“I’m sorry, but you told me the truth and I thought you deserved the same.”
She nods, swallowing thickly. “I think I should go.”
It’s late and I’m sure her parents are wondering where she is. I don’t want her to go and I don’t want this to be the end of us, but I also know it’s for the best. The minute she walks out of my apartment, I should sag with relief, but I don’t.
Maybe this will be enough for Miranda. Since I ended things, there’s nothing for her to expose anymore.
I hope one day Flynn will forgive me, that she’ll understand. I know our sessions will be greatly affected and I wouldn’t be surprised if she requested a new doctor.
At least for now, step one of my plan to take down Miranda is complete. I wish I could’ve told Flynn the truth, but it was too risky. I needed to piss her off enough to drive her away. If she finds herself in another man’s arms, I would understand. It’s her MO. It’s her disease. She can’t control it. Not yet.
Sixteen
Flynn
“Do you want me to drive you to therapy today?” I fill a mug with coffee and grit my teeth. My mother knows all the wrong things to say and every way to get under my skin.
“No, I think I can manage.” The very last place I want to go is back to therapy. I haven’t seen or talked to Liam in four days, since the disastrous encounter at his house.
“You must really like Dr. Whitmore. You haven’t complained about him at all.” Yeah, I really like his cock.
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? It’s not like I can just find another doctor this time.” I sip on my coffee, not caring that the scalding liquid is burning the entire surface of my tongue.
“Well, he hasn’t said anything bad about you either or kicked you out…” Not like some of your previous therapists, I’m sure she wants to say but doesn’t. She’s reaching, searching for validation. If only she knew just how much I like Dr. Whitmore.
“Trust me, Mom, I’ve done my fair share of screaming in his office.” If she only knew.
“Oh, Flynn.” Her eyes crinkle and her brows furrow as concern descends on her face. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your father,” she whispers, almost as if I wasn’t meant to hear it.
“Why? Dad is smart and well, pretty boring.” I may be his favorite, but we’re nothing alike. We barely have the same features, not like my siblings who have his bright blue eyes and sharp jawlines.
“What?” she asks, snapping out of her daze. “You, well, you didn’t know your father when he was younger. He was like a whole different person.” I want her to keep going, but she’s biting her tongue. Her eyes are sad and zoned out.
“Didn’t you guys, like, meet in college?” My dad was boring even then; a lame ass dual business and accounting major. How wild could he have been?
“Yes, we did. Right, don’t you have to get to therapy? You can’t be late.” She walks out of the kitchen, forgetting to grab her coffee mug from under the Keurig. Weird.
Today is my fifth week with Dr. Whitmore though it seems like it’s been ages. So much has happened and yet we’re nowhere close to where we should be.
The receptionist checks me in and I perch on my seat while I wait. Pulling out my phone, I text Cara and Dani to see what the plan is for the weekend. With how much those two are on their phones, you’d think they would respond right away. I’m still waiting when I get called into the room by my hot doctor. I take my usual seat in the oversized chair and drop my purse on the floor.
“Hello, Flynn. How are you today?” I burst out laughing at his formality. “Is something funny?”
“Yeah, you. What’s wrong with you? You’re being all stiff and weird.” His eyes crinkle as he takes me in, not quite sure what to say.
“I guess I expected this session to be a little more awkward considering our last conversation.”
“You’re the one who wanted to keep our interactions separate.” As if that’s stopped me.
“Yes, but you’ve never listened to me before.” That makes me smile. He gets me. “I’m sorry, but I am confused. I thought you’d be mad at me.
“For what?” I cross my legs and bounce my foot in the air. The tables have turned and now I’m the one asking the questions. I like this turn of events.
“For breaking up with you.”
“You didn’t break up with me.” I tilt my head, replaying our last conversation. “Did you think telling me you kissed your ex-wife was a break up?” My voice raises and I wouldn’t be surprised if the receptionist burst in here to see if we were okay.
“Yes, actually.” His voice is calm which only pisses me off more.
“What the fuck, Liam? You can’t break up with me like a man, so you have to use a copout method? Pathetic.” I get up and pace the room, the fumes pouring out of my ears with every step I take.
“We both knew we’d end up here eventually anyway.” He folds his hands into his lap, on top of the notepad he uses to write his notes about me.
“No, we didn’t. I didn’t think you’d be a little bitch about everything.” Every word I say, every insult I throw his way, does nothing to instigate him.
“You’re angry,” he tells me.
“No shit.”
“It’s your default coping mechanism. It’s no surprise.” His words are even, leading to an unforeseen destination. I wish he’d get to the damn point.
“Oh, don’t try and doctor me now.”
“Why? This is the perfect opportunity to get into your head, to feel what you’re feeling and verbalize it.”
“You want me to verbalize it? Okay, how about this? This dude I was fucking for a hot minute doesn’t know how to break up with girls even though he’s supposed to be a fantastic therapist. Yes, the person I was fucking was my therapist. Isn’t it interesting? Yup, the very person I’m supposed to be learning from doesn’t know shit.”
