He’s prying apart the steel bars caging my heart. They crack like ribs, crumbling into ash.
“Thank you,” I mouth against his salty lips. “For staying close.” Fuck,thishurts more than the burning ever has. “I’m not easy to love.”
A wet smile.
“Loving you is effortless.”
“Lovingyouis hell.”
He chokes on a sob–laugh.
“You love me?”
I press our smiles together. “Yes, you buffoon, I love you. I’ve loved you for a very long time.”
His teeth sink into my bottom lip. “How long?”
I punch his side—lightly. “Long enough. Now stop making me emotional and get back to voodooing my pelvic floor.”
He grunts. Laughs. Kisses me. Murmurs, “Yes, ma’am.” And works his magic some more.
Sixty-Nine
CADE
Raw.
That’s how I feel after every session with Dr. Kat. Like she scalped me and exposed all the cracks in my psyche, then pried apart my cranium to reveal multiple Cades huddled together like the old-timey cartoon dudes stacked under a trench coat. (Would be a sick painting though.) Speaking of paintings…
“You think the inside of my head is more Monet or Van Gogh?” I ask as she locks up her office. It’s cozy— green tweed couch, velvet pillows, vintage furniture. Homey is what she calls it. I like it.
My therapist hums thoughtfully. “I’d say, Van Gogh. Then again, I’m partial to his style.” Her keys jingle as she leads me through the lobby.
“You’ve got good taste, Doc.”
She chuckles, pausing to hold the door open for me. The asphalt glistens like an oil slick in the post-storm evening light.
“What color are you right now?” she asks.
What started as a way to gauge when I’m splitting has become an easy way for her to check in with me. Baseline is yellow— bright and fun and chaotic. Orange is horny. Blue, when Little Cade takes center stage. He’s a total buzzkill, but for the mostpart, he’s locked up with Mom. Red is in there, too. He’s a manipulative bitch and mean as hell. But he was the one who stepped in to protect Blue when Mom was hurting him.
Me.
Hurtingme.
That’s what we’ve been working on. Accepting the pieces of me as a whole. Blue is the same as Red, who’s the same as Orange and Yellow and… Mom.
She’s the hardest one for me to accept. Every time I’m forced to face it, I’m reminded of her gaping absence. She’s gone. In the ground. And the voice in my head… is my own creation.
“A little blue.”
Dr. Kat removes her fogged-up glasses, her kind eyes squinting against the sun glaring off the windshield of her retro station wagon.
“I’d be worried if you weren’t.”
An engine rumbles. We both turn to see Sebastian’s truck cut through the empty parking lot, a fine spray kicked up in its wake. Dr. Kat waves as he approaches. The window rolls down?—
My jaw hangs for a solid five seconds.
