Crashed (Mason Brothers 2)

And it was bad. It was very fucking bad. But in the depths of the shittiness, with my phone on silent and the quiet deafening, something happened. My mind cleared, just a little. I didn’t die. Instead, I started to think.

Not about them. About me.

“Your tones are muted today,” Donna the wellness therapist said as she lit some incense. “You’ve turned off all of your computer monitors. Something is different.”

I was in sweats. I hadn’t bothered to shower today, though I’d worked out like a motherfucker. Working out made my brain inch toward clarity, at least until my muscles gave out. “Donna,” I said, “do me a favor and level with me for once. No bullshit. Just truth.”

She shook out the match she was holding and straightened, looking at me.

“Do you tell my mother what happens in these sessions?” I asked her.

“No,” she said.

“Do you tell my brother? Anyone?” The image of Tessa and Nick discussing me had stuck in my mind, and I couldn’t quite get past it.

But that didn’t have to do with them. It had to do with me.

“No,” Donna said.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” It sounded whiny, but I was actually curious. “Why do you show up and listen to my shit? Is it just for money?”

She blinked, and for once she gave it to me straight instead of talking about crystals or auras. “I like you,” she said. “I never had a son. I look at you and I think, ‘What if that was my boy?’ If you were my boy, I’d come here and talk to you. So that’s what I do.” She sat in the chair across from me, a thoughtful look on her face. “Also, you’re so clearly at war with yourself, and you’re so close to getting past it. So very, very close. I just need to push you a little ways along.”

I stared at her. This woman had more insight than doctors and therapists who had ten times her education. “Be honest,” I said. “The problem isn’t my chi or my aura or the crystals in my house. The problem is me.”

She frowned. “That’s not quite the right way to see it. You create the problem, yes. But you’re also the solution. They’re both you.”

I closed my eyes.

“What happened?” she asked, not unkindly.

I gave her the truth in a harsh, sad summary. “My girlfriend dumped me.”

“Is that so? Because the phone on the table behind you keeps lighting up, over and over. Like someone is trying to talk to you.”

I kept my eyes closed. “She told me it’s too hard.”

“Well, it is hard,” Donna said. “She’s not wrong about that. When people come across something hard, sometimes their instinct is to run. And then sometimes they regret it afterward, but they don’t know what to do.”

“She’ll do it again,” I said.

“So you forgive her again, because it matters. She matters.”

I took a breath. Tessa did matter. And I knew my phone was lighting up behind me. I’d read every one of her texts last night, watching them come in one by one. I fucking miss you. Jesus, I fucking missed her, too.

I thought about Tessa coming to my door that first time with her Hi cake, waving at the camera. “I’m not doing the same thing again,” I said to Donna. “I’m not following the same old pattern.”

“So do something different,” Donna said. “Just do something. Because Andrew, I have to say, you’ve chosen to do nothing for the past seven years. And I’m asking you, how far do you think it’s gotten you?”

I opened my eyes. “Jesus, Donna. How did you get so wise?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re not the only one who’s lived life, you know. Some of the rest of us have lived it too. Now, let’s discuss essential oils.”

Thirty-Two

Tessa

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