“You have at least twenty different feeders in your yard. The hummingbirds can eat something else for a few days.”
Doc walked over and put both his hands on my shoulders. “Trust me, Luca. Our therapy visits are not about going to the store and not having panic attacks. Having a panic attack while we’re there is perfectly expected. Exposure is about entering a feared situation and dealing with the panic when it comes. We will get through this together.”
I shut my eyes. “Fine.”
“That’s my girl.”“So tell me what’s new with your pen-pal friend.” Doc and I had parked in the pet-store parking lot, but I needed a few minutes to calm myself enough to walk in. So we took a walk around the block. I knew he was bringing up Griff to distract me, but honestly, if thoughts of Griff couldn’t bring my mind someplace else, I wasn’t sure anything could.
“He sent me a gift.”
“Oh?”
I wasn’t about to tell Doc my Furby masturbation story, so I sidestepped the truth. “Just some toys that I’d been sort of obsessed with back when we were kids. It wasn’t like he sent me diamonds or anything.”
“I’m sure him remembering something you liked meant more to you than a piece of jewelry anyway.”
I smiled. Doc really did know me well. “We’ve been exchanging letters once a week for a while now, and things have sort of . . . gotten personal. Like we talk openly about dating and our sex lives, or my lack of a sex life might be more like it.”
“And you two still haven’t exchanged current photos or spoken on the telephone?”
“I tried. But Griff said he liked the mystery of things the way they are.”
Doc was quiet for a moment. “Do you believe he’s telling you the truth?”
That was something I’d thought about a lot lately. I got the feeling that maybe Griff wasn’t as confident as he was when we were kids. He didn’t really want to talk about his job—other than saying things hadn’t worked out as planned. And he’d been dodgy on even his physical description. It made me think that maybe Griff was embarrassed about not having done as well as he’d liked in the music industry, and maybe that had shaken his confidence overall. It probably hadn’t helped that I’d gone and bragged that my debut novel hit the New York Times bestseller list.
“I’m not sure. But I do have a theory that maybe he’s a little ashamed of his job, and his confidence has deteriorated. It’s funny because neither of those things matters. I don’t care what he looks like or if he works in a grocery store stocking shelves. Whenever I’ve done online dating in the past, I didn’t give a man a chance if he wasn’t physically attractive to me. Yet I honestly don’t care if Griffin hasn’t aged well and has a huge scar running down his face. I like the guy he is inside and his sense of humor.”
“That’s very mature. It sounds like you’re really growing feelings for this man.”
I sighed. “I think I am. But I’m not sure how to let Griffin know that I like him for who he is and that it doesn’t matter what he looks like. It’s a hard subject to discuss via letters. But I think I’m going to try and push it a little more.”
“Good. I’m definitely curious to meet the man who has captured your interest.”
“You and me both, Doc. Funny enough, we could do that. I found a receipt in the bottom of the box he sent me, and it had an address where he’d had my gift shipped. I think it might be where he works. Technically, the two of us could show up there, and he wouldn’t even know who we were. I’ve changed a lot in the last decade, appearance-wise. It’s too bad he doesn’t live closer, or I might actually do it, because I’m so curious.”
We arrived back at the front of the pet store after our walk around the block. The parking lot had a few cars but nothing like the last time we’d done a pet-store outing. Doc looked at me. “Think of today as another step toward seeing Griffin. You never know—today we are visiting a pet store . . . next month you could be getting on a plane to California.”
If only it were that easy. I took a deep breath and tugged at the collar of my T-shirt. I felt a little warm and confined already, just looking at the door. “Let’s get this over with.”“You did very well today, Luca,” Doc said as I pulled into my driveway. He reached down between his legs and grabbed his bag from the pet store from the floor of the car.
“I think very well might be a stretch.”