“Does my girl have an interest in violence?” He says teasingly.
“Yes.” I deadpan.
I can tell my response has taken him aback by the way his head jerks. He tilts it slightly, as if studying me. “We can make that happen, just for you.” Then he’s catchingmeoff guard when he leans in and presses the softest kiss to my temple.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since I got to you yesterday.”
My eyes sting, but I blink it away.
I clear my throat, “Why didn’t you?”
He shrugs, “I don’t know.” His brows pinch, “I guess I wanted to wait for you to be awake and remember it.”
19
KELSEY
“How are you feeling right now?” The therapist asks for the fifth day in a row.
Ryder hired a therapist to talk out my trauma as soon as we got backhome.Is it helping? No. Can I say that? Also, no, because they’ll just push more antidepressants and anxiety pills on me.
“Fine.” I sigh, continuing to twirl a small section of my hair between my fingers. I’ve started to do that more recently.
Therapist Ansley sighs as if this is a complete waste of her own time and she isn’t getting paid a fortune to put up with me for an hour every day. “Hun, I know you don’t want to talk, but it is going to help you.” She searches around the small room that’s filled with two plush armchairs and a coffee table. “Have you written in the notebook I gave you?”
Ah, of course. The classic‘write your feelings down’notebook, that never works. Why do they still recommend them? “No,” I reply dryly. Ready to get the hell out of here. I glance up at the clock above her head and watch the seconds tick by until the session is over. “There’s three minutes left, can I be excused now?”
Ansley stares at me, lips thin. Her mouth opens, and she sighs heavily. “Next session, I expect one page filled in that notebook. This will only work if you put in effort, and everybody here wants to see you heal.”
I drop my gaze to my shoes, finding them more interesting than this conversation.
“Do you understand?” She presses.
“I understand that you have no idea what I’ve gone through, so talking to you about anything isn’t going to solve shit for me, now is it?”
Her posture straightens, and I watch her jaw clench and unclench as if picking her words just right to prevent me from exploding anymore.
“That’s the thing, Kelsey. I want to be able to understand and help you. I can only do that if you talk to me.”
Snatching my phone off the coffee table, I make a beeline straight for the door. Fuck this.
“Kelsey!” She shouts from behind me, but I ignore her. An hour of staring at her old, withered face every single damn day is absurd. Okay, she probably doesn’t deserve to be called old and withered, but damn it! She’s a nice lady and obviously has a shit ton of patience if she’s dealing with my bullshit this well.
Ryder arranged this little office in the basement, wherehis gym is. It’s just a little closet that he had some guys come in and lay carpet, repaint the room, and add warmer lighting. I guess it works for its purpose, but I hate it.
“How’d it go today?” Hayden’s voice startled me. I had been in such a hurry to leave that I hadn’t noticed him lifting weights in the corner of the gym.
“Good.” My eyes dart to the wall before returning to his, hoping he doesn’t question it further.
“Liar.” A playful smirk curves the side of his lips, and my eyes roll so hard it’s a wonder they didn’t get stuck back there.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Nope,” I say, popping the p. “Where’s Ryder?” I say, trying to deflect the conversation.
“Upstairs last I saw him.”
I purse my lips and nod my thanks, then high-tail it out of the basement before being bombarded with more questions I don’t want to answer.
