Page 90 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

“A shrink who’s trying to fuck with me, but the game’s over, Dr. Keller.

” I was starting to bristle. My hands trembled, and he glanced down at them.

That was happening more and more often: hand tremors exposed my anxiousness.

The doctor put his elbows on the desk and interwove his fingers beneath his chin, giving him a reflective posture.

“What do you see?” he asked again, and I realized that he was actually asking me. I looked over his shoulder at the white wall and then back at him, waiting for a response behind that imposing desk. There was a neat stack of papers on his right and a lamp to his left.

“A desk?” I answered finally with an insolent smirk, because fuck him . Whatever his actual intentions were, I was going to play this my way.

“Hmm…so you see a basic rectangular desk, made of high-quality wood with assorted documents and a useless lamp on it, right?” He touched his index finger to his chin, rubbing his neatly groomed beard, and I frowned at him.

“That’s right. I also see a guy who’s trying everything he can think of to piss me off,” I shot back. He nodded, looking thoughtfully at me.

“The problem, kid, is that you see but you don’t observe,” he pointed out, as though he’d just made some significant discovery.

“You see a desk, but you aren’t really observing the object in question.

” He shook his head as though disappointed in me, and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

“This desk,” he pressed his flattened palms on the wooden surface, “may seem like just a basic, clearly defined, static object, but you need to look at it from multiple points of view. On one hand, you do need to take notice, as you have done so well, of the object and its most obvious characteristics: shape, structure, function and so forth…” He waved a hand.

“On the other hand, we also have to consider the symbolic and social aspects of the object. This desk in particular is a tool for gatherings, relating to one another, sharing a space. Do you see?” he asked as I stood there, now observing him.

“Just like how the story of the pearl is a lot more than just a story.” He pointed an index finger at the painting I’d disparaged.

“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 impressed by 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 immediately shoved 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.

“Don’t you ever touch me again without my permission, or I swear I will make you regret it!

” I pointed a finger at Megan. I was shaking uncontrollably by that point, my fury having grown to unmanageable levels.

A couple of men, probably clinic employees, approached me cautiously, like I was an enraged lion that needed to be locked back in his cage as soon as possible.

“Neil.” Dr. Lively had also showed up, raising a palm to the stop the men who were trying to get a hold of me.

“Leave him be; don’t get any closer,” he ordered pointedly, and they stopped in their tracks. I would have hit them if they’d come any closer, and my old psychiatrist knew it.

“Neil,” Chloe called out to me. She was staring at me, terrified, as she walked up next to Dr. Lively. Her big blue eyes were huge with fear, and all my attention focused on her. I didn’t want to scare her.

I tried to focus on breathing, despite feeling the eyes of two psychiatrists on me as they tried to anticipate my next move. I rubbed my forehead again. I was lightheaded and waves of nausea made me stagger back.

“Chloe…” I muttered, feeling the lack of air in my lungs. “Let’s go.” I reached out and took her by the hand, yanking her toward me. My sister looked bewildered and confused and that just made me more anxious.

“W-what’s going on?” she managed, and I tried to reassure her by stroking her hair.

“Nothing. We just need to leave.” I shot Megan a warning look. She had sat down on the couch by then and was staring at me like I was a lunatic. Then, I turned to the two doctors who were still watching the scene play out, positive that there was something broken inside me.

Something I had always denied both to them and to myself.