Page 156 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

Tuesday

“It sounds like you all had a fun time in college,” Dr. Clark said, pulling me out of my story.

“Yeah.” I smiled. “It was a good time. But that wasn’t even the best part about that night. I was about to get there.”

“Alright, but before you tell me about the rest of the night…do you ever think about changing anything?”

I stared at him. “About that night? Or more existentially?”

“Both.”

I pressed my lips together. “I would have changed a lot of things about my life. But I’m happy about where I am now.”

“So everything worked out the way it was meant to?”

I slowly nodded. “And who knows what would be different about my life now if I changed anything in my past?”

“That’s a good point. But I need you to visualize something for me before we proceed. I need you to insert someone new into your memory. Just plop them right down into the middle of it.”

I gripped my cell phone a little tighter. I already knew what he was going to tell me.

“Say you met someone just like Penny before your friends visited from out of town. Someone who you loved. Someone perfect for you. A fellow student at Harvard. Would you have given up the partying? Given up those memories with friends? Dropped out of Harvard and moved away?”

I swallowed hard. “I…” My voice trailed off. “Yes.”

“You hesitated.”

“Well, that situation doesn’t make sense. Why would we need to drop out and move if she’s a student with me at Harvard?”

Dr. Clark laughed. “Fine. Then she’s your professor and she’s about to be fired.”

“I’ve never really had a thing for older women. Mason on the other hand…”

“James, I’m just asking you to visualize it. I want you to put yourself in Penny’s shoes here. To see how she’s feeling about the situation you’re currently in together.”

“Penny doesn’t go out partying with friends every night. I think she prefers just hanging out with me.”

“You’re not answering my question,” he said.

I shook my head. “Sorry, what was the question?”

“If you’d had to drop out of college and move away because you fell in love. Forget the why. It just is. Would you have done it? Even if it meant you would have missed out on all those memories with your friends?”

“A lot of college is blurry for me anyway. So yes.”

Dr. Clark sighed. “But it’s not blurry for Penny if she doesn’t party as much as you did.”

I mean…she parties a little. Or else she wouldn’t be recovering from a concussion.

“If I’d fallen in love with Penny back then, she would have been a good influence on me.

Just like I’m being a good influence on her.

” I knew that was strange to say, given my history.

But Penny hadn’t been herself when we were on a break. Neither had I.

“But college students aren’t really seeking good influences. They’re supposed to be out there living their best lives. Having new experiences.”

I looked back out the window at Main Street. I knew what Dr. Clark was saying. I did. “You think telling the dean is a mistake?”

“I didn’t say that. I think honesty is always the best policy. I’m just trying to get you to see this from Penny’s point-of-view. James, you’re in a very different stage of your life than she is.”

I swallowed hard. “We’re on the same page now.”

“And what page is that?”

“She’s my forever.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “So you intend to marry her?”

“I only just got out of one marriage.” I forced a laugh. But apparently Dr. Clark didn’t find it funny, because he sighed.

“Forever in most circumstances comes with a ring.”

“But Penny’s young. She…”

“James, that’s exactly my point.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Yeah.”

“So despite the fact that Penny isn’t out partying all the time…let’s say she is having an amazing college experience. She’s having just as good of a time as you were back in college.”

“If she is, then I’m a part of that.”

“Yes. But we need to go back for just a second. Before she met you. Was she having as much fun as you had back in college? Would she have wanted to mess any of that up?”

“Well, she did mess it up. She chose to pursue me, just as much as I pursued her.”

Dr. Clark sighed again like I was exhausting him. “It’s hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. And we’re honestly approaching this all wrong. Is Penny there? Could you put her on the call too and we can work through this together?”

I honestly didn’t love the idea of Penny talking to Dr. Clark. It was one thing telling her about my messy past. It was another for her to be able to ask Dr. Clark questions. “She is here. But she’s sleeping.”

“Okay. Well, this is a conversation you need to have with her. I want you to ask her if she was happy before you met. Only she can really answer that. You need to hash it all out with open communication.”

I didn’t want her to think about being happier before she met me. And how could that possibly be true anyway? I truly did believe we were a perfect fit. Which meant I completed her just as much as she completed me. We were better together.

“And I don’t want you to just talk about where she was in life before she met you. I want you to talk about where you’d like to be going forward. Together.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

“I haven’t been thrilled for a million years.” I laughed at my own joke. Since he said my being at college was a million years ago. But again, Dr. Clark didn’t respond. Penny probably would have laughed. Hence why we were better together.

“Okay,” he finally said. “You don’t find your relationship with Penny thrilling?”

“It was a joke. Of course I find my relationship with her thrilling. She makes me feel young again.”

“Because she’s young.”

“Yes. I get it. You don’t need to beat me over the head with this anymore.” But he was wrong if he thought Penny and I were really in different places in our lives. She was 20. She was allowed to fall in love and make rational changes in her life because of that.

“Okay. I want you to revisit your memory before you go speak to her. To give you more perspective.”

“Alright?” I didn’t know where he was going with this.

Did he want me to insert Penny into the memory and see how the night would have gone differently?

Because I wound up naked, and that probably would have still happened if Penny was there…

albeit differently. We probably just would have wound up naked in my bed together.

“You’re remembering this great night. One of your best nights. But were there some bad parts? Maybe it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.”

“Well, Rob accidentally drugged Mason when he was trying to be clean for the season. It almost got Mason kicked off the team. That was pretty shitty.”

“I want it to be more of a reflection of your night, not Mason’s.”

“Okay.”

“Keep telling me the story. But leave wiggle room as you go. Remember all of it. Not just the best moments now.”

“All the gory details?” I said with a laugh.

“Every last one of them. Really think about every situation you were in as you tell me about your night. And when you’re done, we can talk about what went wrong or what could have gone wrong. Or what could have been better.”

“The night was insane. We were lucky we didn’t get arrested.”

“Good start. So what happened next?”

“We wound up naked in front of a bunch of strangers. Or wait. No, I remember more than that…”