And it was accompanied by eye rolling of the highest order.
“Oh god, the dreaded circle of plastic chairs.”
“And the group leader wore socks with sandals.”
“Lord, why do they always have to wear socks with sandals?”
“Plus, of course, every single person stared at me, throughout,” Lydia said.
Then immediately wanted to take it back. That waswaytoo close to her real feelings.In fact, when she said the words the sense of everyone watching her came flooding back.
But luckily, Letty didn’t notice. Or, at least, she pretended not to.
She just sipped her cocoa and shook her head, then said in that withering tone Lydia liked best, “I can’t imagine anything else in this hellish nightmare, to be honest.”
“Then to cap it off, the coffee was pure evil.”
“Well, to be fair, Ididwarn you about the coffee.”
Lydia nudged her friend, with the tip of her sneaker. “You said it was usually weak and too bitter at group therapy things. You didn’t say it would taste like milk from a zombie’s tit.”
“Yeah, but that’s because onlyyoucould come up with such a majestic description.”
Lydia laughed, at that. A real laugh, too.
Or at least, as real as her laughs got, now.
“Confession: Ididspend the bus ride across campus trying to think it up.”
“And that is the main reason why I adore you.”
“Thank god. Because I think the other reasons are all gone.”
Silence fell, then. A thick silence that made her want to take back the words.
But Letty swooped in before she could.”They’re not really gone at all—they’re just buried.Somethingwill help you find those parts of yourself again,” she said, and the strangest thing happened when she did. For once, Lydia didn’t feel like rolling her eyes. She didn’t want to tell Letty no, or maybe disappear before frustration made her cry. Instead, she thought of one thing.
The guy from the meeting.
The one with the forcefield.
He was thesomething, she knew.
Now she just had to work up the courage to ask.
Chapter Two
Lydia fully intended to go up to him, the second she got to the meeting. But then she actually saw him across the already crowded room, and the sheer stupidity of the idea smacked her clean in the face. They were total strangers. He literally did not know her from Adam.
She could have been a complete psycho, for all he knew.
And even if he—by some miracle—welcomed her questions, right now, she couldn’t think of a single reasonable one.I was wondering if you could tell me how you dodged that girl’s handso effortlesslyseemed intrusive.Could you possibly share forcefield tipssoundedinsane.
There was no way she could do this.
She couldn’t even meet his gaze, truth be told. He turned his head just as she found him amongst the crowd, and she immediately pretended something else had caught her eye. There was a sign above his head about good oral hygiene, of all things, and she focused on that, instead. She focused on everything and anything in the room, except for him.
And it worked.
