by Melissa West
Dr. Hamilton leaned forward. “Yes. Let’s talk about your grades.” She opened a drawer and thumbed through several folders before pulling out one with my name on it. Shit. Did every professor I have keep record of my grades? Surely that wasn’t legal.
“How do you have my grades? Isn’t that private?”
“I’m your academic advisor.”
My face flushed. “Right.”
“So . . .” She ran her eyes down my fall semester grades and then peered back up at me. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at this?”
No, I wanted to say, so I only stared at her.
“You have high marks in all of your psychology and sociology classes. Nearly perfect marks, to be exact. This tells me you only want to put in the effort when the class interests you. But you need to realize that every course you take here better prepares you for your career, not just your specialized classes.”
I released a long breath. “See, that’s the problem. How do I know if psychology is really the field for me? What if I go through four years only to decide I should’ve done something else?”
She considered me, then spun around to a table behind her and pulled something out of one of the file drawers. She passed a bright pink flyer to me, and I peered down to see the words Helping Hands Counseling Center Seeking Volunteers. “I know the program coordinator. She’s wonderful. Why don’t you give her a call and ask about volunteering there? See if being in the actual field solidifies your interest.”
I eyed the flyer again, reading the bulleted list of disorders the center treated. Depression. Anxiety. Fears. Women and men welcome.
I read the list twice more, my mind beginning to churn. I could really help people there. I could become a role model, the sort of person people looked up to—the sort of person my parents could respect.
I smiled a little, feeling hopeful for the first time all day. “This looks perfect.”
Chapter Three
An hour later, I found myself staring up at the counseling center, squinting in the bright sun, torn about whether I really wanted to go inside. Entering would mean that I was committing to something bigger than me, and I had never really committed to anything in my life. What if I was horrible at it? What if they asked me to leave?
I drew a breath and took a step back, when the front glass door opened and a middle-aged woman wearing a Helping Hands T-shirt grinned widely at me. “You must be Kara. I’m Tori. Emily, I mean Dr. Hamilton,” she said with a wink, “said you would be stopping by.”
She considered me, likely sensing my unease. “I know how hard it can be to take on a big project like this, so why don’t we take it one day at a time? Come in. Meet the group. See what you think. If you still like it, come back again this week. Just one day at a time.”
One day. I could do one day, right? “Okay,” I said, nodding. “I can do that.”
Tori led me into the center, which had the look and feel of a doctor’s office. The walls were painted light tan and the floors were covered in neutral tile. Directly in front of us sat a wooden desk with an older woman behind it who was talking to a UPS delivery guy. I peered around at the rest of the open area to find a makeshift waiting room to the left of the door. Chairs were organized in a square around a small coffee table, which had a hundred different magazines scattered across it. Every single chair was full, and I tried not to study the people in each of them too closely. I remembered that the center was nonprofit, which likely explained the full house. The government didn’t often cover mental health costs, so centers like Helping Hands were the only place the people had to go.
I started to look away when my gaze stopped on a young girl in the last chair in the corner. She couldn’t be older than sixteen . . . and she was at least six months pregnant. My heart began to kick up as I watched her, a cold sweat breaking out across my forehead. She stroked her tummy over and over, the look on her face so sad.
“I . . .”
“It’s okay,” Tori said. “You won’t speak to anyone today. Don’t worry.”
I forced myself to breathe, my mind flashing back to the pregnancy test in my hand and the fear that gripped my chest when the two pink lines had appeared. I nodded slowly to Tori, unable to speak. I didn’t want to be in the room with the pregnant girl for another second. She was actually facing what she did, giving life to a tiny person. Accepting her role as a mom. And I had cowardly taken the easy way out.
I tucked my chin down, avoiding the pregnant teen’s eye contact, and followed Tori to a door beside the front desk, determined to stay hidden until I knew the girl had left. I couldn’t think, cope, or even be, just knowing she was in the same space as me. She was a constant reminder of what I had done.
Tori continued down a hallway with doors on the right and left, where I imagined most of the counseling took place, and then opened the last one at the end of the hall to reveal an office—if you could call it that. The office was a scattered mess. Papers were stacked haphazardly on everything. I couldn’t make out where the mess ended and the desk began.
“Yeah, I know,” Tori said with a laugh. “I haven’t had time to clean up my desk. Just . . . here.” She picked up a stack off a chair and nodded for me to sit down. “I’m going to give you some confidentiality paperwork to sign and then some information about the center. Once you’re done reviewing it all, I could use some help organizing files. Does that sound okay?”
My gaze hadn’t left the disarray of her office.
“It’s killing you, isn’t it?” Tori asked with a grin.
My eyes snapped up. Had I been that obvious? Could Tori sense that I had my own issues and had no business giving advice to anyone?
“What is?” I asked cautiously.
“The office. You aren’t the first to bug out over the mess in here.” She laughed again, and I smiled. I liked Tori. She had an easiness about her that made her less intimidating than other people. No wonder she ran the center.
