Page 50 of Stand Your Ground

I swallowed, a sharp and violent reality slap ringing my ears.

I could feel it happening, my grip on control failing me like wet hands trying to hold fast to a pull-up bar.

Panic flared in my chest. My heart tripled its pace.

But I caught myself just before I teetered over the edge.

“Yeah, well, you read wrong,” I said, shoving him back. “No kissing me unless I explicitly give you permission. Understand?”

Carter’s expression was laced with concern now. “Liv, I didn’t mean—”

“I’ll wash your clothes and give them back to you at our next lesson. Goodnight.”

I was out the door and shutting it firmly behind me before he could respond.

Winning Combo

Carter

“So, it sounds like things have been a little tough.”

Doctor Arman had a deep, somehow soothing voice — like a grandfather who’d worked years on a farm and had more wisdom than someone my age could grasp. He didn’t dress like a grandpa working on a farm, though. No, he was more like a hipster businessman — olive skin, salt-and-pepper beard trimmed close to his jaw, dark-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose. Today he wore a rust-colored sweater layered over a button-up, the sleeves pushed to his forearms to show off an old-school leather watch that probably cost more than my first car. His boots were scuffed but expensive, one hooked over the opposite knee as he relaxed on the brown tweed sofa across from me.

His office matched the vibe: soft lighting, warm tones, exposed brick on one wall and a leafy fig tree in the corner. There were no motivational posters or degrees displayed, no certificates announcing his credibility. Just books. Shelves of them — philosophy, psychology, poetry. There were titles I’d never heard of and some I’d underlined back in my college psych electives and then promptly forgotten.

It felt more like a reading nook in a Brooklyn bookstore than a shrink’s office. And maybe that’s why I kept showing up.

I nodded, tossing a forest green hacky sack in the air a few times. Doctor Arman had learned from our third session that I opened up more when I had something to fidget with, and ever since then, he’d tossed me this little bean bag ball as soon as I walked in the door.

“It’s just a lot of pressure,” I said. “It doesn’t really make sense but it’s like… the better I do, the more insecure I feel. I’ve been outperforming my past seasons, but I’m second-guessing myself more than ever.”

“What does Doctor Marsh say?”

Doctor Marsh was the team’s sports psychologist, and I saw her once a month now that I felt like I was in a better place. I used to see her every week.

“She talks to me about the general pressure of being an athlete at the level I’m at, how that sort of second-guessing and pressure is normal to feel. She’s working with me on how to live in the discomfort.”

“Do you still hear Coach Leduc’s voice in your head?”

I caught the hacky sack and held it for a beat. “Always.”

“Can you quiet him?”

“Sometimes.”

Arman nodded, scribbling in his notepad.

“It hasn’t all been bad, though,” I added, as if this was some sort of progress report card rather than a therapy session.

I knew I had nothing to prove, and yet I always yearned to come into this room and have nothing to talk about. I longed for the day I’d plop down and say,“I don’t know, Doc! Everything has been great. Not sure what to say!”

“Like I said, I’m feeling good on the ice. More focused. Less in my head. Like I’m finally starting to play the game instead of overanalyzing every pass before I even make it.”

“And off the ice?”

My thoughts immediately raced to Livia.

Not that they weren’t always trained on her, but I was actively trying not to think about her during this session because I knew I couldn’t talk about her — not with the NDA she’d had me sign.