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The heavy click of the clock sent my hair on end. The woman sitting across from me, with large-framed glasses and curly shoulder-length hair, in her early thirties, stared at me with a polite smile that made me cringe.
I eyed the white couch in the corner of the room, wondering if I should have sat there.
“Would you like to move seats?” Ms. Courtney asked.
I tapped my fingers against the arm of my chair and shook my head. “Not really.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “So, Maverick, is there a certain reason you’re here today?”
Because Josie gave me an ultimatum, and I wanted her to be done with King.
Carefully, I sat forward, holding my forehead in my palm. “I—my friend suggested it.”
Courtney nodded, slowly, writing something down on her overlarge notepad. I itched to stand up and demand to know what she wrote, but I was sure that wasn’t how it worked.
“Why do you think he suggested it?”
I sat back, running my palms along the top of my thighs.Could it be any hotter in here?“She witnessed a panic attack the other day.”
Courtney pressed the end of her pen to her mouth. “Do panic attacks happen often for you?”
I shrugged. “A few over the last several years. Nothing serious.”
She lifted a brow. “What triggers them?”
“I don’t know.”
She eyed me questionably, not believing me, but seemed to accept it. “Tell me about your family, Maverick. How would you describe your childhood?”
I scoffed. “I have a younger brother who lives with me. My dad wasn’t in my life and my mom’s a drug addict and alcoholic.”
Courtney didn’t seem fazed. “How long has your brother lived with you? You’re just now eighteen, right?”
“He just moved in.”
“What caused it?”
I shrugged. “My mother wasn’t taking care of him. I had to pay her five hundred dollars just to sign the guardianship papers.”
Courtney frowned. “Is your brother living in the dorm room with you?”
“No, I have an apartment.”
Courtney jotted something down. “You said your friend is a girl. Do you agree with her suggestion of coming to a counselor? Do you think one panic attack made her suggest it?”
I ground my teeth together. “I don’t know.”
“Is there anything in specific you want to talk about? Anything you’re holding in? Everything here is confidential.”
I watched her small nose twitch underneath my stare and her gaze drop to her paper every few minutes. I wanted to say it. Ineededto say it, but I didn’t know how. Just thinking about those times made my skin crawl and vomit threaten my throat.
My fingers clutched around the arms of the chair, and I felt myself begin to panic at the memories.So many memories …
“Pick it up or I’ll shove my boot up your ass.”
The wretched smell of burning plastic wafted through the hallways of our rundown house. I knew enough at the age of twelve to know it was the after-effects of some drug that had my mother passed out in her room.
Her guy of the night sat with his legs spread wide, a beer in one hand, and pointed a meaty finger at the carton of cigarettes on the floor. Dirty brown hair hung down to his shoulders against the top of a leather vest.
