31
PIPER
Strawberry Springs Neighborhood Watch
Kerry Winsor:I’m bored again, everyone. I need one of you young folks to fall in love! Give me some news!
Comments:
Mollie Wilson:We’re not entertainment fodder!
Kerry Winsor:Come on! Isn’t it Jade’s turn?
Jade Clark:Show me a decent man and I’ll gladly climb him like a tree. The problem is that men are TRASH.
Kerry Wilson:Okay, so Jade’s not ready. Anyone else?
Tammy Jane:The only thing that I saw was Piper and Theo in the diner, but she’s barking up the wrong tree. He’ll never crack.
I wasable to plop myself at the dining room table and get my laptop ready to go by the time my appointment started. I couldn’t wait to catch up with Scarlett.
Even though she was my therapist, there was something Iloved about her on a personal level. I had a feeling she was a great person to be around outside “work.” We may never become friends because of how we met, but maybe she’d find her way to Strawberry Springs.
When she logged on, her blurred background looked slightly different. I didn’t know much about Scarlett’s personal life, but it seemed like she moved around quite often.
“Did your move go well?” I asked when her video started.
“It did,” she said with a smile. “I’m really sorry I had to cancel our last appointment. I hope everything was okay.”
“Everything is good, actually. It really was no problem to cancel.”
Scarlett sat up straighter, her eyes bright. “Really? The last session we had was an emergency one, where you were nervous about Theo’s past.”
Wow. A lot had happened since we last spoke.
“Yes. You were right about talking to him. It was the right thing to do. He explained his past and that he left as soon as he could.”
“Good.”
“It actually made me trust him more. And I, uh, have been working on my fear of touching.”
“Interesting.”
Just the word made me tense up. I wondered if somehow this was all a fluke, or if I’d handled my fear in the wrong way and she would tell me that I should get distance and do all of this differently.
“Y-yeah.” I knew she would ask what happened, so I continued. “We both were victims of circumstances that we couldn’t control. It started as an accident where someone in town was reaching for my shirt and I chose to bump into him instead. After that, I asked if I could do more and he let me.”
“It is a really big step. How has he handled it?”
“With a lot of patience. At first, I was nervous about asking him to essentially be my guinea pig, but he’s been incredibly patient. He’s never once pushed me past a limit.”
Scarlett smiled. “That’s amazing. I’m so happy you finally took that step. Do you think the medicine helped you with that?”
“It’s helped with a lot, actually. That and trusting Theo.”
“Good.” Her eyes narrowed. “Though I do feel like you’re twisting your hands outside of the camera view.”
I froze. She’d caught me.
