“Listen, I’m sure you’re lovely and wonderful and a lot of fun. But I don’t like that woman. I’m simply making sure she doesn’t make any stupid decisions that get her in trouble.”
“Why would you do that?” She withdraws, scoffing.
“She’s my receptionist.”
She rolls her eyes, and it’s not until she heads toward Mia and not the original table she came from that I realize my mistake. Women supporting women—I’m totally here for it. Keep each other safe, make sure you’re all aware of the dangers. But I’m not a danger; I’m just a self-diagnosed idiot.
The woman marches straight to Mia, whispering in her ear and then pointing directly at me. Maybe she’ll be happy to see me, happy that I want to keep her safe and—oh, nope. She’s furious. Of course.
She storms over, blue eyes blazing like the hottest part of a flame, ready to incinerate me.
“Why the fuck do you keep calling me your receptionist? My title is office manager, and I do a hell of a lot more than answer your goddamn phones, Alfie, so stop insulting me and go home.”
That’s what she’s upset about? Not that I have turned up for the second time this evening to her location. It concerns me thatshe’snot concerned. Any smart woman like herself surely would see that as a red flag. I should be more worried, but she called me Alfie again after nearly a week of Dr. Adams, and I can’t fight the small tug at my lips.
“Don’t fucking laugh right now.”
“I’m not.” I hold my hands up in surrender. “It’s getting late, and I need to get to bed. Are you coming?”
“Wh-what? No, I'm not coming.” Her eyes are wide as they dip to my lips. She’s tipsy at the very least, and that question could have been construed in multiple ways. I didn’t mean, is she coming to bewith me. I meant, is she coming so I can drop her home first. But isn’t it funny that little Miss Sinclair’s first thought was that I was asking her to come to bed with me?
“I’ll drive you home. It’s late, and I need to go to bed.”
“So go to bed.”
“Mia, please. I’m begging you. I know you’re only twenty-eight. But I’m thirty-five. I can’t do this. I’m tired. So let’s stop playing this game. You can stop throwing your tantrum, and I can get some sleep so I don’t have to down six cups of coffee and give myself heartburn tomorrow.”
“You think I’m throwing a tantrum?”
“You literally ran away from our conversation earlier.”
“Me stepping away from a toxic boss who is, not for the first time, impeding on my personal time, is not a tantrum. It’s setting boundaries. And I’m going to tell you now, Dr. Adams—" she pokes a finger into my chest, “—you can go fuck yourself.”
She stalks out of the bar, and I get three bruising scowls from the guys at the bar she had been flirting with. At least we’re all being punished, and I don’t have to watch her leave with one or all of them.
???
Helen, my patient, sits quietly on the couch as I try to keep my strained eyes open. I’m exhausted. Three cups of coffee, and by my count, twelve scowls from Mia, and it’s only three p.m. It doesn’t help that photos of us arguing at the bar from last night are circulating online thanks to my local celebrity status. It doesn’t paint a great picture of Mia, who is jabbing her finger into my chest, screaming as I look perpetually exhausted. It’s not what she’s like at all, and I hate that I’m dragging her into this mess even further, especially now the media thinks we’re dating.
I need to fix this quickly.
“I think I will go on that date on Friday,” Helen finally says.
“Tell me your concerns about going.”
She thinks for a moment. “I’m worried that he sees me as an easy mark because he knows what I went through with Trevor.”
I shift in my seat. “You feel that he’s targeting you?”
“Yes and no. When I take my feelings out of the equation, I think he’s a wonderful person, and I’m glad to have him in my life. He knew Trevor, knew how he treated me and helped me on numerous occasions. He was even a witness at Trevor’s trial.”
Helen’s ex-husband was incredibly abusive. Physically, emotionally, financially. She was a shell of a person when she started sessions with me eighteen months ago. She didn’t even want to have the door closed, so we kept it open and made sureher session was the last one of the day so there were no other patients around, just Mia.
Eventually, I started inching the door closed more and more until one day about six months ago. I closed it, and she didn’t notice. We’ve kept it closed ever since.
I assumed that Helen learning to trust people again would be the hardest part of her recovery, but it wasn’t. Learning to trustherselfhas been. Her own judgment, her own gut feeling. Because her ex-husband controlled every thought she had about herself and others. She was completely under his control, and it’s hard for her to think for herself.
So when her neighbor, Andrew, started spending more and more time with her, she waited for the penny to drop. Waiting for his true colors to show. And who can blame her?