“Well, the point of this isn’t exactly to learn something from me.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
He holds his hands up in surrender. “Why don’t you sit back down? I have some thoughts to go over with you.” His tone manages to be somehow both uplifting and morose all at once. He’s an enigma, confusing me with mind games.
“What does that mean?” I stay rooted in my spot, unwilling to cave to him.
But he knows me better than that. He waves out his hand, motioning to my abandoned seat. He won’t talk until I comply. Bastard.
I cross the room and plop down on the chair. He observes me for some time before writing something down on his notebook. He makes a motion as if he’s circling whatever he just wrote and I’d give my left leg to see what he wrote down.
“How many therapists have you had before me?” Well, that came out of nowhere.
“Ten.” My face heats as if the fact embarrasses me. Normally I don’t care about my past, but telling him is different.
“Have any of them ever put you on any medication?”
“No…why?” My pulse jumps at the prospect of him figuring out why I’m wired this way.
“I don’t want to jump into a premature diagnosis too fast, so I need to know more about you, your past, and history with anger and violence as well as drug and alcohol use.”
Fuck. Where the hell do I start? “I kinda already thought that’s what we were doing here?”
“It is, but we have a tendency go get sidetracked.” I smirk at his words. “Tell me anything. Whatever you think up first.”
I recall some bigger incidents where my temper led to physical altercations and he writes it all down. We haven’t been seeing each other for long, but I know him pretty well already. Normally, in these sessions, he keeps his mask in place but not today. There’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth he’s fighting to restrain. My stories don’t usually bring people joy, so this reaction is extra wild.
“Are you going to address the incident that brought you here to begin with?” I roll my eyes.
He already knows I got into a fight and broke the girl’s nose. He’s aware I was so far under the influence that night, I was basically one bump away from needing to be Narcan’d.
“You already know why I’m here.”
“You told me the details. I need the big picture.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You didn’t attack this girl for no reason, right?” I shake my head. He does nothing but stare at me until I crack.
“Fine. It started because of my ex. It’s part of the reason I ‘broke up’ with him, after all. Too much drama.” I use air quotes around “broke up” because we weren’t dating, I just cut of access to my pussy. “Once I got arrested it became very clear to me that he was not a guy worth fighting over and getting locked up for.” He nods and jots something down. “This girl was all over him all night. She was touching and grabbing him, pushing me, making snide comments, and faces at me. If she was nice and wanted to join in, fine, I’m all for it, but—sorry, not the point. Anyway, I didn’t really care about her advancements with him. But she got physical with me first, okay? Like pushing and shoving me. She accidentally spilled a drink in my hair, I mean, come on, bitch. Just own up to your shit, right? I couldn’t let her treat me like that. So I took care of her.”
“With violence.” His tone conveys disappointment.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I was beating up on a baby lamb. She was a real scrappy bitch. She ripped out my extensions, Liam. The bitch deserved to be hit.”
He purses his lips and taps his pen against his notepad. “Are you going to finish the story or am I supposed to connect the dots on my own?”
“Long story short, she shoved me and I ain’t no bitch, so I punched her right in the nose. It broke, but the girl was a fighter, I’ll give her that. We fought for a bit, she ripped out my extensions, and security broke us up. How was I supposed to know the psycho was gonna press charges? SHE HIT ME FIRST! She’s the reason I’m here and she’s not faultless in all this.”
He doesn’t respond, but he takes a bunch of notes and circles something along the way. I can’t take it anymore. I snap. “Why the hell are you smirking?” My anger ironically seems to please him.
“Okay, I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking, but I don’t want you to get too attached to the idea.” I wait, searching his eyes for any clue. “Flynn, you display almost all of the signs of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.”
“What does that mean?”
“Usually it’s genetic, but looking at your family history, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case. People living with Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD, have a history of unstable relationships, an active avoidance of real connections to not risk abandonment. You’re impulsive and have frequent mood swings. I mean, I could put your picture in the DSM-Five.”
“You lost me.”
“I don’t know how none of the other doctors caught this, even as a slight inkling. It’s startlingly obvious, if you ask me.” Probably because I never took any of them seriously.
“So…that’s it? I’m cured? After a few sessions, you figured me out?”
“Well, no, not exactly. Like I said, it’s early and maybe there are things I’m missing. But I am going to start you on Lithium as a stabilizer. You’ll have to keep coming to therapy, of course, and the medication will take some time to kick in, but it will stabilize your moods and mania.”
“You think I’m crazy?” I don’t know if I’m angry or upset at this realization.
“No, Flynn, you’re not crazy. Mania refers to your manic episodes. The mood swings, all those symptoms I listed. I do think the medication could help you.”
I thought I’d be relieved if Liam found something wrong with me. I mean, I guess I never thought there was something actually wrong. I thought I was just a walking nightmare.
If taking medication will get my mom off my back and Liam back in my bed, it may be worth a shot.
My mom is all but singing as she drives to the pharmacy to fill my prescription. She doesn’t trust me to get them filled myself, which means she insisted on being my chauffeur. I wish I would’ve fought her harder. She’s all, ‘isn’t this marvelous, dah-ling? Dr. Whitmore fixed you right up. Jolly ho, time for tea.’
