Remembering Phoenix (20 page)

“You haven’t come for a visit in a while.” Dr. White studies my demeanor, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “What’s brought you in after a six-month hiatus?”

Therapists are supposed to help you with your problems, right? I always feel like he does nothing but make me talk about them. I guess that’s the whole point. Maybe.

I don’t even know why I’m here.

Lies.
I know exactly why I’m here.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “Everything.”

“So,” he crosses his legs, grabbing a hold of his penny loafers with his left hand, “is it nothing or everything that’s brought you into my office?”

I bring my legs up, sitting Indian style on the couch. My mind drifts to the last time I kissed Slayter. The night I told him I didn’t need him…

“Do what?” he asks. I know he’s staring at me, those gray eyes yelling at me despite his soft, husky voice right now. I can’t look at him, though. If I do, I’ll crack. And I can’t do that.

“I’m not the girl for you, Slayter. I can’t give you what you want. What you deserve.” My eyes dance around, eyeing the carpet lining my hallway.

“What I deserve?” he laughs, pain dripping from his voice. “What I deserve is whatever the hell I want.” He takes a step closer. My heartbeat accelerates more rapidly from his closeness. He could reach out a finger and touch me. “And what I want is you.”

“You can’t have me,” I lie. He can have me if I just let him, but I’m so confused with everything at this point, I don’t know which move is wrong and which move is right.

“I’m not asking you to love me, Charlie. I’m not getting down on one knee and asking you to fucking marry me. I’m just asking for you. Any part of you you’re willing to give me is enough for me. You’re enough for me.” His voice grows louder, and tears form in my eyes at the pain I’m causing him. The pain I’m causing me.

“I’m not anywhere near enough,” I whisper. I keep my hands busy, toying with my robe. “I’ll never be enough for a guy like you. I wasn’t enough to be a mother. And you deserve more than just enough, anyway. You deserve someone whole, someone who can give you the entirety of their being. I can’t give you that. I can’t give you my heart, because I don’t even think I have it to give.”

The reality of that sentence hits me like a freight train, ripping into my body right where my heart should lie. I don’t have it to give because it’s already been taken, unwillingly plucked from the confines of its home, and firmly planted into the hands of the man in front of me.

I didn’t want it to happen. I don’t want it to happen. Because how can I love someone when I don’t even love myself? I can’t. That’s why this needs to stop, and it needs to stop now. If I let myself continue this, leading him down a path of darkness, it’ll only hurt us both.

There needs to be as little casualties as possible, and this time it should only be me.

“That’s bullshit!” He slaps his hand against the wall, causing me to flinch. He groans from deep
inside h
is throat as the anger bellows within him.

I don’t blame him.

I’m mad at me, too.

I push everyone away.

And I’m about to push the only person who’s ever made me feel something other than sadness right out that door.

I’m not running, but I might as well be. Hiding is the exact same thing.

I’m hiding from my feelings. I’m hiding from the truth.

“Go home, Slayter.” I force the words out, causing every muscle in my body to want to rebel against me, throwing myself in his arms.

“No.” His voice is demanding. Authoritative. My eyes shoot up to him. He glares down at me, his jaw tight, full of tension. I can see the anger swirled with an intense mixture of pain in his eyes.

I know doing this is going to hurt both of us, but I can’t do this anymore. Allowing him to continue this will only make him believe that someday I’ll be able to give him every last piece of me. I can’t do that when I can’t decipher my own feelings. I can’t do that when I know I’ll never have every last piece of me to give.

I can feel it, the darkness waiting just up ahead, begging for me to enter.

I let my eyes study over Slayter’s features—his strong jaw and four-day old stubble. His gorgeous eyes silently beg for me to not do this.

But I have to.

I force the word out. “Leave.”

He breathes out slowly. “Don’t run, Charlie.”

“I’m not running anywhere.” I clench my teeth, forcing the anger I feel toward myself to emanate in his direction. “I’m telling you to leave my house. I don’t need you trying to save me.”

“I’m not trying—“

“Leave!” I flail my arm towards the door. Tears threaten to fall from my eyes, but I won’t let them. “I’m not a charity case. You can go on about your life, now.”

“Charity case?” He huffs. “You think you are a charity case for me?” He laughs, placing his hands on top of his head. “You’ve got it so damn wrong. So wrong.”

“The only thing I ever had wrong was thinking that it was okay to open myself up to you. I shouldn’t have and it was a huge mistake.” I take a deep breath, trying to calm every emotion swirling inside of me. Ironically, I wish to forget all about Slayter Beck. Maybe then my heart wouldn’t hurt this bad. “Now get the hell out.”

“Fine.” His head leans down slightly. His voice becomes deeper. “I’ll walk away right now, but know that doesn’t mean I’m walking away from you. When you need someone to help pull you out from under, call me. You might have given up on yourself a long time ago, but I never will. Because whether you like it or not, I’ve got you, Charlie.”

He leans down, and before I have time to do anything, he kisses me. He kisses me like I’m the oxygen in his lungs.

The last straw snaps as his tongue glides out from my lips, leaving me with a sense of emptiness I haven’t felt since he etched himself into my being.

I’m snuffing out my light. The darkness never looked so inviting.

