My throat feels dry, and my hands are cold, clammy almost. When I look back at Dr. Richards, I find him watching me carefully, a gentle smile on his face. It’s enough to get me talking, at least a little bit. “I’ve just been feeling off.”
Dr. Richards nods his head. “Like before?”
I’m already shaking my head because it’s not like it was before, not like the beginning. “No, it’s different, but I don’t know how to explain it.”
His bushy eyebrows furrow together in concentration, and he reaches for a pen in front of him like he’s going to take notes or something. That somehow makes me even more nervous. “I see.How about we just start at the beginning. When’s the first time you felt… off?”
“Shortly after our last appointment.” I keep my answer short because I’m scared that if I open my mouth they are going to want to lock me up in the loony bin.
“And what did you feel exactly?” He hasn’t written anything down yet. Maybe that’s a good sign.
I swallow thickly, deciding right then and there to just lay it all out in front of him. Worst case, I end up in the psych ward for a few days; best case, I get a reasonable explanation for all the weird shit that’s been happening to me. “Tingling up my spine, like someone was there but there was no one.”
When his eyes don’t bug out of his head from how crazy I sound, I continue. “Then there was this weird episode in an ice cream parlor where I smelled orange cream soda and it was like I was transported to a different time and place. Weird dreams that feel real but aren’t my own, and the other night—”
I feel like I’m rambling, spilling secrets that I shouldn’t, and when the doctor’s eyebrows do raise and he drops his pen onto the desk, I know I need to stop. To somehow suck it all back in, take back every word spoken, but that’s not what I do. No, I continue like an idiot.
“I heard a voice. A female’s voice, one that was panicked and loud. She demanded my attention, but here’s the kicker: I was alone.”
My mother gasps, and Dr. Richards looks shocked. Like well and truly shocked from what just came out of my mouth.
“Millie! What in the—” A nervous gasp leaves her lips before she turns her attention to the doctor. Her grip on my hand tightens ever so slightly. “My apologies, I didn’t realize the amount of stress my daughter must be under.”
Dr. Richards’s mouth hangs open slightly, like he’s at a loss for words, before quickly recovering and nodding his headvigorously. “Yes, yes, of course. That’s totally understandable.” Then he reaches for his pen once more and starts scribbling on a piece of paper. “I know a great psychologist. He can definitely help with these feelings of being overwhelmed.”
Once he’s done scribbling on the paper, he looks up. Worry glints across his face for a split second, but it’s long enough for me to catch it. A gnawing pit grows in my stomach. Maybe something really is wrong with me. From the looks of it, Dr. Richards is more than a little concerned. “It’s imperative that you speak with him, Millie. These feelings that you are having can grow into something much bigger, and less manageable.”
When my mother shifts in discomfort, the doctor hurries to continue. “But rest assured, this is all still perfectly normal. Millie has gone through an instrumental change, and sometimes those changes are more than we can process on our own.”
His words seem to comfort my mother but do little to comfort me. His pacifying smile only reinforces my unease.
We leave the doctor’s office in silence. My mom is probably still reeling from all the shit I just metaphorically dumped in front of a medical professional instead of coming to her first, which in hindsight I should have done.
Now I’m stuck seeing a shrink, and my mom is going into full-blown protective mode.
Like they say, hindsight’s twenty-twenty.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rowan
The sound of the nail biting into the wood usually soothes me, but today it does little to ease the sinking feeling in my gut.
Millie isn’t answering. I was hoping when I showed up to the job site this morning that she would be waiting and there would be some reasonable excuse for her not returning my texts or calls for the past three days.
Like maybe her phone fell into a toilet and it’s sitting in a rice bag drying out. Or maybe it got run over by a car and she’s waiting for a replacement.
But as the morning drags on, it’s becoming more and more clear that Millie isn’t going to show and that she’s most likely avoiding my phone calls.
Whichreally, really freaking sucksbecause I’ve come to realize just how much I like Millie St. James. I was lying tomyself before. All that stuff about just wanting to be friends was a weak excuse to run and hide from the feelings that have been brewing in my chest since the moment I saw her and she offered me that dang water bottle.
Finally admitting the truth has been liberating in a sense, but mostly scary as hell. I feel like I’ve already screwed this up so bad that I won’t ever have the chance to make it out of the friendship zone I put myself in.
And at this point, I feel like I’ve screwed that up too. I put the nail gun down and reach into my pocket, pulling out my phone. No texts, no calls.
Not for the first time, I start to worry that maybe something has happened to her. Maybe she’s sick or—my eyes slam shut at the intrusive thought.Fuck, what if it’s something with her heart?
Those thoughts are the ones that freak me out the most because I don’t know what to do with them. Do I reach out to her parents? Stop by her house? I told myself if she didn’t show this morning that I would go over to her place and figure out what’s going on, one way or another.
