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I stare at her, unsure of how to respond.
She leans forward, her elbows digging into her thighs. My eyes dart to her pale skin, thinking about sliding my hands up her toned legs. Sitting across from her, especially when I’m this worked up, all I can think about is sex. I want to fuck the tension from my body.
Puck bunnies have their uses, but Lila isn’t a puck bunny, and I can’t treat her like one. I respect her too much, even though she’s getting under my skin. Fixing my jeans, I adjust myself, hoping she doesn’t notice I’m hard just thinking about her. An awkward silence fills the room. Lila sighs, her eyes fixed on me as she crosses her legs.
“Fine,” she mutters. “You want to know something about me? This is completely unprofessional and unethical…”
“Give me something, Doc. I’m over here, spilling my guts to you every week. Do you know how hard this is for me? We have more than a doctor-patient relationship, and you damn well know it.”
“Ted was my high school sweetheart,” she says with a sigh. “He was the captain of the basketball team. I was a cheerleader.”
“You don’t seem like the cheerleader type.”
She rolls her eyes. “I was back then.”
“Do you still have the uniform?”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Why?”
“Because now that I have a visual, all I can think about is you in that short skirt and tight top.”
“Duke,” she warns. “I already said too much.”
“We already crossed the line, Doc. Why not jump over it?”
She gasps, looking away from me. A minute passes before she says, “Duke, I can’t…”
“Do you think I talk to anyone who asks me about my past?” I get up from the chair, closing the distance between us. She peeks up at me, her eyes watery. “Don’t pretend like there’s nothing between us. I know you feel it. We kissed, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.”
“I’m trying to keep this professional. I want to wait until our time is up before we explore anything further. This is my job, my livelihood.”
“I don’t see the problem.”
She sighs. “It’s not easy for an outsider to work with professional sports teams. I’m not like you. I don’t have a famous father who can pull strings for me. It took a lot of hard work to get to this point in my career.”
Even though I should be hurt by her words, I don’t allow them to phase me. She hates herself for crossing the line with a patient. Her anger isn’t directed at me.
“Why did you become a doctor?”
“To help people,” she says without hesitation.
“No, there’s more to your story.” I lock eyes with her. “You chose psychology for a reason.”
“My mom,” she admits. “She was the reason, okay?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She killed herself.”
Chills roll down my arms from her confession. I understand what it's like to lose a parent.
“I’m sorry.”
She sniffs back a few tears. “She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. For most of my childhood, she was in and out of different facilities. Her moods would spiral so out of control, she spent weeks at a time in the hospital. She had a disease. The doctors could never get her medicine right. Even when they did, she would stop taking it as soon as she felt better.”
Lila wipes the corner of her eye. “And then, the spiral would start all over again. Some people fall so deep into their depressive states that they have suicidal thoughts. My mother did anything to keep herself sane, which meant prescription and even street drugs. It was hard, my childhood, and I was the parent in our relationship. I took care of her from an early age. I tried to hide her problems for as long as I could. And maybe that was part of the problem. We were on our own, and I was so afraid social services would find out and take me away from her.”
“What did you do when she went into the hospital?”
