Chapter 15
Lucy
Ilet out a long breath and lean my back against the door. I am glad Aria walked away. I am almost certain if she had stayed that close, with her piercing gray eyes, I would be in a far more awkward position.
Yes, you would be. Because your dumbass was this close to grabbing her face and—
Nope. Not going there right now, I chastise myself. My therapy appointment was long overdue. I have been putting it off since the breakup. Which, I fully admit, was probably not the smartest thing to do. Marge, my therapist, agrees wholeheartedly with that sentiment.
I walked into Marge Weller’s office, hesitant to face her after being gone for so long. However, I knew that I needed to get everything off my chest and have a professional help me work through everything that happened.
“Luciana Ramos,” a fondly exasperated voice calls my attention to Marge and I grin at her sheepishly, “It has been far too long. What has been going on in your life?”
“Well, funny you should ask,” I begin, my forced chuckle highlighting the level of shit I was about to drop on her.
“Ah, got it,” she shifts into a more comfortable position, pen poised over her rarely used notepad, “Ready when you are, Lucy.”
I take a deep breath. “Jake was cheating on his girlfriend of five years with me and she found out and we met up to talk through it. Then we confronted him together and I kissed her and then Aria and I started hanging out and became friends, but then Jacob got her fired from her job so then I asked her to move in and now she lives in my guest bedroom and I think I am falling in love with her.” The words tumble out of me without any breaks, so I pause and compose myself before looking back up at Marge.
Her stare pierces through me before she pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.
She scribbles a few notes, pauses, then scribbles some more.
Setting the notepad on her side table, she puts her elbow on the arm of her chair and places her head in her palm.
Silence fills the office and I listen to the clock tick.
Tick.
Tick.
“Okay,” she says slowly, sitting back up, “let’s unpack all of this. Tell me about the end of your relationship with Jake.”
So, I do. I walk her through the day I saw Aria sitting in her car outside, the texts I received from Aria, all the way to her arriving at Karma to talk. I stop as I choke back the emotions suddenly clogging my throat.
“She—” I clear my throat. “She told me she believed me. Almost immediately. She said she believed me, with no proof or reason whatsoever. And then—” My voice becomes tight and I drop to a whisper. “—she told me I’m not a homewrecker.”
“Ah,” her tone softens, “and how did it feel to get that reassurance from her?”
The tears start streaming down my face. “It was nice,” I whisper. “But it made me think about my mom. Why wouldn’t she believe me? Why would she immediately assume I was lying when this, this stranger believed me so quickly, when she had every reason to hold a grudge?”
“When you told your mother about the abuse, it would have destroyed her world to believe it,” she begins, repeating something she has told me before.
“In telling her, you were asking her to drastically change her perception of someone that she loved dearly. It was easier for her to believe that you were lying than to believe he was capable of that. That doesn’t make it right. ”
“I know,” I take a breath to calm myself. “I guess it just hit me hard because Aria could’ve reacted similarly and she just…didn’t. It made me wonder why she didn’t put the blame on me.”
“I can understand why that would be disconcerting for you.” She shifts focus. “Tell me about confronting Jake.”
I launch into that story, relishing in the feeling of empowerment Aria and I created for ourselves in the midst of a situation where it was distinctly lacking. I go straight into telling her about us continuing to hang out and some of the conversation that went along with that.
“So,” I say, “I really just couldn’t let her go on without knowing what it’s like to kiss a woman, so I just…did.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” I ask, confused.
“Why couldn’t you let her ‘go on’ as you said?”
I pause and take stock of my feelings on that night.
“Well,” I say slowly, “I know what it was like for me the first time: awkward, rushed, nerve-wracking. I thought that it would be better for her if—”
“No,” she gently interrupts, “don’t tell me your assumptions about her thoughts or feelings. Tell me what motivated you to kiss her in that moment.”
I sit quietly for a moment, not wanting to answer.
“It sounds selfish,” I whisper, “but I wanted to have one of her firsts.”
“Why?”
“Because, even then, I felt this—” I struggle to find the word “—tangible connection between us. Like we were meant to meet each other.”
“I think we have a lot to catch up on,” she sighs, rubbing her temples.
I shrug off the last of the memory and take a deep breath, imagining a calming soft blue energy flowing into me.
I release the breath, picturing my lingering bad mood as a sickly green mist I am expelling from my body.
Visualization is one of the coping skills that Marge has helped me develop over the years; it helps me immensely.
I break through the haze of dissociation and I can finally smell the delicious dinner that Aria has prepared and I fix a smile on my face as I start walking towards the table.
A sudden realization stops me in my tracks and a more genuine smile curls the corner of my lips.
As I turn the corner, I see Aria sitting at the table wearing a worried frown on her face.
“So,” I say, my smile turning mischievous, “Princess, huh?”
As Cherry stammers and blushes, I take my seat at the table and start loading up my plate, settling in to enjoy the evening with the woman I am falling for.