Page 149 of Let the Game Begin

“Oh, I see.” I smiled and put my hand on the back of one of his armchairs, my posture typically arrogant. “You’re offended because I wasn’t impressedby your stupid legend.” I spotted a tic in his left cheek. Maybe the good doctor was about to lose his patience.

“I have something for you.” He pulled open a drawer and took out something that I couldn’t identify because it was enclosed in his fist. “You can give this to your pearl, someday. I’m positive that you will one day understand just how real the legend I’ve told you is.”

Dr. Keller opened his hand and showed me the object he wanted me to have. It was a cube of transparent glass about the side of a walnut. Enclosed within it was a white, perfectly smooth, and luminous pearl. I reached out and took it, staring thoughtfully at his gift.

“Interesting,” I said derisively. “And how am I supposed to know who my pearl is?” I pretended to play along with his game, and he smiled in satisfaction.

“You’ll feel it inside. The cube will help you protect your pearl until its shell finds it. When you’re ready, you’ll have to give it to the woman you believe is worthy of receiving it,” he explained, perfectly serious.

“Aren’t I the shell?” This was all ridiculous. Perhaps his herbal tea was dosed with some high-end drug favored by headshrinkers.

“Exactly,” he confirmed.

I shook my head and walked away, heading for the office door again.

“Have a good day, Dr. Keller.” I dismissed myself with mock-courtesy.

I walked out into the hallway and followed it back to the waiting room. There, on the sofa, I discovered—

“Nice to see you, Miller.” Megan winked at me. Immediately, I looked around in hopes of seeing Chloe, but my sister wasn’t there. Probably hadn’t finished her session yet.

“Can’t say the same.” Hell, not only did I not like seeing her, I didn’t like having her anywhere near me. Megan made me feel agitated and exposed. We’d known each other for too many years, and she knew too much about me.

“What are you doing here? Have you started therapy again?” Her green eyes scanned me up and down, pausing on the hand that held Dr. Keller’s glass cube. “My doctor has this weird thing about the legend of the pearl and the shell. Apparently he told you about it,” she snickered, and I immediatelyshoved the pearl into my jacket pocket. I didn’t like the idea of her making fun of me over that bullshit.

“Listen: you need to stay away from me. How many times do I have to tell you that?” I snapped, needing her to understand that I wasn’t screwing around. She frowned, crossing one leg over the other. My eyes traced the provocative shape of her body: a thin T-shirt beneath her studded black jacket covered high, large breasts; skintight leather pants stretched over a pair of firm thighs I wouldn’t have minded feeling up, had Megan not been Megan.

She was athletic, her muscles defined and feminine and suggestive of an aggression that was usually very attractive in a woman.

But I did not find her attractive in any sense. I wouldn’t have taken her to bed even if I’d been about to explode with want.

“I’m here for the same reason you are. You need to stop dwelling on the past.” She stood up, and anxiety made my chest grow tight. I didn’t want her to get any closer to me, because with every step she took, my mind retreated further into a time I didn’t want to recall.

“Don’t come closer,” I murmured as the waiting room suddenly shrank and narrowed. She was dangerously close already, and her smell was getting more and more intense.

“We were children without history, and now we are adults with history. Our memories will always be part of us, but spending your life clinging to them is absolutely going to hold you back.” The more she talked, the faster my breathing went. I didn’t know how to regulate these moods; I was feeling unstable, and her words did nothing but bring out the worst in me. I’d broken into a cold sweat, and I wanted to tear off every layer of clothing I wore and throw myself underneath a shower, staying there for as long as I needed.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” It wasn’t me, it was the Boy with his heart full of pain who didn’t want to hear more.

“You didn’t hurt me, Neil. Ryan is the one who forced me, not you.”

Ryan…

I staggered backward and rubbed my forehead. My heartbeat pulsed in my temples, and a sudden dizzy feeling forced me to bend my knees into a squat.

“Shut up,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. But I didn’t even get to breathe because she refused to stop.

She sat down next to me and put a hand on my knee. “I know Kimberly’s in a psychiatric facility in Orangeburg,” she said carefully. I knew it, too. After she was sent to prison, she’d made a suicide attempt and the judge deemed it appropriate to declare her mentally ill. They transferred her to a mental health facility because she was a danger to herself and others.

“She only exists in your head now, Neil,” Megan added, rubbing my knee. I could feel my skin burning in the place where she touched me.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I clenched my hands into fists and pressed them against my head, which felt like it was going to explode. I was being overloaded with memories, and it made me sick, made me tremble, made me suffocate. I felt shaken, teeming with hurts I couldn’t heal. I clenched my teeth as a familiar rage coursed through my veins like a bolt of energy, demanding to be violently expelled.

“Because we have the same history. No one can understand you better than me,” she whispered as she rubbed my back. Why did she keep touching me without my consent?

“You don’t need to touch me, goddammit!” I shouted and my voice, loud and furious, pulled Dr. Keller out of his office. He approached at a speedy clip.

“What is going on here?” he was alarmed as he looked between the two of us.