69. Rico
Rico
“So, what brings you in today, Enrico?”
Dr. Dingleberry—not his actual name, but it’s the energy he radiates—crosses his legs, looking down at the massive intake form he made me fill out before I was allowed into his seventies-era relic of an office.
I don’t sit.
I don’t want to be here.
“I filled out the form.”
He looks up at me, unimpressed. Beady onyx eyes, bird-like nose, a graying mustache that twitches like it has its own agenda.
The man is pushing sixty and looks every bit of it—though, in his defense, if I had to sit and listen to people sob their way through their “woe-is-me” monologues all day, I’d age like curdled milk, too.
“I see that.” He taps a finger on his iPad. “But therapy requires talking. Which, according to your responses, is something you struggle with.”
“Not a struggle. Just a preference.”
“To remain silent?”
I shrug. “Works for me.”
He hums, tapping his stylus against the screen like he’s about to diagnose me with something I already know I have, and from what I know there's no cure for it.
“To get anywhere in therapy—or life, for that matter—you’ll have to use your words. Sitting in silence won’t let me help you.”
“Rico.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I prefer to be called Rico.” Especially since Enrico is only used when my Mama is ready to commit manslaughter—which she almost did over the phone two nights ago, flinging Spanish and Italian at me so fast my brain had trouble processing which language I was being verbally castrated in.
As if I wasn’t already aware of my colossal fuck-up.
As if I haven’t spent the past two days chasing my wife down, only to realize she has vanished off the face of the earth.
She’s not at my brothers’ houses. Not at Marco’s. Not at a hotel—not one under her name, anyway.
Which means she’s somewhere I haven’t considered.
Which means she’s actually gone.
And that realization?
That gnawing, pit-in-my-stomach, my-world-is-off-its-axis feeling?
It’s made me dangerous.
I’ve spent more time at the sparring gym in the past forty-eight hours than I have in my bed. Relishing the sound of bones crunching under my fists, using pain to drown out the fact that she left. That I pushed too hard. That the woman who should’ve never walked away finally did.
The split in my knuckles reopens as I clench my fists, a sharp sting breaking through my thoughts.
“Do you always do that?” Dingleberry nods toward my hands.
“Yes.”
“And it helps?”
I flex my fingers. Watch as a bead of deep red blood wells and slips down my knuckle.
Red like the dress she wore to the gallery. Red like the lipstick she smeared on my neck on the ride home. Red like the flush that spreads down her neck when I whisper in her ear. Red like the warning signs I ignored telling me this woman would be my undoing and I wanted it.
“It keeps me from having an episode.”
His thick, raccoon-rivaling eyebrows arch. “Episode?”
Jesus. He’s really committed to this whole talking thing.
“When I get too angry, I need to hit something.”
“I see.” He doesn’t even blink. “Is that why your knuckles are bruised?”
I nod. “A punching bag. Mostly.”
His fingers move over the iPad, typing something, before looking back at me. “How often do you have these… urges?”
Every. Fucking. Day. Right now at least.
“Normally? Under control.” I crack my neck, my pulse an aggravated thud in my temple. “Past few months? Every day.”
“Every day.” He repeats it slowly, like he’s cataloging the exact moment I lost my sanity.
“Clenching my fists,” I correct. “Not always a punching bag.”
“And what happened a few months ago to make these urges worse?”
I snort. They’re not urges. They’re outlets. This guy’s supposed to have a Ph.D.?
“I got married.”
His mouth twitches. “Ah.”
I know what he’s thinking. I can see it in the way he taps his stylus against the screen, making mental calculations about my deep-rooted commitment issues.
“So, you’re here to control those urges?”
I shake my head, scanning his bookshelf—filled with nothing but psychology textbooks and clinical journals. No photos. No personal touch. The walls are bare. No paintings. No distractions. Just a vacuum of emotion.
I should love this place.
I hate it.
Shit. When did I start liking décor?
“I can control them.”
His beady eyes flick to my hands. “Clearly.”
“That was this week.”
He leans back, pulling off his glasses and twirling them between his fingers. “So, what made this week different?”
I grit my teeth, the image of her expression slicing through me like a rusted blade.
The way her face crumpled when I told her I didn’t love her.
The way she didn’t argue when I insinuated I cheated but deflated, and right there I should have taken it back because of that look?
She'd given up. Defeat was all over her perfect face.
“I got into a fight with my wife.”
“Marriages have fights.” He waves a hand. “No couple sees eye-to-eye every day.”
No shit, Sherlock.
“I’m aware.”
“So, why did this fight bother you?”
It didn’t.
It shouldn’t.
I could lie. Keep this surface-level and fix the parts of me that are wrong. But instead, I hear myself say:
“I told her I didn’t love her.”
His expression stays neutral.
“And then I told her I cheated on her.”
A sharp pain twists in my stomach. Apparently, this is a side effect when you feel shit.
Physical pain and mental anguish. Why the fuck does anyone volunteer for this?
The words are acid on my tongue, burning on the way out.
I don’t know why I admitted that. Maybe my subconscious has decided that if I’m going to do this whole therapy thing, I might as well light the entire house on fire.
“So, you cheated?”
“No.”
“But you told her you did?”
I nod.
He cocks his head, clearly trying to determine if I’m insane or just a run-of-the-mill masochist. I'd appreciate a clarification myself. I'm genuinely curious at this point.
“And why would you tell your wife you cheated on her if you didn’t?”
“To push her.” I say it plainly. Like it’s the most logical response in the world. “She knew I don’t do feelings. She knew what our marriage was. But she pushed and took.” I shake my head, anger flickering in my pulse. “I don’t know why she loves me. No one should.”
His silence stretches.
“And?”
“And I can’t love her back.”
He studies me for a long moment. “So, instead of explaining that, you told her you cheated?”
No, I said it because I wanted her to be angry like I was. To feel disgust looking at me just like I did looking in the mirror. To regret every marrying me. Unfortunately, I can't say I regret marrying her, which is part of the problem.
“I needed to make it clear.”
He exhales through his nose, rubbing his jaw. Then, with a completely straight face, says, “Did it—just tossing this out there—occur to you that maybe you do love her, and that’s exactly why you lashed out?”
I blink.
“What?”
He shrugs, casual as hell. “You’re describing classic self-sabotage. Pushing someone away before they can reject you first.”
I glare at him.
Because fuck, I’m really getting sick of people being right.