I don’t know why in my head I hear her talking like someone out of Downtown Abbey, but whatever.
“Meds aren’t an instant fix, Mom. I won’t wake up tomorrow and become Carson.”
“Thank God for that. Don’t get me wrong, I love her and Ava, but I don’t need a grandchild from you, not yet. You’re too young.”
“I’m the same age Carson was.”
“Exactly. Too young.” I roll my eyes and she pats my thigh. “We’re proud of you, Flynnie, for sticking it out with Dr. Whitmore. He seems like a good man.”
In and out of bed.
The wait for my medication seems to take ages and the pharmacist does a consultation once it’s filled. She tells me I should avoid drinking while taking the medication and I’m already prepared to barge right back into Liam’s office and call this off. Avoid alcohol? No, thanks.
I notice my mom’s face contort as the pharmacist fills me in on the medication. Her brows crinkle and it’s almost as if she can’t look directly at me as we leave. I can hear the thoughts running a thousand miles per hour through her head, but she won’t say anything to me.
“What, uh, what did Dr. Whitmore say about your diagnosis, exactly?” Her fingers are white as they wrap around the steering wheel and she glances at me out of the corner of her eye.
“Um, I don’t know. DPB or something? I didn’t, like, write it down.”
“BPD?”
“Yup, that was it.” Her mouth forms an almost imperceptible frown, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. “What is it?” She says nothing. “He also said it’s a hereditary disease, which was weird, since neither you or Dad have it, right?”
She’s gone mute. I’m not even sure she’s heard me.
We drive the rest of the way home in complete silence, except for the racing thoughts controlling my mind. Some of the things my mom has said combined with this diagnosis leave me with more questions than ever. It’s like a puzzle in my head, trying to make connections but there’s one crucial piece missing.
I’ll just have to figure it out on my own.
Seventeen
Liam
I take a seat in the circle in the middle of the room. This place makes my chest tight and emotions I don’t want to come to the surface bubble up and threaten to choke me. I come here every year at this time and even though it kills me, it somehow also helps me.
People surround me, filling the adjacent chairs with grief-stricken faces. Tear stains already line their cheeks. People with fresh grief, and some like me, who experience a dull, quieter ache every day. It’s still there, never forgotten, even if it’s not as loud as it used to be.
Somehow, despite all of my years of schooling, I can’t use my own tools to cope with the loss. I’m too close to it; too blind to the mechanisms I teach people all the time to deal with their own problems.
A girl walks in and takes the seat almost directly across from me. She has raven hair and piercing blue eyes, though they’re clouded in sadness. She’s young, probably in her twenties, and has a red-haired little girl clutching her hand by her side. Neither one of them should be in a group for grief counseling.
It shows you how unbiased cancer is. People of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, you name it; we can all be affected by this godforsaken disease.
“Welcome, everyone, and I’m sorry you have to be here. Please, grab a seat and let’s get started.” It’s the same speech we start with every time I’m here. The counselor, Shelly, apologizes to all of us for being here. It’s a small detail I appreciate. It’s honest. She doesn’t try to bullshit everyone into looking on the bright side, preaching the usual ‘They’re not in pain anymore’ motivational speeches.
We
’re all still in pain and that’s what this is about. That’s what we focus on.
Everyone takes a turn around the room talking about the people they lost. Somehow, it never gets easier for me to talk about, even after all this time. When Shelly says it’s my turn, I clear my throat and rub my palms over my thighs. The denim of my jeans scratches them, making my hands as itchy and uncomfortable as I feel inside.
“Hi, um, I’m Liam. About six years ago I lost my daughter to Leukemia. She was only five and my life hasn’t been the same since. Emily was my entire world. Now she’s gone, my wife has become my ex-wife, and I’m living in an apartment. Everything is different.” I shrug while the two women sitting beside me lean over, offering comforting hands on my shoulder and thigh in silent condolence.
“I’m so sorry, Liam. It’s not uncommon for cancer to take more than just our sick loved ones from us,” the counselor says. I nod, lost in thought, lost in the memories threatening to swallow me whole. I’m not listening to Shelly anymore, but a small voice speaking up snaps me back to reality.
“Hi, I’m Ava.” She glances around the room as color springs to her cheeks. “I never met my dad. He was sick and died before I was born. Momma keeps pictures of him around the house. I look like him. I wish I met him. I miss him, even though I don’t know him. My new dad is great too. I could really use a sister though.”
“Okay, sweetie, that’s enough.” We all chuckle with the little girl as she shoots a pointed look at her mom.
Shelly clasps her hands together and motions to the raven-haired mom. “In a few weeks, you’ll be back to guest host and share your experience, isn’t that right?”
The woman nods. “Yes, but I think I’ll leave this one home so she doesn’t steal the show.” Everyone politely laughs, and after that I block everyone else out.
The meeting drones on for a while longer, but I’m back in my own head. The flashbacks flicker through my mind, piercing my heart with every image and memory that arises.
Miranda, getting pregnant, how scared we were.
We were young but in love, so we got married.
Reckless (A Carolina Coastal Novel Book 3) Page 9