Ryan snatched the keys up and was out of the library before I could even stand up from the table. One problem down. A million more to face. I laid my head on the table and wished I could start over.
BO
AS I STARED AT THE HEAVY brass knocker of Lana Sullivan’s door, I wondered exactly what I was doing here. Lana was a second-year psych major with an eating disorder. What possible help could she give me?
I shifted my weight restlessly from side to side and turned to leave, but before I got even halfway down the steps, I heard the door open and her voice call out, “Running away already?”
Christ. Hot but scary.
I turned back and leaned against the wall of the stairwell, not yet committing to returning to Lana’s pop-up psychology tent. “No, just wondering why the world doesn’t make sense for me.”
“Age-old question. Existentialism. Do I make sense in a fucked-up world?” Lana pushed open the door and walked away, not even waiting for an answer.
I followed. Damn, maybe she knew what she was doing. Closing the door behind me, I noticed she was making herself a drink. Fizzy pink lemonade went into a glass followed by a generous dose of vodka.
“I’ll take one without the fruit.”
“Vodka on the rocks, coming up.”
“Do all therapy sessions involve alcohol? Because if so, I see why it’s popular.”
“Nope, only mine.”
She handed me a large tumbler with ice cubes and what seemed like a fifth of vodka.
“Do you think I’m that fucked up that I need an entire bottle of vodka to fix me?”
Lana shook her long blond hair. “It’s to loosen you up.”
She led me over to the sofa, but I looked at it dubiously. I’d heard a lot of activity took place on that sofa. Lana huffed and pushed me into the chair next to it. “Is Grace still bad-mouthing this sofa?”
I nodded, taking a long draught from the tumbler. “Yes, she’s warned all of us that the sofa’s to be used only in the direst of circumstances because it was infected by Peter the Pumpkin Eater, as she calls him. I take it he’s an ex?”
“Yeah. He’s clean, as far as I know, though. But enough about Grace’s sofa-phobia. What are you doing here? Trying to find the best way to break Noah and Grace up?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “What kind of jackass do you think I am? Is that what Grace thinks?” More importantly, was she saying shit like that to Noah?
Lana scratched delicately behind her ear, like a Persian cat, and contemplated me. “Nah, I was just testing you out. Although, Grace does still think you don’t like her.”
“I don’t know her well enough to like her or dislike her,” I said flatly. “But she makes my boy happy and that’s enough for me.” I didn’t add the “for now,” but Lana let it go.
“Why are you here?”
“Because Grace says you’re always trying to give her advice.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “What do you need advice about?”
“Stuff.” Even sitting here, I was reluctant to share. I had held on to the secret of my dad’s behavior so long, it seemed weird to say it out loud. I felt like I was admitting to some defect. Would Lana think I was a monster because my dad was?
“Stuff is a broad topic,” Lana said mildly. She stretched her legs out, lifting her delicate feet and resting them on the stuffed cube in front of her chair, looking like she could wait me out all day long.
I opened my mouth and I told her everything I had shared with Finn. My dickhead dad. My confusion with my mother. My fear of hurting AM. Lana simply listened. Her face didn’t change one iota. If anything, the longer I went on, the more bored she looked, as if my story was mundane and ordinary and not at all the source of nightmares.
“You could write stuff down in a journal. That’s what every therapist liked to tell me. They’re big into journaling,” Lana suggested.
“Write stuff down? Like what?” I asked.
“Your feelings.”
“My feelings?” I felt like a parrot—a dumb, uncomfortable one.
“You know, I kind of like having you here. It gives me insight as to how awful real therapy will be,” Lana joked.
“Your bedside manner needs a lot of work.”
“The point is, Bo,” Lana said, finally sitting up. She leaned her elbows on her knees and pinned me with her blue eyes. “If you really think you need help, you shouldn’t be here talking to me, someone who’s had less than two years of psychology classes. I don’t think my years of therapy are counted into my practicum.”
“Do you think I really need help?”
“I don’t know. I guess if how you express yourself is either with sex or fighting then probably, but I think those are just excuses.”