Chapter 49
Tucker
“I didn’t think I’d see you back on that couch,” Anna Cerisse, my former and newly current therapist, says.
“I didn’t think I’d be back here.”
I haven’t quit meditating. In fact, I’ve been in Bruce’s studio almost every day for a couple of weeks while waiting for an appointment to open up with Anna. I don’t believe it’s one or the other when it comes to figuring shit out. All that silence made me ready to talk.
The couch in Anna’s office is surprisingly comfortable.
I’m not lying down on it like some swooning nineteenth-century maiden but sitting smack in the middle of it and probably manspreading too much—but I challenge anyone with a dick and balls to figure out where they’re supposed to go when you’re sitting with your legs together.
And there’s no one else on this couch, so fuck it.
“What made you decide you want to talk?”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
“We have as many chunks of fifty minutes as you’d like to pay for,” she says, one eyebrow up.
I like that she’s no bullshit. I shrug. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start at the beginning.”
I think about that. There are lots of beginnings.
There was the day I took the job guarding Elizabeth and the day I realized she had feelings for me.
There was the day I turned her safety over to John Jacoby and the day I woke up to find out she’d been murdered in the night.
There was the day I sold my partnership in the firm and the day I came back to Rush Creek for the reading of the will.
There was the sabotage at the spa, the sunk celebrity wedding, the lurking figure at the stables, the canceled vendors.
And then there was Autumn.
“I met someone who knew how to be happy,” I say. “And I wanted to live in her world.”
Anna’s lips press together. I can’t tell if it’s amusement or disapproval.
“And you think I can help you be happy so you can live in this person’s world?”
“I mean, isn’t that what people pay you for? To help them be happy?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do people pay you for, then?”
She’s definitely trying not to laugh. “Excellent question. People pay me for a lot of different reasons: To understand themselves better. To learn some techniques for being more skillful in the world. To put a little space between themselves and their own thoughts or emotions, or to experience their emotions at a lower volume and maybe in a more constructive way,” she says.
“Unfortunately I don’t have a special formula for making people happy.
And even if I did, I’d be reluctant to use it.
Because it’s not how happy we are that determines whether our lives are satisfying.
It’s how fully we experience the whole range of our emotions. ”
I think of Autumn saying that I didn’t know how to be happy and she didn’t know how to be unhappy…and suddenly I know how to tell Autumn what I need to tell her.
I’m out of my seat.
“Where are you going?” Anna asks.
“I’m going to burn the world down,” I say. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“Tucker—” she calls after me, voice laced with concern
“Not literally!” I call back. “If it’s a better metaphor, I’m going to eat a chocolate croissant.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about…”
“That’s fine,” I say, now out of earshot, delivering these last words to Anna’s startled receptionist. “I do.”
It’s surprisingly easy to track down Autumn’s brother, Haru, and when I do, he’s more than happy—eager, actually—to give me what I want.
“In fact,” he says, “you can have it permanently. I never want to see it again. And I hope it works out for you, man. It didn’t go that well for me, but then, I’m just the little brother. You’re the fucking bodyguard.”
I decide that’s going to be my mantra.
I’m the fucking bodyguard.