Driving Me Mad (6 page)

I reach over and take her
hand. “Hey, you’re forgetting something pretty important.” She
stares and waits for me to continue. “It’s not always going to be
like this.” It’s what I keep telling myself, too. Before I can keep
talking, she interrupts.

“It’s not always going to be
good either, Trace. How am I supposed to handle the bad days? I
doubt an employer will be understanding.”

“One day at a time.”

The waitress comes with our
soups. The moment she steps away, Brittany says, “I don’t want to
talk about it anymore. Particularly because you look like you want
to give me a lecture, which means you’re in therapist mode, and we
don’t want to go there. So.” She takes a deep breath. “Bec and I
are planning to do that, and hopefully, it’ll work out. My parents
have offered to help me out until I land a job. Sometimes, I wonder
how I managed to get so lucky in the parent department. Is your dad
supportive too?”

I shift uncomfortably in my
seat. How am I supposed to tell her? To buy time, I eat another
spoonful of soup. It seems I’ll just have to say it because I don’t
know how else to do it. Clearing my throat, I say, “He probably
would be if he knew.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“Why?” She looks perplexed. I
can’t blame her.

“My problems started while in
college. I didn’t have to tell him and I never did.”

Her eyes are full of sadness.
“Trace,” she whispers.

“Don’t,” I interrupt, my
voice firm. I know that tone. That’s the exact same tone I use when
I say Britt.

“But he should know.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m
dying; I have trouble living sometimes, Brittany. I know how to
take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for quite some time. I
don’t want to tell him and I don’t have to, so I won’t.”

“Then who is your support
system?” she pushes.

I sigh. “Leave it alone.”
There’s more to the story than me not wanting to tell my father
because I don’t want to worry him and because I don’t like talking
about my problems. That is not something I want to get into today
with her, though.

Brittany nods, but I know she
isn’t happy about it. Now, more than before, I’m ready to go home
and crash. We finish our soups and I pay our bill. When we walk
outside, snowflakes are steadily falling. Brittany tilts her head
back, her eyes closed as the fat, fluffy flakes fall onto her
face.

“I didn’t know it was going
to snow,” she says.

“Me either.” We’re downtown,
and thanks to not really wanting to do what I originally had
planned, I decide to come up with a new plan. “Let’s walk.”

She wraps her arms around my
arm, leans her head against it, and we begin to walk. “Is this what
you had planned? Walking around town in the snow? Sounds lazy and
uncreative,” she teases.

“We’ll do what I had planned
another day,” I promise.

We walk silently, the
coldness slowly seeping back into my bones as the snow sways to the
ground. Every so often, we’ll stop as Brittany does a little window
shopping. The ground quickly gains a layer of snow.

“We should go before the
roads get bad,” Brittany suggests, turning us around to walk back
toward the restaurant. For North Carolina, the roads are already
bad. They were considered bad with the first snowflake in the sky.
“Are you okay, Trace?”

“Yeah.”

“Ready to get home, aren’t
you?”

“Yeah.” This time, I sigh.
“But I’m still enjoying being with you.” We stop on the passenger
side of my car and Brittany faces me, tilting her head back to look
at me. Her eyes betray her worries while her cheeks, nose, and lips
are red from the cold. I wrap my arms around her and tug her
against me to help warm her up. “Stop whatever you’re
thinking.”

A wry smile stretches her
lips. “What makes you think I was thinking?”

I laugh. “Because I know you
better than you think I do.”

Her lips purse, drawing my
attention. “Then what am I thinking now?”

The same thing I’m thinking.
Without a word, I lean down to press my mouth to hers. Our cold
skin is oddly a bit of a turn-on, especially when the longer I kiss
her and the deeper the kiss goes, the warmer we get. I’ve been
thinking about this girl for a long time. I’ve wanted her and
didn’t have her for far too long. Brittany lifts onto her tiptoes,
her arms snaking around my neck, but it’s the way her body brushes
against mine that causes me to groan.

A strong, frigid gust of wind
causes me to pull away from her.

“Let’s get you back to
campus.”

“One more,” she whispers.

I grin before kissing her
again.

My mind seems to check out
after that. I take her back to campus, kiss her one last time, and
then head home. I shower before crawling into bed, taking one of my
sleeping pills. I can’t help but think about my mom. She’s the
reason why I refuse to tell my dad about my depression. After all
these years, her death still haunts us. Him more so than me.

If I were to tell him, he’d
start having flashbacks and comparing me to my mother. It took him
a while to remarry, to be happy again, and I’m not going to be the
one to take that away from him. And I would if I told him because
he’d be too busy calling me daily and worrying about me. He’d
probably want me to move back to Texas. There’s no way I can do
that.