I squeeze my eyes shut, refusing to let all my emotions free in this room.

“Charlie. Is it nothing or everything?” Dr. White repeats.

“Everything.” I chew at the inside of my cheek nervously as he jots down notes on his pad of paper. I always feel so vulnerable in here. It’s a place of safety. A place I’m supposed to be able to lay everything out with no judgment. Yet when I’m in this room, on this hideous couch, I feel… judged.

“Can you elaborate on everything for me?”

We have a staring match for a moment before I succumb. I’m paying for this visit, after all.
Way to do this to yourself, Charlie.
“Sure. Why not,” I finally reply. “Well nothing has progressed, in terms of remembering.” I pause. “But my love life has, I guess you could say. Meaning I’ve actually attempted to put myself out there. I truly think I could really love someone. But I feel so guilty for having any sort of happiness. So I ran. Well, I really didn’t run. I hid. I pushed him out.” I shake my head, looking down at my chipped black polish. “That probably makes no sense.”

“It makes complete sense,” he retorts. “This is good. I already see progress from your previous visits. I usually have to pry your emotions out.”

“Yeah, well….” My voice fades, my sentence hanging in the balance.

“Now, what’s special about this love interest?”

“Everything.” When I say the word out loud, I regret it. The ache in my chest from Slayter’s absence instantly grows. He’s like a malignant tumor. I want him to leave my body, but his presence grows no matter how hard I try to ignore it. I try to shut myself off from spewing my truth, but I’m full of word vomit today. “It’s how he accepts me, brokenness and all. He doesn’t shy away at my memory loss. He doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile, instead like I’m strong.”
But I’m not.

“You are strong, Charlie. You have to believe that.”

I look up at Dr. White as he glares at me over his eye glasses. “I don’t feel strong. I feel quite the opposite, actually. But with Slayter, he gives, no, he gave me a sense of life I have never known.”
Which is why I pushed him away.

I haven’t seen or talked to Slayter in weeks, successfully ignoring his calls and texts. I managed to dodge seeing him when I bid Lizzie farewell at the airport. I’ve managed to not drink myself into oblivion over him. Instead, I drown myself in work, keeping myself busy with sessions and editing instead of busy with thoughts of him. It only works half of the time.

“And what about that scares you?”

“I didn’t say it scares me.”
It most definitely scares me.

“But it does, doesn’t it?” he asks, like he doesn’t already know the answer.

“Yes.”

“So, what about it scares you?” he prods again. His voice louder this time, demanding of an answer.

I throw my head back on the floral print couch and stare off at the ceiling tiles. “I’m not as much scared as I am full of guilt.”

“Guilty for being happy?”

I snap my head back down, meeting his stare. “Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?”

“You need to admit the things that weigh you down, Charlie.”

“Fine,” I state, rather coldly. “Yes, I feel guilty. Why do I deserve to have an ounce of happiness when my son is buried six feet under? He should be here. Then I wouldn’t have to live every day wishing I could remember him.”

“You’re not dead, Charlie. Why should you pretend like you are? Phoenix passed away. I know that, on top of your brain trauma, is a huge burden to bear, but you can’t stop living. Your son wouldn’t have wanted that.”

I stand up abruptly, pissed off that he thinks he
knows
what my son would have wanted. He was four years old, for Christ sake. He should be living and learning and laughing. “Thanks for wasting my time. Don’t expect to see me again after this visit.” I grab my clutch, walking towards the office door.

“Charlie,” he calls out. My hand freezes on the knob. “Don’t die before you’re dead.”

I nod my head once, tears brimming my eyes, and walk out of Dr. White’s office for the very last time.

I fling my hard hat across the floor of the on-site office. “This is bullshit, Paul.” I flail my arms towards the door. “That out there is a huge cluster fuck. We should have been doing a final run through. Not still a week out from completion. Over schedule means over budget.” I take a deep breath, needing to calm my nerves.

“I’ve got it taken care of, Beck.”

“Taken care of?” I seethe. “This doesn’t look like it’s taken care of to me.”

He slams his fist on the desk before sticking his finger in my face, his dark brown eyes glaring at me. Hot anger boils in the atmosphere. “You think I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing? You think I haven’t been working at this son of a bitch longer than you have? Twenty years, Slayter. Twenty years I’ve been helping your Pop and Glenn run this show. I fired the bastard who was lolling around, not doing his job. So yeah, I got this shit.”

He stares at me, japing off shit in Spanish I’ll never understand. Every time he gets heated, his Spanish pops out, knowing damn well I can’t understand him. I guess that’s why he does it. It pisses me off.

“English, Paul,” I grit out.

He shakes his head, sitting down in the chair. After a few moments of both of us cooling off, he finally says, “We were able to cut back spending by getting a new subcontractor. We’ll still be over budget, but not enough that will take us out. And we have this quick reno coming up that will be easy money.” He throws his stack of papers at me, and I take a look. Eyeing the numbers over makes my head hurt. I haven’t been able to fully concentrate on anything in the past few weeks. Charlie takes up every thought I have.

It’s driving me crazy.

She’s
driving me crazy.

I worry about her, and I can’t help it. I try not to care, because why should I, when she chose to push me out? But, no matter how many times I tell myself to forget about her, my damn heart won’t listen.