Page 44
Meg’s face watches me from the easel. Her eyes charcoal, her spine ink, her body rendered in shadows so that she might be dragged back into hell alongside me. They say misery loves company. I just hated the idea of her clawing her way out of a pit and leaving me behind. Now…I might be half tempted to give her a leg up and pretend it’s only for Everest’s benefit. Holy crap, I need a smoke.
Dragging both hands through my hair, I let my elbows rest on my knees, staring at the floor until the dream stops moving behind my eyes. By the time I find the strength to grab clothes and stagger to the bathroom, my reflection looks worse than the night Nicholas knocked me out on the dining room floor.
My face is ghostly pale. There are bruises fading into sickly yellow along my jaw. My grey eyes are shadowed from lack of sleep. White hair sticks up in several directions, the throes of a distressing sleep clinging to me. I look haunted, and on the slippery slope of mental decline. For the first time, I wonder if Everest was actually wrong to send me to the rehab clinic, or if I was kidding myself to think I didn’t belong there. That I wasn’t just as traumatised and fucked up as the rest of them.
I shower with one hand wrapped in a plastic bag, change into the black clothes I bundled into the toilet lid, and only step back into my room for my sunglasses. It doesn’t matter that the sky is threateningly overcast, promising a day of rain and wind. The suffocating sunlight alone conjures another migraine, and I don’t need anyone to start asking questions about why I look like I’m ready to knock at Death’s door.
Counselor Dowley’s office smells exactly as it always does. Chamomile tea, clean carpet, and the faint stench of forced vulnerability. There’s a fern in the corner that seems to be thriving on the tears of traumatized students, three framed quotes about healing on the wall, and a box of tissues angled toward the armchair. I throw the door open with a bang, dropping into said armchair as Dowley screeches in surprise. My hands immediately fly to my temples.
“Mr. Wilder. We don’t have a session today.” Behind her desk, the mousey brunette woman scrambles to pack up her papers and shove them into the drawer. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she makes an effort to smooth down her wildly curly hair and regain some composure.
“Should I leave?” I grip the leather arms of the chair as if to stand. Shooting her hands out, she yells again, and I wince.
“No! No, no. Stay right where you are.” Jumping up, Dowley grabs a notepad and pen before bounding over as if all of her Christmases have come at once. Dropping into an opposite chair, she takes forever to find a blank page, click her pen, and look up at me with an open smile. The moment she notes the unimpressed set to my features, her smile quickly fades.
“What brings you here this morning?” If only I knew the answer. Reaching up, I flick my sunglasses off, and she audibly gasps. “Oh dear. You look…tired,” her brows tilt, then suddenly, her pen is moving. The nib scratching against the page is an offence to my ears, but I don’t stop her. She has to earn her paycheck somehow.
“Most people don’t seem so thrilled by the tiredness of others,” I comment dryly. Somehow she’s already filled a quarter of a page with notes, and I’ve barely said more than a handful of words. Pausing mid-word, Dowley swallows, remembers herself, and sets the notepad aside on a circular table. Thank fuck.
“I’m concerned,” she insists, folding her hands in her lap. Her slightly curved posture and dropping head tilt must be straight out of Counseling for Dummies 101. I could give her a hard time about being paid to be concerned, but I honestly can’t find the energy today. I’m already annoyed that my feet brought me here of all places. How far I’ve fallen to actually seek out a shrink when I don’t even have to. “Is there a reason you are having trouble sleeping?”
“Yes,” I huff, glancing out of the window. That one word is more than I’ve ever given her, and by the twitching of her fingers, I’m sure she wants to write a whole synopsis about it. Usually, I tell her I need to clear my mind with some Sudoku and that her probing questions make me feel suicidal. That’s the Reid Wilder response. I suppose today, without even knowing it, Dowley is getting Cody Calloway in all his twisted, damaged glory.
“Nightmares?” she guesses, and I give a nod without looking her way. The promised rain has started to fall, peppering the glass and campus beyond with fat water droplets. “Do you want to tell me about them?” The hitch in her tone proves how excited she’s been to get inside my brain, and damn it, I might just let her win today.
“There’s a…someone I shouldn’t be even thinking about. But I’m pretty sure she’s haunting me.” My voice trails off, my vision no longer seeing the rain. Instead, there are words etched in thick black marker. Every trait I’ve given her, every characteristic she’s refused to disappear amongst. Amongst the words are the ones she had no right saying inside my own head.
You were never alone either.
“Does she scare you?” Dowley tries to explore further. I bet she’s creaming her panties and mentally high-fiving herself every time I give her a real response.
“Terrifies me,” I sigh, pinching the space between my brows. My headache is low and throbbing as the room tilts slightly, my ribs aching from my brisk walk.
“Why?” Twisting my lips, I consider that very question. Why? Meg is just a person. My neighbor. My boyfriend’s crush. But then I remember her hand slipping into mine, the frantic cling of her fingers, the way her fear moved through me as if my body had confused her terror for my own. Running my thumb over the cuts lining my left palm, I force myself to stay in the seat.
“Because I’m starting to care.” My confession slips through the office like a knife’s blade, cutting clean through the confusion clouding my mind. That’s the problem. The reason I’m spiraling. I’m starting to care for Meg O’Connor, and I have absolutely no right to.
For once, Dowley remains quiet. When I can’t take the weight of her stare any longer, I glance up. She’s watching me intently, trying to crack a code amongst my features. They must have not covered what to do in the face of an actual breakthrough in her training, so I just keep talking.
“Ignoring a person is so much easier. Hatred takes effort. Worrying for them takes commitment. I have no desire to do either, but she’s refusing to leave me be. She’s everywhere.”
Those last words leave a sour taste in my mouth. Meg is everywhere. In the charcoal beneath my fingernails, in the blank spaces of every canvas I turn away from, in the silence Everest uses to pretend he hasn’t already fallen for her. I really didn’t stand a chance.
Taking in my conflicting facial expressions, Dowley leans forward slightly, dropping the act that she’s on a one-way train to trying to fix me and simply becoming someone I can talk to.
“Is it that you’re scared to care for her, or that you’re scared of hurting her?” she asks slowly, pulling at the threads of my beliefs and misconceptions. I scoff lightly, exuding bitterness.
“I’ve already done that.” Chewing on my bottom lip, I force myself to dig deeper. To knock aside the base-level responses and pry up something real. I’m here after all, might as well get some use out of it. “I suppose I’m scared of letting her get close enough to see who I really am.”
“In case she rejects you,” Dowley states, coming to the wrong conclusion. Shaking my head, I adjust in the chair so I’m leaning towards her too.
“In case she understands me.” A long pause follows, in which Dowley’s intent stare starts to stab like daggers through my skull. Her notebook is still sitting uselessly beside her on the table.
Clenching my teeth, I almost bark that she should pick it back up and reduce me to bullet points like she’s been trained. Maybe I could even get a prescription out of it, something to silence the voices in my head. Anything to get her to stop looking at me with a heavy dose of pity.
“And would that be so bad?”
“Yes. It’d be the fucking worst,” I claw a hand through my messy hair. My irritation isn’t aimed at her, but it could easily be perceived that way. Instead, it’s at the fog in my mind that is finally starting to clear, revealing an image underneath that I despise. One where Meg stares back, equal parts confident and broken, and I no longer want to finish the job Harrison started. I want to eradicate him from her memories so it’s like he never existed. What the fuck is happening to me?
