“Friendship, then.”
“Damn right.”
His eyes searched my face, and he smiled softly, his fingers rising as if showing he was harmless. “I did notice you were insistent that I call your relationship with Cade a friendship, but didn’t do the same for Isaac.”
My tugging on the thread stopped, and I stared at him. “So?”
“Just an observation,” he said, but when I narrowed my eyes further, he sighed and nodded. “I don’t want to assume, but it seems like your relationship with Isaac is markedly different than the one you have with Cade. Do you want to speak about that?”
“No,” I said, frowning heavily, before I pictured the happy look on Isaac’s face a few days ago when I’d admitted I no longerwanted to sleep with other people because I had him. And even then, he hadn’t for a moment thought it was because I wanted to only have sex with him, or at least that it was about the sex. It definitely had been about sex later that day, because, boy, had he delivered on his promise of me getting laid that night, but...it was more than that. So, I sighed and pivoted slightly. “Maybe.”
“Okay,” the doctor said with a smile. “Then why might it be different?”
“I don’t know, becausehe’sdifferent,” I said grumpily, realizing I didn’t want to keep having this conversation but knowing I was in too deep to stop.
“How?”
“Huh?”
“How is he different from Cade?”
“Because he puts out?” I shot out and then grimaced, hating how basic and degrading that sounded, but I’d already said it, so I could double down and stick to it, or I was officially in a position where I had to say more despite trying to avoid just that. “Because he’s...I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“I do.”
“Then you don’t want to say.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“You did ask me to ask a question.”
“Aquestion,” I pointed out, but I had to admit he had a point, and with a groan, I tried to be more honest. “I don’t know, because they’re alike in a lot of ways, but different. And I feel a lot of the same things for them, but it’s also different.”
“How so?”
“I...” I frowned. “They both make me remember how to be kind to people. To remember that other people have gonethrough fucked up shit, not just me, and just because I’m fucked in the head doesn’t mean I should let other people be fucked in the head...or at least, not alone. I want to be there for them, even though Isaac has his shit together more than Cade and me, that’s for sure.”
“What makes you say that?” he asked, and I felt my face twitch at the repeated questioning.
“Actually, I don’t know if he does. I mean, hedoes, but he’s also got a lot of things locked away in that pretty head of his, that I don't think I’m ever going to understand.” I heard myself admit it, realized what I said, and had to keep going. “He’s just... He’s got such a level head. He knows how to deal with people, he knows how to make people feel special, but he’s been trying too hard to like?—”
Dr. Ramirez stared at me, and I squirmed until he said, “You’re holding back again. Why?”
“Because I don’t want to talk about his business,” I muttered.
“Okay,” he said easily, leaning forward. “Then why don’t you tell me what you think is going on with him. Not what you know, not what you’ve been told, but what you think.”
“That he wasn’t nearly as fucked up as he thought,” I said with a shake of my head. “That he’s actually got a chance to get through this place and be considered a success. All he was afraid of was that he was losing himself because of what he did before, but...I think he just needed to be free from it for a while, and be...I guess free from the world for a bit. He’s figuring his shit out.”
“And you don’t think you can make the same claim,” he said softly.
I stared at him, frowning. “No, I don’t. And before you ask why, it’s because what’s wrong with me is worse. I mean, yeah, ha ha, dead family, of course it’s worse, but?—”
