“You can smile. You don’t need to use your fingers to demonstrate.”
I drop my hands, feeling a flush of heat in my cheeks. “I was trying to demonstrate to the dog.”
“The smiling one?”
“Indeed.” I side-eye Charlie. “I just started liking you.”
He huffs and drops down behind the couch.
“Okay, so new homework,” Gail declares, signaling the end of our session. Clearly, I passed this week’s therapy level in record time. Go me.
“I want you to journal.”
I scrunch up my face. “We covered this way, way back. I don’t even like talking about my feelings, never mind immortalizing them for all time in a flimsy and easily found book.”
“Then journal on your computer. Do it somewhere, Ellie.”
“No.”
“Why? You came in front of a man, yet you won’t expose your feelings where no one will ever see them?”
“Ask me for something else.”
“You can’t say no if I change it, Ellie.”
What could be worse? The woman asked me to bare my soul on paper. It’s not that someone might find it, especially if it’s on my computer. It’s the fact I will have to face my emotions daily and dissect them without Gail to act as my buffer. My immediate future consists of fake dating a man I may actually trust, having ridiculously deep conversations with a dog I know doesn’t understand me, and being hunted by a monster while I stalk another one into his grave. My feelings are best left where they normally are—buried deep, deep down beneath the pain and thefear threatening to consume me from the inside out. My feelings won’t stop Jonathan. They won’t redeem my brother, or make Christopher wake up to the fact he is a horrific human being. They won’t save the countless lives my cold hard logic will, and they definitely won’t give me a future with a man I don’t deserve.
Wait. Where did that come from?
This is why I can’t start staring at a page full of words, full of emotion. It would snowball. I’m not capable of loving someone. Not anymore. Jonathan extinguished that with my mother’s dying breath, which also means no one can love me. You cannot fall for someone who can’t feel. It’s impossible. Be attracted to? Sure. That is hardwired chemistry, engineered to make us breed, forcing us to continue to evolve and rule this planet we are intent on ruining. My genetic line ends with me. I’m broken. No need to pass that down to a child or bring them into a world with a mother who isn’t capable of giving them the life they deserve.
“Hit me.”
“You sure? It’s not too late to take the journal option.”
“I’m curious now, so no.”
“I want you to spend one hour with Hunter.”
A weight lifts off my shoulders as I release a breath. “Done.” It’s hardly a stretch since I’m temporarily living here.
“Every day.”
“Okay…” Still not following why this would be making Gail use her gentle voice.
“But that hour needs to be doing something couple-like.”
My nose scrunches up. “Couple-like? Like sex? I feel like that would cross the fake dating line.”
“No, not sex, unless that’s something you want. I’m not stopping you.”
Sex with Hunter isn’t exactly a turn off, which in itself is a red flag. “I’m not following.”
“Go shopping. Go on a date. Watch a movie. Play a game. Read together. Walk Charlie. Cook together. You know, couple things.”
I do not know, but this all sounds horrific. I take it back. “Is it too?—”
“Yup, the journal ship has sailed. I’ll check in with you in a few days. Happy fake dating, Ellie!”
