Page 37 of Play the Part (Marsford Bay #2)

HUXLEY

“ A nd what about your mother?”

I shift on the leather couch. My therapist, Dr. Frances, faces me in a chair, notepad balancing on her knee. She looks exactly like what I’d imagine a therapist would look like. Mid-forties, mousy with glasses, brown hair pulled into a tight bun, and an affinity with the color beige.

I drag a palm over my face, avoiding eye contact. It’s my third session, and something about today makes me want to bolt out the door.

“What about her?”

I’m aware I’m being short with her, but I can’t help it. Today just sucks. Like my skin is two sizes two small, and everything seems to hurt no matter what I do.

Dr. Frances adjusts her glasses up her nose.

“How would you describe your relationship?”

I sigh. I’m really in no mood to talk about my mother today—or any day. I thought I’d come in here and talk about my time in prison. But we haven’t breached the subject in the three weeks I’ve been here. All she wants to talk about is my fucking childhood.

“Nonexistent.”

Dr. Frances smiles, looking like she has all the patience in the world. Or until our fifty minutes are up. Only another fifteen left …

“Can you please elaborate?”

“She went to prison when I was around twelve years old,” I say matter-of-factly, then shrug. “I think the last time I saw her, I was fifteen or sixteen.”

“She’s still in prison?”

“No, she got out a few years back.”

Dr. Frances lifts her eyes up from her scribbling. “Have you been in contact?”

I scoff. “Why?”

“Because she’s your mother.”

Her calm voice grates on my nerves, and my knee starts to bounce. I hate where she’s going with this, and I hate myself more for shutting down.

“She stopped being my mother a long time ago.”

She tilts her head, eyes steady and receptive.

“And how does that make you feel?”

I laugh coldly, chewing on the raw skin of my thumb.

“You want me to tell you a sob story?” I grit out, my teeth still gnashing on my thumb, knee bouncing up and down.

“Is that what you want? You want me to tell you that I feel abandoned, and that I wish I had a mommy? What’s the point, she’s not the only one who fucking abandoned me. ”

I cringe, falling silent. I didn’t mean to say the last part. It just … slipped out.

She’s going to have a field day with that one.

I watch her jot down some notes, and I fight the urge to stand up and rip the notepad out of her hands. Shred the papers up like a feral dog and bark at her until she fires me as her patient.

Her gaze meets mine, and I feel my throat close up with dread. I hear her question before she even speaks it.

“Who else do you feel has abandoned you?” she asks.

I rip my thumb away from my mouth but continue the assault by picking at the skin with my fingers.

Running my tongue over my teeth, I chew on my barbell, and I look everywhere but at her.

I stare at a faded picture of flowers on the wall behind her chair.

Then to her untidy desk near the window.

Then at my feet. Finally, I meet her gaze.

When I speak, my voice sounds a lot younger than what I am now. “Who hasn’t abandoned me?”

She slowly nods in thoughtful understanding like the good little therapist she is. Then checks her watch.

“I think this is a great place to stop. We can dive deeper into the topic of abandonment in our session next week.” She looks up and smiles.

“You did really great today, Huxley.” I hate how her small praise affects me positively, but I keep my expression flat.

“Anything else you wanted to discuss before we wrap up?”

My mind goes immediately to Connie and the horrible way we left off six days ago. Not to mention what I did over the weekend just so I could get back at her. A guilty pang slices through my gut, and I quickly push it all back down.

I’m sure Dr. Frances would froth at the mouth if I told her what happened and how I reacted. She’d no doubt relate everything back to my childhood somehow.

I shake my head, answering her question, “Nope, that’s pretty much it.”

I leave therapy like a bat out of hell, sucking in deep lungfuls of winter air as soon as I step outside. After expelling the excess anxious energy that the session brought up to the surface, and a much needed cigarette that I sucked down in record time, I check my phone.

It’s still early evening.

I consider just taking the bus home, then remember Sophia’s working tonight. The last thing I want to do when I feel this restless is go home and sit alone with my thoughts. I’ll have to feed DK at some point tonight, but I still have a few hours to kill.

I sigh, considering my options and tapping a thumb on my thigh as I look up to the night sky.

My gaze is immediately pulled to the moon.

It’s impossibly bright tonight, almost full but not quite, as if a giant came to shave some of its layers, making it lop-sided and oval. My stomach twists as I think of Connie. And I can’t help but wonder if she’s looking at the same moon tonight.

The thought hurts, and the memory of her telling me about her moon theory hurts even worse. I rip my gaze away, not able to bear another second thinking of her. Unlocking my phone, I quickly send out a text before I change my mind.

Up for a drink?

I meet Ozzy outside of McCallum’s, a neighborhood pub owned by one of his many friends in the industry.

