile tugs on mine, only because I know someone I am familiar with while in a place I am unfamiliar with.
“Where am I?” I ask. I briefly feel him poke my eyes before my eyelids rise. I find him genuinely smiling at me as I blink and attempt to sit up. His smile drops, and he lurches forward, wrapping his arms around me, helping me sit up against the headboard of the bed. His leather jacket is cold with his body pressed into mine.
“The hospital,” he answers, and I look around the room. There are a set of windows to my right, displaying the city and moving cars. I look around at the all-white room and then down at the thin hospital gown I’m wearing.
“Why didn’t you bring me to the medical center on campus?” I ask. I’m sure whatever happened to me wasn’t hospital-serious.
“I wanted to make sure you weren’t dying,” he says. “The people at the medical building would have just hit your knees and sent you on your way with a lollipop. I wasn’t going to take a risk, so I floored it all the way here.” He places a hand on mine and gazes into my eyes, his pink lips tilted. “How are you feeling?” I close my hand around his, and his frown turns into a barely-there-but-definitely-there smile.
“Better now that you’re here,” I tell him in a whisper before I can think about my words.
He chuckles and nudges my knee. “Cheesy.”
“Would you have preferred to hear me say I feel like crap?” I say, tilting my head.
His smile drops, and he shakes his head. “No, I guess not.”
I frown too and squeeze his hand. He looks up with those black eyes, and I hesitate before asking, “Why did you need to bring me here in the first place?”
“You passed out,” he answers, gulping like it was hard for him to say.
I turn away and think for a while, chewing on my lower lip. “But why?” I look at him again. “Do you know the reason?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. But before you did, I knew you weren’t well.” I avert my eyes from his, but he squeezes my hand, and I hold back tears as I look into his wide eyes and notice the twitch of his lips. This is killing him to say, and I don’t know why. We’re not friends; I have my mother to thank for that. “Why didn’t I see it before?”
“Because I pushed you away.” My tone is firm. I reluctantly pull my hand out of his grasp. His eyes narrow, and he leans back in his chair.
“And you called me bipolar,” he mutters, scoffing.
“I only did it because she—” I close my mouth and sit back on the bed. I’ve said too much. He doesn’t need to know the exact reason why I insisted we stop hanging out; he just needs to know that he was hindering my plans for success. A future my mother and I had planned long before I met him.
“She?” When I don’t immediately answer, he flicks my thigh. I yelp in shock and barely there pain. I slap his hand away when he moves to do it again. “Who is she, Liv?”
“Don’t call me that,” I mutter, ignoring his glare.
He flicks me again, and I grab his wrist. He yanks me forward and hisses when I moan in pain.
“Do you mean your mother?” I just look at him, and he growls and quickly launches to his feet, hitting the wall next to me. I flinch, and he curses. “So you’re telling me you pushed me away to please that old bag?”
“She is not old; she’s forty-five,” I defend my mother.
He cuts his burning eyes to meet mine. “I should have known.” He rolls his eyes and plops back in the chair, bouncing his knee and rubbing the back of his neck. “You kinda hurt me, you know. And trust me when I say it doesn’t happen often.” He flicks his eyes from the ground and pauses. “You’re the only person who’s gotten under my skin like that.”
“Glad to know,” I say under my breath, picking at the stiff bedsheet on my lap.
I’m thrown off by his confession. He’s never revealed how much I meant to him like that before. And although I appreciate hearing it now, it doesn’t make up for the fact that he provoked me by practically devouring Diana’s tongue in front of me.
He snorts, briefly bringing his head back. “You should feel special.” His long fingers tap absentmindedly on the arms of the chair. I watch them bounce up and down with a growing frown.
“If I’m so special, then why did you parade Diana around me?”
He lifts his hooded eyes and crooks his lips into a slight smile. “Were you jealous, Princess? Wouldn’t be surprised. She’s hot.”
Gasping, I reach behind me and throw the pillow at him. His eyes lighten as he erupts into laughter, making my stomach flip and dive. I barely suppress my smile and bring my knees up and tilt my head to watch those cute little dimples poke into his cheeks.
“If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s I’m a vengeful motherfucker.”
“Trust me, I found that out pretty quickly.”
He tosses the pillow back, and I yelp before catching it and rotating my eyes, a bare smile tugging on my cracked lips. He’s laughing again, a
nd this time I join him. I admire the way his black eyes illuminate just the tiniest bit, turning into glowing charcoal pits, and the way the skin around his eyes crinkle in the cutest way. My own hair bounces with my shoulders, and when a curly strand breaches my left eye, I cease laughing and yelp from the irritation.
He sobers, and the next thing I know, his arms wrap around my wrist and he’s standing, hovering above me. I open my eyes and cringe when I feel the strand move around.
I moan in pain, and he cups my cheeks, shutting me up, and says, “Oh, hush, you baby.”
“I am not a baby,” I mumble around his large, calloused palms.
He smiles and locks his jaw. “Just stay still, okay?” I hesitantly nod. His fingers tug at the strand. I blink, and he breaks out into a grin. I watch with a heavy heart as he reaches over to his right wrist and pulls a hair band off his wrist. He gathers my wild curls and ties the band around them. His face hardens, eyebrows pinching together while his tongue sticks out the side of his mouth, which I find incredibly adorable.
“There you go.” He steps back and crosses his arms with a proud smile. “I made your ridiculous nanny bun.”
I smile as I reach back and feel the messy bun he created. “My non-nanny buns are made with precision and gel.”
“Do you see any hair gel on me?” He raises his hand and tilts his head, regarding me with a playfully raised brow.
“With the look of your hair, I’m going to say: yes, yes I do.”
He scowls at me and launches forward, rubbing his large hand on my hair, messing it up and causing me to scream and attempt to push him off, but he’s too heavy to even budge. His laughter is contagious, and pretty soon, I’m laughing myself.
It’s incredible, really, how easy it is for the horrible things he’s said and did to hurt me to just melt away with a glance from those dark eyes and heart-melting smile. It’s also terrifying how quickly it happens. He’s going to be the death of me.
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