Chapter Thirty
Alfie
For the first time in five days, relief washes through me.
First contact, completed. I knew peonies were her favorite.
Thank you, Katie. Four days of nothing had broken me.
It was Wednesday night now, and I haven’t seen Mia since Saturday.
I feel incomplete, wrecked without her in my life.
The office has been dead. No life at all. No flowers, no atmosphere.
I’d hired a temp to come in and do basic reception duties, but every time I look at Mia’s desk, it feels wrong to see him sitting there in her seat.
But the numbness I feel at work is a relief to the abject devastation I feel at home alone.
Her things are gone, the closet half empty, drawers cleared out.
The scent of her lingers on her pillow and, through sheer masochism, I’ve held it to my chest each night so it feels like I’m still holding her.
If I weren’t such a colossal dickhead, it could be her I’m holding instead.
I shoot through the final message to confirm that I’d meet her at the rink tomorrow morning.
It will be a tight squeeze with The Morning Show, but I’ll make it work.
Besides, after my conversation with Helen on Sunday about being a great man.
I’ve made the decision not to renew my contract with the studio.
My agent will be furious for sure, but the show isn’t aligning with my values anymore.
It’s using genuine concerns as the TV equivalent to clickbait, and it’s hurting my reputation more than it’s doing good.
No matter how professional I am, the show still encourages me to amp up my response.
The hosts, Dianne and Dennis, still make undercut comments meant to humiliate the individual as the audience laughs.
It’s not right, and I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.
On that, my dad is right, as much as I’m reluctant to admit it.
I spoke with my brother about my decision, and he agreed.
Given that he plays for the Seattle Grizzlies, he’s well aware of the fickleness of fame and how one wrong move can put you on the front page with a headline relating to something you would rather keep to yourself.
I don’t want what was supposed to be something to get my name out there, to turn my career into a laughingstock.
I’ve done a good job of mitigating it so far, but there’s only so much time that can pass before what I’m doing turns into my fault, rather than what the studio executives request. My contract renewal being up for grabs in the next few months gives me the opportunity to bow out when the show is at a high, and it’s on my terms.
Teddy and I spoke for a few hours, and he asked for an update on Mia.
I let him know she had texted, and we were meeting for a skate in the morning.
She instigated the meetup and the location, which puts me more at ease than I was before she reached out.
Given that she chose the place that I taught her how to skate has me feeling even more optimistic that we’ll reconcile.
I just need to be patient. I tell my patients this all the time.
You can’t force someone to forgive you. But you can be consistent with your changes and prove to them over and over that you’re not the same person you were when you hurt them.
Second chances are hard to come by, especially when flitters of my memory come back to haunt me.
The hurt look on her face as a tear rolled down her cheek.
The flush of her neck and chest from embarrassment.
God, I hope it wasn’t humiliation because I couldn’t bear it if I made her feel that way.
It’s eight p.m. now, and despite the warmth that spring brings in the daytime, the night is still as bitterly cold as winter.
Placing a few logs into the wood-burning heater, I throw a match onto the firelighter.
I sit back on the couch, ready to go over my notes from previous sessions.
At the moment, my focus has been on my court-ordered patients.
They’re always the most unpredictable and the ones in which I must keep my wits about.
Sometimes they’re dangerous, usually always have a history of abuse, giving and receiving, and antisocial behavior.
They’ll lie, cheat and steal to get to their goal. And I must anticipate those actions.
It works a little differently from my normal patients, with whom I have a doctor-patient confidentiality agreement.
The court-ordered patients sign away that right when they step into my practice.
The judge needs to be kept informed of my reports, including the respective attorneys.
It’s why I could speak to the Judge about Nate following Mia and leaving her notes.
Now that Nate has moved onto another therapist and I've confirmed with them that he has attended a session, I focus my attention on Sean Sanders.
He’s been a hard nut to crack. The problem with men like Sean is that lying is second nature.
They lie, not out of necessity but because they can.
They see no issues in creating false narratives for fun because they see others as playthings, toys they can discard once they’re bored with them.
I’m reluctant to diagnose someone quickly of being a sociopath, but for Sean, I’m almost convinced.
I wonder what following him would lead me to find.
He hasn’t given me any cause for alarm in our sessions, but someone like him, a master manipulator and liar, wouldn’t give up his secrets easily.
I wish I could discuss him with Mia now.
Having never met him, she wouldn’t be able to give me her opinion, but she has read his file.
As part of her mentorship, she would type up my notes and then add her own thoughts at the bottom for me to review. Possible treatment or next steps to take. Despite never having met him, she has a good grasp of the kind of man he is.
Highly dangerous, likely to re-offend, controlling, narcissistic, pathological liar.
It’s just a few notes on a page, and yet she’s got his character down to a tee.
Even when he overheard my conversation with Nate, he was downright gleeful to catch me off guard.
At the very least, he has an antisocial personality disorder.
In my unprofessional opinion, he is an utter dickweed.
Scum of the Earth that therapy will unlikely help.
He’s a man who deserves to be in prison, and despite my best efforts, it won’t be long until he re-offends and lands himself in jail. The public will be better off for it.
I sigh, my fingers pushing up my glasses as I squeeze the bridge of my nose. I put the glasses back in place as I tidy my notes for the night. As I’m putting my things away, locking them into my safe, my phone rings.
“Lottie, how are you?” I say, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder.
“Alfie, have you heard from Mia today?”
“She messaged me a few hours ago to ask to meet tomorrow,” I say quickly, the edge in Lottie’s tone ringing my internal alarm bell.
“What time?” Her voice is high, sounding slightly frantic, laced with an edge of concern.
“Let me check my messages, but is something going on?”
She pauses for a moment. “I’m sure she just got caught up. But she was meant to meet me at my house an hour ago. She hasn’t turned up.”
“Okay, she messaged me at six thirty.” My fingers shake as I check the message.
“Just as she would have been leaving to meet me.”
The silence grows between us as my mind tries to find a logical explanation for why Mia wouldn’t turn up at Lottie’s house after arranging it herself.
“I'll pop by the house to see if she’s there.”
“Okay. Call me. I’m going to call Caleb…just to see if he’s around to help,” she adds, although really I know she means she’s going to check to see if Mia has been admitted to Seattle General.
“Good plan,” I say, my voice raising an octave. “I’ll call you as soon as possible.”
“Same.”
She hangs up as I’m slipping my coat on. I pocket my phone and pull on my boots.
I jog the few hundred yards it takes for me to reach Mia’s house.
Her car is still on the drive; the house is dark.
I head to the front door, and it’s locked.
I swore I wouldn’t do this, but I use the key I have for the house and unlock it.
I push through; it’s cold, like someone hasn’t put the heating on today.
Maybe she’d been out all day. Maybe she took a cab to Lottie’s with the intention of drinking alcohol and not wanting to leave her car there.
There are so many possibilities it’s hard to think.
The flowers I left on the porch are on the side table, the pink ribbon hanging down to the side. I rub it between my fingers, grounding myself as I breathe in Mia’s lavender perfume.
I move quickly, checking each room, calling her name out as I do.
But there’s no noise except the heavy thud of my boots on the floorboards.
My pulse begins to race and my breathing quickens as I ridiculously check behind doorways and under the bed.
I can’t work out what I’m looking for. What am I hoping to find? What am I expecting to find?
My instincts are off. I can’t trust them now, not after what happened with Helen, where I immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion, and it cost me my relationship with Mia.
I’m assuming the worst. I’m assuming that something terrible has happened, but this could all be a misunderstanding.
She could be fine, just stuck in traffic in a cab. Maybe her phone ran out of battery.