Page 160 of Pink

THIRTY-TWO

IT SEEMED strange to Gigi that there had once been a time when she could step outside into the public sphere and not feel like everything around her was a threat. Or danger was lurking right around the corner to drag her back to hell. It made even the simplest of things—like running down to the corner store for late-night snacks—a whole event.

Gigi hated it and wished so hard she could feel normal again.

She wouldn’t.

Ever.

“Gigi, watch me!”

From her spot on the bench, Gigi had a clear view of Arely swinging from one monkey bar to the next. Fearless and having the time of her life, the girl had no idea about the constant swell of panic Gigi was forced to swallow down during their outing to the park.

“Perfect! That’s great,” Gigi called back to Arely.

The girl beamed when she landed with both feet onto the wooden platform at the end of the row of bars. With twenty other children rushing from one end of the playground to the other, and their parents all around, it was just … a lot.

A lot of movement.

Too many strangers.

All the unknowns.

Gigi forced down the anxious ripple that tried to escape in her voice when she called back to Arely, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. The woman—or one of them—sitting beside her said that she hadn’t hid it at all.

“Do we need a second to do our grounding?” the redhead to her left asked.

Cara Guzzi was her name.

Therapist.

Mother.

Mob wife.

Gigi’s new best friend, apparently.

She had knocked on the door one morning with a kind smile, a short introduction that explained the Marcellos asked her to come, and then they were off to the races. Gigi hadn’t realized that she needed someone to come in and fix her head before the rest of her might start to feel healed, too.

Instead of answering Cara’s question with a simple yes or no, Gigi started listing off all the things around her that made her safe. “Enforcer in the parking lot. One at each entrance.”

A throat cleared behind her, and Gigi smiled.

“Todd is always behind me,” she added.

The man in question chuckled, saying quietly, “Not going anywhere, Miss Gigi.”

“There’s a gun in my bag,” Gigi continued. “I started self-defense classes. There is a very low chance of something happening in broad daylight in a public space like this. I am okay.”

“Are you?”

She glanced over at Cara who hadn’t asked the question with any sort of malice or sarcasm. It was just an honest, genuine question. One that made Gigi consider all the things she had listed that meant she was currently safe to help the panic die down.

“I am,” she returned.

“Good,” Cara said.

On Gigi’s right, her mother, Kimie, openly frowned at the exchange. She could see the concern warring in her mother’s eyes—the constant battle she fought ever since Gigi’s return to New York. She swung like a pendulum, back and forth between telling her daughter she would be safe if she just got away from the same people who she thought were the catalyst to her kidnapping and assaults, and also letting Gigi do what she wanted and needed to do.