All I can do now is hope that
Brittany lets it go. This whole two-way street thing is kind of
hard. I’m used to not sharing my troubles with anyone else. That
could be one reason why my marriage failed. Faith didn’t know what
she was getting herself into. We did move rather fast. My lack of
wanting to talk and her not knowing what the hell was going on with
me could be what started our problems, which eventually led her to
cheat.

I close my eyes and try to
stop thinking so much about
everything
. Or to at least think
about Brittany instead. Either way, I hope the sleeping pill pulls
me under fast and keeps me there until morning.

***

“
S
o, how old is
your boyfriend anyway?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” A
date and a kiss or three doesn’t make him my boyfriend, right? Not
that I’d object to the idea...

“That doesn’t answer my
question,” Rebecca says, digging her spoon into her bowl of ice
cream. We’re at lunch and I have no idea how she’s able to eat ice
cream in January.

“He’s thirty-one.” Not too
much older than I am. Only by nine years.

But Rebecca’s jaw drops as if
he’s eighty. “He’s robbin’ the cradle!”

I laugh. “He is not.”

“Fine. Is he hot?”

“He’s gorgeous,” I
confirm.

“What does he look like?”

“Dirty blond hair, hazel
eyes, probably 6’5”, and—”

“Oh, I bet he’s, you know,
proportional
.” Bec wiggles her eyebrows. “I definitely want
those details once you sleep with him.”

I begin ignoring her. I’ve
been on one date with the guy and suddenly, he’s my boyfriend and
I’ll be sleeping with him soon? Rebecca is getting ahead of
herself. Not to mention I don’t want to think about those things
yet. We’re able to enjoy the rest of our lunch without talking any
more about Trace.

The day started promising. My
anxiety was relatively normal this morning compared to how it has
been, so not only was I grateful, but I thought that meant today
would be good. Great, even. My classes went kind of smoothly,
too.

And then, I head over to the
counseling building. To fulfill my end of the bargain, I made an
appointment this morning with one of the counselors, Mrs. Rumley.
It almost seems pointless to go because I have no clue what to talk
about.

My anxiety is the obvious
answer, I know. For example, my anxiety is through the roof at the
thought of seeing a therapist who isn’t Trace. He’s the only one
I’ve ever seen. What if Mrs. Rumley isn’t as easy to talk to? What
if she judges me? What if she sucks? What if I don’t feel
comfortable with her? Am I going to have to rehash all of my time
in therapy to catch her up? Or will she want a brief update? Am I
allowed to tell her about Trace? You know, if I happen to bring him
up.

My hand begins to ache with
its grip on my wrist repeatedly tightening and loosening. The
secretary gives me a small smile and tells me to have a seat to
wait because Mrs. Rumley hasn’t returned from her lunch break yet.
What’s the freaking point of an appointment if she isn’t here?
Nausea rolls in my stomach and up my throat. The woman has two
minutes before I leave.

Is it possible to feel your
pulse throughout your body? God, how high do they have the heater
in this place? The urge to double over is strong, the pounding in
my head becoming louder. The nausea is impossible to ignore. Oh, my
God. All my progress from the last three and a half years is going
down the drain with this appointment. I’m a fucking mess.

I stand so suddenly it
startles the secretary. Before I can speak, an elderly woman and
Trace walk into the door laughing over something.

“Mrs. Rumley, your next
appointment is already here,” the secretary says.

“Actually, I need to cancel.
Sorry.” I push by Trace since he’s the one who is mostly in my way
and race out of the building. A surge of anger rushes through me.
She was late because apparently the old lady was having lunch with
my boyfriend!

I’m halfway across campus
when my phone vibrates. I pull it out to see a text.

Trace:
Everything
okay?

I so do not want to deal with
him right now. The only thing that sounds great is my bed and
sleep. Thankfully, Rebecca is currently in class, so I don’t have
to worry about her. I change into my pajamas, crawl into my bed,
and try to fall asleep.

Life never works out the way
I want it to, though. After half an hour with two more texts from
Trace, I impulsively grab my bottle of sleeping pills and
dry-swallow one. I lie down, getting comfortable, and soon, I’m
knocked out.

I’m groggy and too warm when
I wake up. I almost feel like I’m being held down. The thought
pulls my eyelids open. My body jolts when I see a broad chest in
front of me.

“You owe me,” Trace’s gravely
voice murmurs from above my head.

“What are you doing here?” I
ask, tilting my head back to look at him. There is just enough room
for me in this bed. There is definitely not enough room for me and
a man of Trace’s stature. I try not to think about how his arms are
around me and how his body is pressed against mine. It’s nice,
really
really
nice.

“Rebecca helped me sneak in
after she answered one of my many calls to you because we were both
worried. Me because you never texted me back. Her because she
couldn’t wake you and she says you wake easily. That was when she
noticed your sleeping pills on the nightstand, so she answered
since I kept calling.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m not supposed to
be here, Britt. Any relationship of ours is supposed to stay off
campus, which means I definitely should not be in your dorm.”