There was no better way of describing Pete. Since getting clean and ditching the tools to render me numb, living with a near permanent pit of anxiety in my gut had taught me to appear composed, when on the inside, I was screaming. Pete wasn’t like that—he didn’t hide his feelings, even when he had none. “I think he’s depressed.” Think.Ha. Iknew.And by Jed’s lack of reaction, maybe he did too. “He’s been through a lot,” I added when Jed didn’t say anything. “I thought he was the same person for a while, buthe’snot.”
Jed came back and reclaimed his chair. “Glenn told me about theaccident.”
“What else didhesay?”
“That he likes you, and he thought I would too. It’s funny, actually—Pete reminds me of Paul, but Glenn figures that he reminds him of me. I can’t see itmyself.”
Neither could I. Pete was my whole world, and I’d never met anyonelikehim.
Jed smiled when I said as much. “Max is like that for me. Some days I don’t know where I’d be without him, but others I know exactly what would’ve happened to me if I’d nevermethim.”
The darkness that flashed briefly in Jed’s eyes surprised me, but the affinity I had with his statement didn’t. I’d gathered the fragments of my broken life before I’d met Pete, but it was only loving him that had given me the strength to piece ittogether.
Jed stretched his leg out in front of him, massaging his thigh. “What makes you think Pete’sdepressed?”
I shrugged. “Everything. That accident was a few years ago… A train hit him while he was working as a paramedic. He nearly died, but he got better and got his RN license. For a while I thought he was okay—happy, even—but then his mom died, and he went back to the way he was just after theaccident.”
I stopped. Was that right? After the accident, Pete had been angry, bitter, and in terrible pain. His silence then had cut me to the bone. But now?No. Pete wasn’t angry now. He was lost, and the only time I truly felt something from him was when we werefucking.
Damn. I brought my fist to my mouth like I could force the words back in. I never talked about Pete to anyone apart from my therapist, and I hadn’t seen her since Maggie died. My grief had been nothing compared to Pete’s, and it hadn’t felt right to pour my heart out to someone when Pete had barelyallowedhimself to shedatear.
“What do you and Pete do for fun when you’re notworking?”
“Hmm?” I glanced at Jed to find him watching me with the kind of shrewd stare that usually made me squirm. “Um… we like to eat, walk by the lake. Sometimes we play ball in the batting cages. We don’t get a lot of time by ourselves anymore, though. We have Pete’s nephew and my niece to takecareof.”
“Max and I live by a lake. It’s not like Lake Michigan, but it has its own kind of magic. I can smell it even when I’m awayfromhome.”
“Do you travelalot?”
“Hell, no. I don’t like being apart from Max. I only came here to get in Glenn’s face about something, and I think I’m about done with that now. What about you? You travel with your sister,right?”
“I used to. She’s about to have another baby, though, so I won’t be going anywhere for awhile.”
“You don’t like being awayeither?”
“Not on my own. I get, um—” I searched for a way to explain the sheer terror that had consumed me the one time I’d left Chicago by myself and then remembered that Jed was a fucking shrink and likely already knew that some days it was all I could do to get in a cab. “I’m claustrophobic, and I don’t like people behind me, or flying, or hotels, or just about anything else that comes with traveling. I can deal if I’ve got someone with me, but I go a bit crazy if I’m onmyown.”
I wondered if Jed would ask me why, and then I wondered if I’d tell him and how it would feel to explain my childhood to someone who wouldn’t flinch at every word. Where would I even start?Um… I got raped, and my subconscious forgot all about it until I was twenty-three. Then it came back to me and I lost my shit so bad I cut holes in myself to make it stop.Right. And that was just the start of what I’d put Petethrough.
Jed nudged my foot gently. “Putting aside the stress, do you like traveling? Exploring new places? I used to until I became too decrepit toenjoyit.”
It suddenly occurred to me that Desta wasn’twithJed.
“He’s in the therapy room with Glenn,” Jed said like he’d read my mind—again. “Answer the question, for yourself as muchasme.”
“Why does itmatter?”
“Why shouldn’t itmatter?”
I had no answer to that, and so I turned to the squeaking cogs in my brain and considered the original question. “Sometimes it seems like a new place blows the cobwebs out of my fucked-up brain. There’s so much to see and do that I forget how Ireallyfeel.”
“Perhaps the way you feel on the roadishow youreallyfeel.”
“Youthink?”
Jed shrugged. “I think something healthy and empowering that makes you feel good should be embraced—and even shared. If your sister can’t come with you, maybesomeoneelse?”
I knew where he was going with that, and I shook my head. “Pete can’t come. He has Liam andworkand—”
