Chapter 3
Lucy
“It’s been a while since we’ve met.” Dr. Betty Shaw flashes me a sincere smile, laugh lines crinkling as she piles her long salt-and-pepper tresses into a messy bun. She clips her hairdo together with a black banana clip that came straight from the eighties. “How have you been doing, Lucy?”
Every time I sit in her office, I experience the same thought.
A genie must live here.
So many tassels, colors, and soft cozy surfaces populate her office that I barely know where to look.
I shrug. “I’m surviving.”
She jots down a note. “How is your sister liking Italy?”
Maya’s open, unguarded excitement about it shines through my memory. “A lot.” A smile tilts my lips. “Though I think she’s trying to hide it.”
“Hide it?” She crosses her legs, balancing her notepad on her knees. “Why do you think that?”
My gaze slides to my hands. “I just…know my sister. She wouldn’t want me to feel like she was having the time of her life now that she’s away from me.”
I try with all my might to mask my discomfort. The entire therapeutic process reeks of forced vulnerability, and I’m done with that. But still…since I’m basically on my own these days, it’s nice to have someone to vent to. I let myself relax just a little as we discuss the last few weeks.
“So this bodyguard of yours is nice?” Dr. Shaw’s thick eyebrows hop up into her hairline.
A dry laugh slips out. “I wouldn’t really say ‘nice.’ Not to me anyway. He’s…efficient.”
Nice to look at, sure. Callum’s one of the most visually appealing men I’ve ever laid eyes on. But to him, it’s clear that I’m just a job. He gives off the impression that he’s counting down the days until this assignment’s over.
“Efficient, hmm?” The way she bites her lip suggests she’s intrigued. “Efficient is good.”
“I guess. Though to be honest, having him around all the time is unsettling. I’m used to Maya, not a strange man who only has to glance at someone to intimidate them.”
She scribbles another note. “Do you feel safe around him?”
“I guess so.” Darren and Veronika wouldn’t hire someone they didn’t trust. “I know he’d protect me if I found myself in a dangerous situation.” I worry my lower lip. “But like I said, for years, it’s just been my sister and me. I’ll be glad when this is all over.”
“That’s understandable.” She spins the pen between her fingers. “How are you liking the diner? Any friends? People you might be interested in seeing more of?”
My fingers tighten around the silver cuff bracelet etched with Celtic knotwork on my wrist, the one Maya gave me when I graduated high school. She wears a matching piece, both of which originally belonged to our grandmother.
I trace the jewelry’s intricate design. “Some days are a little overwhelming, but I enjoy it most of the time. Though if you’re asking if there’s anyone I might want to date, that’s a hard pass. And I seriously doubt any man would be interested in…someone like me.”
“Why do you say that?” She rocks back so she can fold her legs beneath her in that oversize armchair. I always wonder how she gets those slacks to be so stretchy. “You’re a wonderful woman, Lucy. What’s so horrible about a man taking notice of that?”
Baseless flattery much?
I inhale through my nose, discomfort with the direction of the conversation needling my skin.
“I don’t see myself as a wonderful woman.
Look, even without…what happened to me a few months ago…
even if I did believe I was a great catch, I grew up in foster care. I’ve always been…allergic to intimacy.”
Betty stills. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, making an emotional connection with another person was the dumbest thing a kid like me could do.” I track the patterns of her Persian rug as anxiety spurs my pulse into a gallop.
“Abandonment and pain. That’s all bouncing around from home to home ever brought me.
Do you really think I was desperate for a boyfriend? Or have been, like, ever?”
“I don’t think you’ve ever been desperate for anything.” She rests her hands on the notebook in her lap. “Except maybe to survive in one piece.”
I pause to digest her words. “It took me a long time before I was ready to give someone a chance. Wasn’t until college. And even then, we’re talking casual dates.”
“And what about after college?”
“I had a couple of short-lived relationships, but I always broke them off before they got too serious. Intimacy was awkward, and I found it just wasn’t worth the effort to stay in a relationship for a long time.”
Dr. Shaw and I exchange a look of mutual understanding. “Lucy, I know you grew up in the foster system. You were orphaned very young in life. Being ‘allergic to intimacy,’ as you call it, is natural for someone who’s lived through your experiences.”
Blah blah blah.
“Some people develop a deep fear of vulnerability. Anything that feels like a loss of control can be frightening and uncomfortable for them.”
My skin tingles with the heat of exposure. I hate when she hits too close to home. I hate it even more when she pins me with the difficult questions like—
“What frightens you?”
Unbidden childhood memories slam through my mind.
I almost lost Maya to this one family in the suburbs who only wanted to adopt her. That led to freezing black nights where I panicked myself to sleep, terrified I’d be abandoned, left alone without the one person in the world I loved. The only person in the entire universe who cared about me.
That bone-deep terror haunted me for the remainder of my childhood and lingered through adulthood. I was just starting to overcome the caution—daring to be more independent, pursuing my modeling dreams for the first time—when I was abducted. Taken. Confined. Used.
Like a helpless creature. A victim.
Sour acid bubbles in the pit of my stomach.
“What am I afraid of?” My voice is a hoarse, irritated murmur.
Losing power. Losing control. Being caged. Being watched. People with hidden agendas. Letting Maya down.
Nope. Not going there.
“I’m afraid that we’re out of time.” I stand up too quickly. “I have an event later today, so I need to get going.”
“Lucy?” Dr. Shaw rises, concern in her voice. “We can go slower if you need to. You don’t have to rush off—”
She steps toward me, and I instinctively throw my arm out, knocking the notebook from her hand.
Mortification freezes me in place.
Now, I’m not just the woman who’s falling apart. I’m the woman who might get shipped off to a mental hospital for accosting a doctor.
“I…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s all right.” Betty’s tone suggests otherwise.
With tears pricking the back of my eyes, I drop to my knees and grab her notebook. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’m just on edge today.”
I begin to rise but halt when my eyes catch on the open page. I take my time, slowly regaining my feet while scanning the words my therapist wrote.
What affects her most?
Hyper-vigilance. Paranoia. Trust issues. Need for control over her environment. Occasional panic attacks. Difficulty with unexpected touch. Putting on a front to come across as more confident.
The moment I’m upright, Dr. Shaw snatches the book from me, her expression apologetic and uneasy. “It’s really okay. Lucy—”
But I’m already gone. It’s one thing to feel pathetic every day of my life. It’s a completely different thing to reveal this pathetic side of myself to a virtual stranger.
Some darkness should never be exposed to the light of day.
I flee to the quiet, warm corridor beyond the office. The symphony of hushed fuzz created by white noise machines fills my ears as I jog the length of the hall and burst into the seventh-floor atrium.
Heart pounding, I press the elevator’s call button like a game controller, praying Dr. Shaw doesn’t follow me.
Nausea roils in my stomach. Panic attack number two for the day hovers on the horizon.
A century passes before the elevator finally arrives. I don’t allow myself to breathe again until I’m safely in the main lobby, outside of the moving coffin.
Trying not to blank my mind, I hurry toward the exit, maneuvering through the throngs of workers, customers, and clients on the first floor of this ten-story office park.
I’m three seconds away from marking today as a total loss. Then I remember, and a teensy bit of smugness spreads through me.
My day may be a total shit show, but at least I escaped from him. I snuck right past Callum’s arrogant nose.
I shove through the building doors with a bit more pep and inhale that familiar, grimy New York City air.
Smells like grit out here. A city full of survivors.
I’m still congratulating myself on giving my guard dog the slip when two hands clamp down on my arms, ripping me clean off the street.