“No . . . It’s fine. Really,” I said, though I couldn’t keep my eyes from scanning the room again. “But maybe I could straighten it for you while I’m in here.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “That would be amazing. I just have no time to do it myself. Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m sort of a clean freak. It’s almost fun for me.”
She looked at me like I was a crazy person.
“I know.” I laughed. “But my parents are both doctors, so they’ve always pushed the importance of cleanliness and organization and . . . Sorry, I’m talking too much, aren’t I? I’ll just get started.”
She grinned again. “You’re fine. Here’s the paperwork,” she said, handing me a paper-clipped set of sheets. “Fill out the first and sign the next two. Then, this,” she said, motioning around the room, “is all yours. Let me know if you need anything!” And then she was out the door and down the hall before I could ask where she wanted what.
I glanced around the office. Clearly, I needed a lobotomy for agreeing to clean this disaster. I sat down in the chair Tori had cleaned off for me and began to read over the confidentiality document. As my eyes scanned over the boring legal jargon, my mind drifted back to my senior year of high school. Would I have ended up somewhere like this if I’d had time to think through my decision, if I had waited to tell Mom? What would have happened if I’d told Preston first? I no longer had romantic feelings of any kind for him, but it wasn’t lost on me how nicely he treated Olivia and how different it was from the way Ethan treated me. It wasn’t that Ethan was bad. It was just . . . different.
I signed my name to the document and set it on a table by the door, then walked over to Tori’s desk to begin organizing. I tried not to pay attention to the information that was actually printed on any of the documents, beyond reading it enough to know how to sort the papers. I knew I’d just signed a confidentiality a
greement, but something told me I shouldn’t be seeing some of the things here. It spoke to Tori’s easiness that she even allowed me inside her office.
I sorted all of the papers on her desk into three neat stacks and placed a Post-it note on top with the contents of each stack—confidentiality agreements, bills, etc. Then I went over and began organizing her tables. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to find several texts in a row from my mother, who wanted to know whether I was going to stay in Charleston for the summer or come home.
She was likely in her office at the hospital, her lips pursed as she stared down at my name in her phone. I’d avoided the topic of summer vacation every time I spoke to her, even though spring semester was quickly coming to an end. She just wanted me to come home so she could double-check that my moral compass was still pointing due north, but the thought of going back there made me want to curl into a ball and cry for the rest of my life. I kept trying to find reasons for me to stay in Charleston. Responsible reasons. But the only one I’d come up with was a part-time job as a bartender downtown, which, let’s face it, was less about being responsible and more about learning how to throw a liquor bottle into the air and catch it before it shattered on the ground. I still hadn’t ruled it out as a possibility.
I adjusted the rest of Tori’s office, and then peeked out the door in search of the bathroom. I had spotted a restroom sign on a door down the hall and had just left Tori’s office for it, when the door across from Tori’s opened and the teen girl stepped out, her eyes bloodshot and her face puffy. An older female exited the room after her, patting her back, and I assumed she must be the counselor who was helping the teen, but I couldn’t force my gaze away from the girl’s. She glanced up at me and then away, her hands going instinctively to her stomach, like she was trying to shield it from my judgment. I cut my eyes away, wishing I could offer her a smile, a nod, something that said everything would be okay, but all I could do was rush down the hall and close myself in the bathroom, my eyes shut tightly as I tried to keep my own tears from falling.
Maybe working at Helping Hands wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Chapter Four
I parked my car outside my apartment, opened the car door, and immediately jerked my head toward the clubhouse, which was teeming with music. It wasn’t unusual for Charleston Haven to have local bands play by the pool or DJs come in to spin at the clubhouse on the weekends.
“Kar!”
I glanced up to see Olivia and Preston on the balcony of our apartment. “Hey! What are you doing?” I shouted.
“They’re having a water balloon fight at the pool. Want to go down?”
I eyed the pool closest to us, and sure enough, there were countless brightly colored balloons being thrown around, followed by squeals and laughter as the balloons burst, usually on the girls. I cringed. I just wanted to go upstairs and take a shower and forget the petrified look on the face of the teen girl from Helping Hands.
“We’re coming down. Don’t move!” Olivia called.
I sighed heavily and closed my car door, waiting for them to arrive, and that’s when my gaze landed on the red Jeep parked a few cars away, the University of Georgia sticker plastered on it for all to see.
“Hey,” Olivia said as they reached me.
I grinned up at her. “Where is he?”
She smiled, shaking her head. “You weren’t supposed to find out until you saw him. He’s at the pool. Act surprised.”
I took off running toward the clubhouse, disappearing through the doors and down the steps to the outdoor pool closest to my apartment. My eyes raked over the crowd and then landed on a guy standing just outside the pool, his skin shimmering under water droplets, his hair falling in drenched waves around his face. I tried not to gawk at the tattoos that marked every bit of skin on his arms, or the six-pack that made me want to eat things off his stomach.
Colt.
I cringed as my thoughts sunk in. Ugh! What was wrong with me?
