AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I almost choke again, and then Knox and I say in unison, “Really?”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to call her right now!” Knox exclaims, jumping from her chair.
“Knox! You need to finish your dinner first,” I call after her.
“I’m done!” she calls back, and then I hear her bedroom door shut. I look at J.R. “I didn’t tell her to ask you that.”
“I don’t hate her,” he says. “I mean, I did, but she did a lot of good while you were gone.”
“Knox loves her, too. For years, it was Knox, Kelley, and me. We miss her.” I slide out of my chair and move toward J.R. “Besides”—I sit in his lap in a straddle—“if Kelley comes, we can finally get some alone time.”
J.R. wraps his arms around me and tilts his face toward mine. “That’s definitely a perk.”
I kiss him.
“I do need to tell you something,” he says.
“What?”
“The band—we leave in a week for a six-week tour.”
I drop my head, my forehead against his. My heart sinks, and I remember what it felt like every time he told me he was leaving.
“Okay,” I say, brushing his cheek with my hand. “Where are you going this time?”
“Out west. It’s been on the calendar for a while. Since before you came back. I…well, I was waiting to tell you.”
“I’ll miss you.” I kiss him again. “You’ll need to tell Knox.”
“I will.”
Knox runs back into the room, and she’s immediately disgusted at the sight of me sitting in J.R.’s lap. “Oh, gross!”
I laugh and slide out of his lap. “What did Kelley say?” I ask her.
“Well, first, she said she needed to hear from you, and then she said she would come this weekend.”
“Okay. I’ll call her. Now, sit down and finish your dinner.”
26
April 2007
I had grown to dread therapy. Actually, I don’t think that I ever really looked forward to it. It was sort of like forcing myself to go to the gym. I knew that I needed it. I knew that it was helping. I knew that it was good for me. Still, every time I went, I couldn’t help but feel like it was actually a spotlight of everywhere I had failed that week in my healing process.
I was sitting on my therapist’s dainty, little couch. I never sat back completely. I would never relax. I refused to be like those people in the movies, laid back with their hands over their foreheads like they were dying. I sat there with my elbows resting on the top of my thighs and hands knotted together.
Carey, my therapist, sat across from me in her chair, her notepad on her lap. She waited for me to speak. I didn’t feel like it that day. I was tired of talking. Besides, she judged every word that came from my mouth. It was her job, I know.
“Kelley still thinks I should go home,” I told her, breaking the silence.
“Mmm hmm, and how do you feel about that?” Carey asked me. Such a typical response from a therapist.
“The same as before. I’m not going home,” I said simply.
Carey wrote something down on her notepad, and it annoyed me. What on earth could she have possibly drawn from that statement?
