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“Really? I would love that.”
She wrote herself a note on her trademark pile of Post-It notes and stuck it to her clipboard.
“Something’s different about you lately,” she said, looking me up and down like she was assessing me. “You’re more confident or something. More sure of yourself. You ask fewer dumb questions.”
“Um… thank you.”
With a finalkeep it uplook, she left the nurses’ station for her office and I gathered my things, ready to leave for the day. I was riding so high on Dr. Castigan’s compliments that I didn’t hear someone approach the desk. Someone all too familiar.
“We need to talk.”
I looked up and saw Desmond standing over me, arms crossed, serious expression on his face.
“About what? I have to go pick up Rex from school.”
“You have time for this.”
I stood up straight and met my ex-husband’s eyes. “You don’t get to tell me what I have time for anymore, Desmond. You have something to say to me, you can do it right here.”
“Fine, your mother came to speak to me again, trying to beg me not to petition for full custody of Rex,” he started. “I wasn’t going to bring this up for another few months, but since you’re already aware—”
“You’re really going to do that?” I felt that lump in my throat start to form and I swallowed hard. “You’d really take him away from me?”
“I want him in the best possible place.”
“Which the judge said was with both of us.”
“The judge hadn’t seen a child like Rex before,” he continued. “Very few people have. He’s a remarkable intellect.”
“He’s also a six-year-old child.”
“That’s no reason to treat him like one.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” I asked, trying not to raise my voice to him at work. “He’s a child. And yes, he’s incredibly gifted, but—”
“He’s wasting his time at that little public school. He needs more intellectual stimulation.”
“He needs friends and a social life.”
Desmond rolled his eyes. “Why? So he can grow up to be the life of the party? Do keg stands and beer bongs and get too hungover to go to class? Give up on poetry and linguistics and get really good at pinball or something?”
“Pinball?”
“Maybe get himself a misspelled tattoo.”
I ignored the jab about my tattoo and met his eyes. “Why did you saypinball?”
“It’s just an example.”
“It’s a really specific example.”
“Don’t read too much into it.”
“This is about Carter, isn’t it?” I asked.
Desmond’s usually unflappable expression wavered for a second. “I thought you’d at least do me the decency of letting me know when you started seeing someone.”
“I’m notseeingCarter and really, Desmond, fuck you. You didn’tdo me the decencyof telling me about who you’re seeing. Any of them.”