“Hey there,” a familiar voice said from behind me, followed by the feeling of warm arms wrapping around my waist.
I jumped, and then catching my mistake, spun in Ethan’s arms and rose onto my toes. I kissed his lips, desperate to think and feel all things Ethan, so maybe I could stop thinking and feeling all things . . . Colt.
“What are you doing here?” I squealed.
Ethan grinned. “Preston told me about that party at Sarah’s, so I decided to surprise you since I was going to be gone this weekend. You don’t mind that Colt came up with me, do you? He’s coming with me on the fishing trip, so I thought I’d ask him along for this part, too. That cool?”
I plastered on the fakest smile I’ve ever faked in my life. “Of course! He can crash on the couch tonight.”
Just then, Colt arrived beside us, his golden, wet skin glistening in the afternoon sun. I had to tell myself to breathe, breathe, breathe, because all the blood had rushed from my head—and had gone to other areas—at the sight of him. Thank God this was just an empty attraction and nothing more.
“Colt. Hey,” I said, hoping my voice sounded semi-even.
“G’day,” he said, his voice low and rough. It was the sort of voice that caused a reaction without even trying to. He ran a hand through his hair. “I wouldn’t go in if I were you,” he said, nodding toward the pool. “That water’ll freeze the balls off a brass monkey.”
I grinned. “Why do you sometimes sound Australian and other times American?” Immediately, I wished I could clamp my mouth shut and never speak again. I hadn’t spoken to Colt enough to know the way he talks at all. Saying this just let on how attuned I was to him.
He stared at me for a moment, then looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “Eh, what can I say? I’m an international mutt. My mum’s from Sydney, my dad’s from L.A. originally, and then he moved me out to Atlanta with him when he got his new job two years ago.”
I wanted to ask why his mom was in Sydney when his dad was here in the States, but I didn’t want to pry and I didn’t want to know any more personal details about him. I could handle an empty attraction. Anything more would be dangerous. But when I glanced up, I found Colt watching me, like he knew I wanted more and was testing me, waiting to see whether I would be like every other person on the planet or whether I would back away from the bait.
I dropped my gaze. “I’ve always wanted to visit Sydney.”
“You should. It’s my favorite place. Well, other than here.”
My eyes cut up to his, and I felt a tingle move down my spine. Did he hold every girl’s gaze like that?
“Who’s swimming?” Preston called from behind me, and then we all made our way over to a section of chairs by the pool that were free. Olivia and Sarah spread out their towels on two of the chairs, and I sat down on a third, Ethan at the foot of the chair between my legs. Sunglasses covered his eyes, but I could tell that he was checking out the girls in the pool, half of them wearing swimsuits made of strings and little else. I knew that I should care that he was looking at them, that I should feel jealous or angry or something, but none of those feelings came. Instead, I felt a surge of relief. Like maybe if he was looking at others . . . then I could, too.
I cursed myself for being such a crappy girlfriend and reached down for the hem of my T-shirt. It was hotter than hot outside, so I pulled the shirt over my head, revealing my white tank top underneath, and leaned back against my chair. I opened my eyes to find Colt standing to our right, his eyes locked on me. I expected him to look away, but instead he walked over and sat in the chair beside me, ignoring the pleas from Ethan and Preston to go into the water. Sarah and Olivia followed the boys, and suddenly, it was just me and Colt, lying in chairs beside one another.
“Why didn’t you ask about my mum?” he asked after a minute.
I draped an arm over my head to help block the sun and squinted up at him. “Because
you didn’t look like you wanted to talk about it and it isn’t my business.”
“That’s never kept anyone else from asking.”
“Maybe I’m not like everyone else.”
His gaze settled on my face, steady and sure. “I’m starting to see that.”
“Why do you put those crazy things up on Facebook?” I asked, because I was evidently Kara the Curious Cat. Gah, why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut around him?
He smirked. “Why do you always put up song lyrics?”
My eyes widened. He laughed, and the sound was the most comforting thing I’d heard in a long time. Colt had been on my Facebook page. More than once. Maybe every day.
“They make me feel better,” I said, realizing the truth of my words.
He leaned his head back against his chair and rotated it to face me. “Why do you need to feel better?”
“Don’t you? Don’t we all?”
He opened his mouth to reply when a surge of water landed on both of us. I jerked up to see Ethan splashing around in the water with some girl I didn’t know. Again, I searched my heart for some hint that it bothered me, but the ache never came.
“Doesn’t that piss you off?” Colt asked, his eyes trained on the scene in the pool.
I swallowed. “It pisses me off to look like the fool girlfriend that’s putting up with it, but do I actually care?” I hesitated, glancing back at Ethan, at the smile on his face as he splashed the girl. “That hasn’t bothered me in a long, long time.”
“Is that normal?”
I laughed. Who was I to know normal? “No clue. Would you be angry?”
His eyes swept down me, before returning to my face. “If you were mine, and you were in that pool with some bloke I didn’t know? Hell yes. I don’t play games.”