“It’s hard letting someone see, isn’t it?” she whispered, and I fell silent.
It was rare for the tables to be turned. Normally I was trying to tug out bits and pieces from Mia. She didn’t do the opposite. If I said I didn’t want to talk, she let me stew. She left me alone.
Maybe for fucking once, I didn’t want to be left.
“Yes,” I said finally, looking down at her hand on my arm. Her fingers curled tighter and she pulled me against her side until she could rest her head on my shoulder. “It’s goddamn hard.”
“Want to go to therapy with me?” At the horrified expression that must’ve crossed my face, she laughed so hard that she doubled over. Her long braids fell over her shoulders and it reminded me of the first time I’d really seen her laugh at the very beginning of our relationship.
I was capable of making Mia get the giggles, if nothing else. Too bad it was at me, not with me.
“Sorry. Bad timing. But my therapist has been bugging me to ask you to come.”
“Why?” I tried to keep the edge of panic out of my voice. Lost cause. “I don’t need therapy.”
Just like that, Mia stopped laughing.
Dammit. I’d freaking sucker punched her, and I was the one who couldn’t breathe.
“I didn’t mean that,” I began, trying to connect the frayed wires in my brain to make some kind of usable spark. What I’d said wasn’t right, or fair. I was as fucked up as anyone. I just couldn’t bear to admit it right now.
“No, no, you’re right. You don’t need therapy. Just fucked up ol’ me.” She held up her hands as she backed up. “Look, I have to get back to work. I’ll cover with Carmine for you.”
“Mia.”
“Go be with your mother. One more thing you have that I don’t. Your sanity, and your parents.”
She melted into the foot traffic flowing up the street before I could apologize.
As if an apology could be enough to make up for what I’d said so thoughtlessly. It had been so difficult for her to start therapy, and to keep going when the first therapists weren’t a good fit. With a few careless words, I’d turned her courage into weakness.
I deserved to be shot.
Swallowing hard, I glanced back where she’d gone. I wanted so badly to go back and tell her how screwed up the situation with my parents made me, how what I’d said had to do with my own stupid machismo and nothing else. She was the bravest person I’d ever known. If therapy could give me a fraction of her strength, I’d go every day for the rest of my life.
But she was at work, and my mother was in her apartment. Right now even calling it ours in my head felt like a lie. That was as tenuous as everything else between us.
I’d make it up to Mia. The alternative wasn’t something I could tolerate thinking about.
Somehow I put one foot ahead of the other and moved through the bodies packing the sidewalk in the early evening. Within a few blocks, walking fast wasn’t enough. I needed to run. To forcibly get the corrosion out of my lungs. I took off, dodging the people in my path, my gaze on the peeks of sun-soaked horizon between the buildings. I’d run forever if I had to.
Eventually it wouldn’t hurt so damn much to stay still.
At Mia’s building, I slowed and fumbled out my key for the lobby. I hit the stairs at the same clip, finally stopping in front of Mia’s apartment. I wanted to knock, and what bullshit was that? This was my place, at least temporarily.
Before I could make myself go inside, I heard the music. And the laughter.
Tentatively, I turned the knob, prepared to see just about anything occurring in Mia’s apartment.
Including my mother, Carly and Mia’s friend Kizzy dancing around the kitchen table, hand-in-hand as they screamed-sang Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch”. I only recognized the song because Slater’s sister Jenna liked to whip it out to torment her pacifist older brother.
At the moment, I felt pretty tormented myself.
“Hello,” I ventured cautiously, unsurprised when the trio of women didn’t so much as look up from their booty-shaking antics. Carly was brandishing some kind of mixing utensil over her head like a tomahawk, and it was dripping batter all over the floor and all over her. Kizzy had a bowl under her arm and she continued to stir while she shook her generous bottom.
And my mother—
I shut my eyes and covered my face with my hand. This wasn’t happening. My mother wasn’t dancing in her underwear while shaking a container of nuts.