It wasn’t until we cleared the parking lot that I relaxed and I leaned back in my seat. I stared ahead, afraid to look in his direction—afraid he’d sense my fear.
I pulled gloss out of my purse and rolled it through my fingers, chewing on my bottom lip as I pondered how Travis had managed to spread his toxicity onto me in a short little conversation. And then I wondered how I’d ever endured him before.
What the hell had I been thinking?
“So,” Ben said slowly, his eyes on the road as we pulled out of the parking lot. “Who was that guy back there?”
Shit. Fuck. And piss.
“Just a guy,” I answered carefully.
Ben fiddled with the cd player until the Foo’s were thumping and then said casually. “He looked like more than just a guy to me.”
Ben’s tone was light but I got that he was interested. I got that maybe he was a little concerned or even jealous. I’m sure Travis and I looked intense while we were ‘chatting’ and Travis might be an asshole of the highest order, but the guy had charisma, looks, and fake charm coming out of his butt like shards of sunshine.
I couldn’t lie to Ben—that had never been my thing—but I could leave out a few details. Like the fuck buddy aspect of our relationship or the fact that Travis and I used to do lines together like we were running a race, and that vodka & Redbull was our drink of choice.
“I’ve known Travis for a long time and we dated for a while, but it was never serious.”
I chanced a peek at Ben, but he was looking ahead.
“Okay,” he said softly. “For a moment I thought that maybe Matt was trying to be the good guy you know?”
Okay.
“What do you mean?” I asked moving closer to him, wanting to touch him and I swear if he wasn’t driving right now I would have crawled onto his lap and kissed him until his head spun. Until my head spun. Until we were naked and his hot skin warmed up my cold flesh.
He shrugged. “I thought that maybe the guy was this mysterious Seamus you don’t seem to want to talk about.”
He turned to me for a second, his eyes glittery—electric—and then he looked out at the road again. I felt him touch me somewhere deep inside.
“No,” I murmured, unbuckling my seatbelt so I could inch closer. The band across my chest tightened. “He’s so not, Seamus. Travis is a mess. He’s just someone I used to know.”
I paused, a rush of adrenaline running through me and before I could stop myself, words fell from my lips. Words I didn’t mean to say. Words that could change everything.
“Seamus is my therapist.”
I held my breath, everything inside me tight and wound up like a spring about to burst. I swear those pieces inside me—the ones held together by duct tape and lithium—were beginning to move, to jar against each other like the plates beneath the continents. Shifting. Displacing. Breaking.
It was a weird sensation and I hated it. I hated the stress and fear in my throat. I hated the pills at home in my drawer.
I hated my illness. I hated that it was unpredictable.
And I really hated that my mom had been sick just like I was and she’d ended up at the bottom of a lake, taking my father and his restored Aston Martin along for the ride.
But most of all, right here in this moment, I hated that the differences between us weren’t visible. That the thing that was wrong with me was like a sick joke because on the outside I looked all fresh and shiny, like a new penny. But on the inside, without those pills that I disliked more than I could articulate, I was as much of a mess as Travis was, if not more so.
And now we were here. Arrived at some kind of half-truth, some small glimpse into the real me and I’d probably blown it.
Seamus is my therapist.
If that wasn’t a line that would send a guy running for the hills I don’t know what was.
“Therapist,” he said softly, his right arm snaking around my shoulders and pulling me into his side. “I hope he’s a hell of a lot uglier than that guy back there.”
The breath in my lungs expelled and I was limp. I was done.
“He’s bald,” I offered quietly melting into his side. “And he’s got really bad teeth.”