Body Shot (Tapped Out) (6 page)

“But not you.”

“I don’t like getting hot when I sleep.” I pushed to my feet. “Look, Doc, awesome sesh. I’ll see you next—” Lifetime. Century. Millennia. “Week,” I finished, bending to grab my backpack.

Dr. Phelps rose. “I’d like to ask you again to reconsider having Tray join us.”

I stopped dead and shot her a glare over my shoulder. “Why? He’s fine. He’s not like me.” No one was.

“I think your relationship could benefit from couples’ counseling. What one partner endures affects the other. You said he went through some troubles of his own. Perhaps if you shared your difficulties together, you could reach a new level of understanding. With my help, of course.”

“No. He’d never do it. He’s fine,” I repeated. “He’s annoyingly well-adjusted, even with his ‘difficulties’.”

“He’s your touchstone, Mia. I truly think any breakthrough you achieve would be facilitated by his involvement.”

“You just want to tell him I mentioned fighting again. I’m not stupid.” I hitched up my backpack and headed for the door.

“Mia, constantly deflecting blows that aren’t intended will hinder your recovery.”

Fighting metaphors and a mention of my “recovery”—who the fuck
recovered
from being imprisoned in a pretty cage at fourteen, I wanted to know—were a recipe to send me slamming out of Dr. Phelps’ beige wonderland.

I’d be back. She knew it. I knew it. But still, we played the game.

On the way out of the building, I stopped in the ladies’ restroom. It was a lovely purple with sweet-smelling soap and creamy lotion for hands stressed from the rigors of digging into broken brains and hearts. I bypassed the fancy female stuff and dug out dark red lipstick and eyeliner from my bag. I’d taken to wearing them occasionally, mainly because I knew Tray liked it when I wore girlpaint. He never actually said. He wouldn’t. So I did it for him, in my own way.

I layered the makeup on until my eyes appeared soaked in black. Rubbed the lipstick over my lips until they swelled from the pressure.

A quick look in the mirror proved I looked badass on the outside though I felt positively numb inside. But appearances were important. Sometimes the most loving thing you could do for someone you cared about was to act as if you were okay. If you made them believe the cracks you’d sewn together with cheap thread were holding, maybe eventually the lie could become truth.

I capped the tubes and marched out, head held high, chest still so tight that I didn’t dare take a deep breath for fear my ribs might shatter.

Out on the street, I hailed a cab. Tray was probably still studying his huge stack of science books in the library but he’d be home sooner rather than later. Just to be safe, I wouldn’t take the time to walk home in case he left school early. It wasn’t much, but at least I could be physically present for him if not always emotionally.

As the cab swung to the curb, my phone went off in my bag. A text ringtone, not a call. My stomach dropped to my sneakers. Shit. It wasn’t the right time for my hang-up caller. They called religiously between eight and nine a.m. and eight and nine p.m. I’d learned to keep my phone off at those times. So maybe it was Tray.

Just like that, my muscles unlocked and warmth surged through my general heart area. I still wasn’t fully convinced I had one. Maybe the whole concept of that organ was an urban legend, built to give girls like me something else to feel inadequate about.

Like I didn’t have enough.

The cabbie leaned across the passenger seat. “Hey lady, you getting in or what?”

Ignoring him, I grabbed my phone and read the text from an unknown caller. My hang-up caller was also unknown but this was a new number. The three-word-message blurred under my intense focus, but it repeated in my head even when my eyes went blind.

I see you
.

Before I could do anything except make the text disappear from my screen, another one came in. I breathed through my mouth, nearly panting, until I saw the new message was from Tray.

I can make dinner. You on your way home?

Home
. As if we were a normal couple with a normal life and a normal dinner routine. My thumbs moved to reply before I stopped them. Dammit, no. I couldn’t keep pretending I was the little woman. Clearly I had issues the usual girls he dated didn’t.

Like stalkers and a past so lurid that reporters had chased me for weeks, trying to get me to tell my side of the story.

Except there weren’t two sides to this one. Darren was dead by my hand. Darren, the gorgeous monster who’d kidnapped me and made me live in a mansion and dressed me like a doll in gorgeous clothes for three interminable months. I’d had sex with him and sometimes I’d even come. I was
that
girl, utterly fucked in the body and the head and everywhere in between.

Tray acting like I was a regular chick didn’t make it so.

I loved that he wanted to make dinner, but if I made myself available to him constantly, I would lose the version of myself that I’d fought so hard to reclaim. It was already happening. Next thing I knew I’d start buying tanks topped with lace, for fuck’s sake. I’d skip shelf bras for push-up ones that made my tits look like airborne missiles.

The bottom line was I wouldn’t be what he wanted forever. I still couldn’t figure out how I’d been what he wanted even for a moment. Maybe I’d been able to pretend for a while that we could be a regular couple, even with our unusual interests. But those phone calls had reminded me swiftly that
regular
would never be a part of my vocabulary. And if I didn’t retain my sense of self, how would I pick up the pieces when he went away?

The cabbie sighed. “Lady, the meter’s running. You in or out?”

I needed to go somewhere just for me. Do something I wanted without checking in with anyone first. I didn’t have money to waste, but I had to get this frustration and helplessness out in a way that wasn’t fighting or fucking or therapy. That limited my options to exactly one.

“I’m in.” I tucked my phone in my backpack and slipped inside the cab. “Take me to Underground Ink.”

T
AKEDOWN
, book 1.5 in the Tapped Out series, the story of Slater’s brother Liam Walsh and Abby Sinclair.

U
p next
, a new Mia and Tray novel, SNEAK ATTACK, book 2 in the Tapped Out series, will be available May 29, 2015.

A
fter that
, Carly and Giovanni’s story, ON THE ROPES, book 3 in the Tapped Out series, will be available July 1, 2015.