Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
The death benefit was one million dollars.
It occurred to me at the time that if anything ever happened to Julia, at least we’d have some money that would help us deal with the loss.
Right.
I’d so much rather have my daughter. I’d give the money back—and everything else I have—in a second to have my little girl.
I can’t answer Angie’s question.
I was able to pay off my student debt because of the death of my daughter.
I was able to pay for top-notch therapy to help Lindsay and me get through everything.
Therapy that only made me angry.
Therapy that didn’t ultimately help Lindsay.
Therapy that stole everything from me.
So yeah, I wish I were still making those wretched student loan payments.
Because if I were, my daughter would still be alive. She’d be six years old, learning to read. Learning to do simple math. Learning to write sentences.
“Are you okay, Jason?”
Angie’s voice jerks me out of my thoughts.
Today’s a good day. Today I have hope. That is why I’m here.
For the first time since I lost Lindsay, I’m attracted to a woman.
It’s a woman I can never have, of course, but the fact that I’m even looking her way means that I’ve at least healed a little.
I’ll never fully move past Julia and Lindsay—no decent person could—but my life is moving forward whether I want it to or not. There’s something nice about the fact that Angie has ignited a spark in me.
“How old are you, Angie?” I ask.
“I’m twenty-three,” she replies.
I hold back a scoff.
A thirteen-year age difference. Just like she said her parents had.
Why am I even thinking this? She’s my student. I was a teenager when this girl was born.
But emotions are swirling through me. All kinds of emotions.
Anger, sharp and hot, mixed with an ache so deep it feels endless. Confusion too, like a fog I can’t see through and a bitter taste of regret. It’s a storm of everything I’ve held back, and now, in this moment, it’s crashing over me all at once. I can barely breathe, barely think.
It’s chaos. Everything I thought I’d buried.
Pure chaos.
A wave of grief overwhelms me, but it’s different this time. Not quite as isolated.
Lindsay would have wanted me to move on, to find someone else.
I glance at Angie again, her wide eyes still shimmering with such innocent curiosity.
I have an urge to share my story, to open up about my past. To let her see the man behind the doctor, behind the professor, the scars that lie beneath the surface.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
I spend my life stuffing it back, and this woman…
This beautiful woman.
This intelligent woman.
This young woman.
She wants to go into psychiatry.
If I tell her my story, she’s going to want to talk about it. Try to analyze me.
The thought of it makes me sick.
I don’t want to be analyzed.
I don’t want to talk about my feelings.
Hell, no.
Sure, I came over here to celebrate.
Celebrate the fact that I might be able to perform surgery again in the future.
But then it hits me.
As I stare at her, anger and rage bubble up within me. Anger and rage at the psychiatrist who couldn’t help me, who ultimately took everything from me.
How do I make that work with the feelings I’m having for Angie?
On the one hand, I want to yell at her, punish her, because she represents the discipline that was supposed to help me, heal me, but didn’t.
And on the other hand—the deep and primal hand that controls my cock, my libido…
I want to grab her.
Kiss her.
Rip her clothes off and fuck her.
Hard, fast, and full of angry passion.
I want two things at once.
To fuck Angie and to punish her. To punish the psychiatrist who failed me.
But also take her, open myself up to a woman in a way I haven’t for three long fucking years.
And I shouldn’t do any of it.
Hell, she may tell me to leave when I tell her what I want.
She’ll be well within her rights, and it would be the best thing for both of us.
I finish my sandwich, swallowing the last bite. I wipe the crumbs off my lips with my napkin and down the last of my wine.
Her glass of wine is still half-full, sandwich half-eaten, but her soup bowl is empty, as is mine.
“Would you like another sandwich?” she asks.
I shake my head, never taking my gaze from hers.
“More wine? Soup?” she asks, her voice softer this time.
I shake my head, again, never taking my eyes from hers.
Her eyes are deep pools of mystery, unreadable and endless. They pull me in. Just staring into them feels like falling, like slipping into a place where nothing is certain, and everything is possible.
Fuck.
What a metaphor for my life right now.
Where nothing is certain…
But for the first time in a long time…where everything is possible.
“No thank you,” I say.