His face lights up when I approach him, like I’m somehow the best part of his day.

There’s that guilt again, bubbling up to the surface for treating my brother with such disdain for most of my adult life.

I wish I weren’t so full of bitterness and anger.

Maybe then I could let my brother in.

Ozzy grins, finishing his cigarette. “Charlie is starting to look just like you,” he muses instead of the standard hello.

“Yeah?” I ask as I take his cigarette right out of his hands and steal the last drag. “So like a piece of shit?”

Ozzy barks out a laugh, and I smirk, stubbing the butt under my boot before we walk inside.

McCallum’s looks like any standard Irish bar with faded Guinness signs on the wall, countless beer taps, and a wide range of Scotch and Irish whiskey shelved behind the bar.

It’s quiet tonight but just busy enough not to make it awkward. We pull out two high chairs at the bar and sit. Ozzy orders a Kilkenny, and I ask for a Jameson on ice.

As we wait for our drinks, Ozzy strums his fingers on the wood, staring at me with an amused look on his face. I sigh, already regretting asking him to hang out.

“What?” I ask with the same annoyed tone I used as a teenager. It only seems to come out when I’m talking to my older brother.

I avoid eye contact and start to shred my coaster to occupy my nervous fingers.

“So Connie, huh?”

My eyes practically roll into the back of my skull but luckily, my drink arrives, and I take a large gulp of whiskey to soothe the ache.

“It’s not what you think,” I answer flatly, staring at the TV above the bar.

I can tell Ozzy is still staring at me by the burn on my right cheek.

“You don’t know what I think,” he says.

There’s no reproach in his tone, just endless patience. It reminds me of my therapist. I slide my gaze to meet his but don’t move my head.

“Anyway, it’s over, so it doesn’t matter.”

Ozzy’s brows lift in surprise, but says nothing. He takes a sip of his beer, his attention swinging to the TV. The hair at my nape rises, suspicion prickling my skin.

“What?”

My brother looks back at me, licking foam off his lips and shaking his head.

“Nothing,” he says.

But there’s definitely something .

“What is it?” I probe, “It’d be a little too convenient for this to be the first time you don’t have an opinion on my personal life, wouldn’t it?”

Ozzy smirks as if caught. “It’s nothing really, it’s just that …” He shrugs, looking down at his beer as he twists the base of his pint glass with a finger and a thumb, then glances back up. “It doesn’t really sound over to me.”

My heart sinks, and an overwhelming urge to beg for any scraps of information he has about Connie hijacks my thoughts.

I keep my face disinterested, bringing my glass up to my face, staring into the ice before saying, “Why? Did James say something?”

I drain the last bit of Jameson from the melting ice and order another round, even though Ozzy is only halfway done with his beer.

“I don’t think it’s my place to say …”

“Fucking Christ,” I mutter under my breath. “So why did you bring it up in the first place?”

Ozzy holds up his hand in mock surrender, and I want to slap that smirk off his face.

“Look, all I’m saying is that you two are a lot more similar than you might think.” He settles back into his chair. “You both like to run away from your problems instead of fixing them.”

“You can fuck right off,” I spit, but there’s no obvious ill intent in my threat, and Ozzy chuckles, taking a large pull of his beer.

“I have had enough of my therapist trying to psychoanalyze me. I don’t need you on my case too.”

Ozzy turns serious, and—Christ, why did I have to bring up therapy?

“How is that going?”

The coaster is now a giant pile of shredded cardboard.

“Annoying.” I pause, then let out a long sigh, figuring I can give him a better answer. “It’s, uh, harder than expected, I guess.”

Ozzy smiles. “Yeah, it always is.”

“What did you talk about when you went?”

He looks up at the ceiling as if recalling memories of his time in therapy before shifting his attention back to me.

“Mom and Dad mostly. Parentification of the eldest child. Neglect. I don’t know, like, just normal stuff, I guess.”

I scoff. “Yeah, normal stuff.” I stare at the TV. “Parentification of the eldest child? What the hell does that mean?”

Ozzy laughs. “Don’t worry about it.”

I fall silent for a few seconds, trying to decide if I want to talk about my latest session or not.

I look at my brother from the corner of my eye.

“She wants to talk about my so-called abandonment issues next week.”

Ozzy looks like he’s holding in a laugh, and in a rare instance of camaraderie, I feel like laughing with him.

“What’s so fucking funny?” I shoot back before taking a sip of whiskey, grinning into my glass.

Ozzy is now openly chuckling. “ So-called abandonment issues, he says.” I snicker but say nothing. “Forget therapy, you can just pay me, and I’ll point out the obvious.”

My smile doesn’t wane. “Asshole.”

We spend a few more hours together before we both have to leave. And a small piece of me feels like it’s been stitched up by the time I fall into bed.