Page 107 of Keepsakes and Kismet

“What?” I shake my head. “No. We need to talk about this. There’s more I need to share with you, and I’m not leaving when you’re—when we’re not okay. I thought that when you’re in a relationship like ours, we talk it out.”

“I want to talk it out with you. I’m going to talk it out, I promise. But not right now.”

“Sometimes it still feels like… like you might not trust me,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “That’s not what it is. I do trust you.”

“It’s just…” A tear slides down my cheek. “You have to understand by now, Callum. When you suffer, I suffer, too.”

His voice quiets. “The last thing I want is to hurt you. It may not seem like it, but that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid.” He pauses for a moment, as if he’s deciding which thoughts he wants to speak out loud. “I want to process everything before I say anything else.”

My stomach drops. “Are we breaking up?”

Panic flashes in his eyes. “Peyton. That’s not what I—our relationship status is not what I need to process.”

Any relief I might feel at his words is overshadowed by frustration. “You’re not going to push me away, Callum. We’re going to work through this. We will.”

He slowly turns away without saying anything. The cold shoulder fires me up all over again, and my searing glare burns holes into his back as he carries Zebra to his room.

“I’ll be running into you tomorrow!” I yell, slamming the door on my way out.

Chapter 24

Callum

Unplayed Voicemails: (1)

Iopen and close the cap of my water bottle, staring at one of the paintings on Dr. Jain’s wall—a sketch of tree branches covered in ivy. It’s vaguely similar to the artwork on the walls at Peyton’s office, and I sigh, thinking of her.

After Peyton left, I called Dr. Jain’s office to see if she had any last minute cancellations. Her assistant scheduled me for thirty minutes in the late afternoon, and I don’t have an inspection until this evening, so… here I am.

I spent the first five minutes in complete silence. I know she’s waiting patiently for me to explain why I’m here, but is “I fucked up. And I’m fucked up,” a good enough answer?

My fears and insecurities got the better of me with Peyton. The fact that she questioned if I was breaking up with her has been eating at me all day. Ending things with Peyton didn’t even cross my mind. Guilt trickles down my throat when I remember how crushed she looked, the way she cried.

I’m frustrated that I wasn’t able to regulate my emotions, and now I’m terrified Peyton won’t want to be with someone like me.

“I fucked up.” I toss the heavy words out there, but I don’t feel any lighter.

Dr. Jain doesn’t pick up her notebook. Her hands remain in her lap as she says, “Tell me more.”

I set my water bottle on the coffee table. “I told Peyton everything. I told her about Tyler, about what happened, about my past.”

If she’s surprised I’ve said his name for the first time since we started meeting last year, she doesn’t show it, only adjusting her glasses. “That was a big step, Cal. How did it feel?”

“It was hard, but it felt good. It reminded me of feeling sore after a workout. Painful, but for a good cause.”

She nods, her neutral expression unchanged.

I pull in a shaky breath that does nothing to steady me. “But, then I woke up and everything changed. It turns out she has epilepsy, and she didn’t tell me—not that I gave her much of a chance. I panicked. I don’t think I handled it well. I mean, I know I didn’t handle it well. I asked her to leave with no room for discussion, and she seemed really hurt. Early in our relationship, I assured her that getting reactively angry was just a PTSD stereotype, and then there I went, being stereotypical. So… I fucked up.”

Dr. Jain’s eyes are filled with curiosity, not judgment. “Reacting to triggers, especially one directly related to your source of trauma, will happen on your healing journey.”

I shift uncomfortably on the couch. “But it feels like I failed. I don’t want her to see me as someone who can’t handle their own shit. It’d kill me if she viewed me that way.”

“Do you view yourself that way?”

I give it some thought. Picking therapy back up again last year resurfaced a lot of hard emotions for me, but I’m also feeling stronger than before. “No.”