Page 18

Fifteen

Present

T he last of the group shuffles out of the therapy room, leaving behind the lingering scent of coffee and the faint hum of overlapping voices from the hallway.

I exhale, rolling my shoulders back. It was a good session—productive, even.

For once, the weight of everyone else’s emotions doesn’t feel quite so suffocating.

I gather my notes, ready to head back to my office when I catch Aubry lingering near the door. She leans against the frame, looking small beneath her oversized sweater. Her eyes flick between my notes and my face as if she’s trying to decide whether to ask something.

“Dr. Richardson,” she calls out, her voice edged with something unreadable. “You got a sec?”

“Of course,” I say, slipping my pen into my pocket.

She waves me over to the reception desk, where a tablet screen glows in front of her. “Tell me I’m not losing my mind,” she mutters, tapping the glass. “Look at this.”

I step closer, following her gaze to the article open on the screen. The headline is some sensationalist garbage—“Peeping Tom Convicted”—but it’s the image beside it that sends my stomach plummeting to my feet.

Cooper.

His mugshot stares back at me. My vision tunnels for a second, and I have to steady myself against the edge of the desk. Even in his mugshot he is handsome.

Aubry doesn’t notice my reaction. She just huffs a laugh, shaking her head. “You recognize him, right?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. “What do you mean?”

She turns the screen toward me, zooming in on the picture as if I haven’t already burned every detail into my memory.

“That’s the guy. The journalist who covered the puppy adoption event last year.

” She laughs again, incredulous. “Can you believe it? He volunteered here, Dr. R. He held puppies. He took pictures! Of you! He interviewed people. He was here.”

The memory slams into me like a freight train—him asking polite questions, holding a notepad, a camera slung around his neck. A friendly smile. An unforgettable face in a sea of others.

“That’s…strange,” I manage, my voice light, casual. My pulse thrums in my ears.

Aubry scoffs. “It’s crazy, right?” She shakes her head, already moving on, closing out the article with a flick of her fingers. “Anyway, just thought you’d get a kick out of that. See you tomorrow?”

I nod numbly, barely registering her words.

Aubry stands, walks off, humming to herself.

I stand there, frozen.

The drive from NEL to the house a daze. I drop my bag by the door and let Flash out before I slump onto the couch. The walls close in around me, my lungs tighten, narrowing.

Breathe.

In… Out…

Deep.

Steady.

When I finally feel like I can move again, I grab my phone. It slips through my fingers, spinning to the floor, landing with a soft thud on the carpet. I reach for it, force my fingers to act like they know how to work, unlock the screen and pull up my texts.

The last one from him was so long ago. I can’t read them. I select the thread and hit delete. I should have done this sooner.

I push up. Let Flash in. Feed him before he throws a tantrum. My bag glares at me from its spot near the door. The pages tucked inside call to me. Why am I torturing myself like this?

I move my bag to the living room. Pour a glass of wine.

I can’t help but feel the fever rise as I read his words. I’m tucked on the couch, glass of wine in hand, feeding into my compulsion to self-destruct.

I gave you time to adjust to the decision you’d made. I saw the uncertainty, the hesitation you felt at our next session. You’d been beating yourself up since your…show for me. It physically affected you.

I wondered at first if you were sick, or not feeling well but knew deep down, that was not the case. Your life had taken a sharp turn and you were adjusting. Working through the scenarios, the possible consequences.

I observed you carefully, looking for that thing you needed from me. Trying to pinpoint what I needed to do next. I never dreamed that thing was so simplistic.

Encouragement and physical connection are such little things to ponder, but the body, the soul, requires them. Humans need it.

I stood up from my chair as you spoke. Reached out for you. The thrill of being so close—of feeling the heat of your skin against mine—it overwhelmed me. You met me in the middle. Welcomed me even.

Holding you in my arms gave me a security that I’d never experienced before. Letting you cry, face pressed into my chest, tears soaking my shirt, it felt good. Not because you were upset and confused, but because I offered you comfort. Because I was the one to ease those feelings for you.

You looked up at me, tear-soaked cheeks glistening, and pleaded with only a look. I couldn’t refuse you. Not that I wanted to. When our lips met this time it was all so different. The world parted, cracked wide, and swallowed us whole.

Your breath mixed with mine, your pulse pounded beneath your skin. You trembled in your passion, and it only served to spur me on.

My teeth pierced the soft flesh of your lip. You cried out but didn’t pull away. You kissed me harder. It was a lust-drunk moment. It was teenage hormones and recklessness. It was perfection.

When you gave yourself to me that first time, that night, I stared in awe as your body went rigid. Your jaw froze, locked open as if it were stuck, silently screaming while you came.

I did that to you. I commanded your body into that state. I became a fiend. I wanted that reaction over and over. But I needed it my way as well. That first time, for you, seemed to be an epiphany.

You didn’t speak afterward. The edges of your mouth lifted slightly, lips barely parting to reveal those straight, white teeth. I desperately wanted to know what you were thinking, but something held me back.

The memory of the moans that fell from your passion-swollen mouth, your chest heaving in ecstasy, had me hard the morning after. Recalling the feel of your body moving against mine, fighting and welcoming simultaneously.

I laid next to your sleeping form in the early morning light and marveled at the way the sun peeking through the shades caused a halo around your curls. The dramatic swell of your hips from your waist. The natural flush on your skin from a deep sleep.

I had been so embarrassed. So overwhelmed at what I felt that I couldn’t bear to see Cooper for weeks after.

It hit me like warm air through a screen—familiar, comforting, yet so dangerous. He’s always been here in my soul, like a season that comes back again and again. He shadows my dreams, even when I think I can let go.

I think that’s how it started. He snuck into my heart like a pinprick, and suddenly, before I knew it, he rushed through me, pulling me under. And now I’m drowning in the thought of him, in the memory of us.

I always thought that with time, things would get clearer. But now, it feels like the longer I go, the harder it is to breathe. The world doesn’t seem big enough for the pain I carry.

My feelings are messy and get lost in the noise of everything else life threw at us. I know with clarity that of all my demons, he is the one I need the most.

I’m in love with his ghost. A shadow of him that haunts my dreams and steals the air from my lungs when I wake up. I still feel him—dangerous and dark, like a secret whispered in the hush of the night.

The way he kissed me like a lover, then stung me like a wasp. And still, I pine for him. I can feel it in my veins like a sickness. But I can’t stop myself. I’d walk straight into the flames of his inferno if it meant feeling something, anything, that might bring me closer to him again.

He’s pierced my spirit in ways I’ll never understand, and yet I can’t touch him. I can’t reach him, and that silence between us, the one I’ve perpetuated for so long, poisons me. It keeps me perpetually drowning.

I close my eyes and picture his face before me. If I could, I would launch an army to bring his heart back to mine. But the ground beneath me slips, and I now know what it’s like to be weakened—held captive by the idea of him.