Chapter 6 We Love a Nature
Armed with fresh drinks, we spill into the muggy summer night.
A large set of glass doors at the back of the room has been propped open to an expansive stone balcony.
There are a few Disney-themed guests milling about outside, mingling, resting against the balustrade.
I wander up to it and lean against the cool stone.
It seeps into my skin, sobering me a bit.
A lake sits in the distance, surrounded by hills of soft green grass.
Fireflies flicker among the bushes and trees.
It’s majestic. Straight out of a fairy tale.
Which is obviously why Babe chose this venue.
Reed sidles up next to me. He takes a sip of his old-fashioned. “Why are you single?”
I glance over at him. “You never did get to why you’re single.”
He spins the liquid in his glass. “I’m going to rewind us back to our earlier discussion: trust issues.”
“Same. But probably in a different way. My trust issues stem from the fact that for the first chunk of my life, I was the human manifestation of the song ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.’”
Reed drops his head with a rumbly laugh that wraps around me like a fresh sweatshirt. “Explain.”
I catch his gaze. “The voice in my head . . . the internal monologue we all have and listen to on the daily: Mine used to be the optimist of all optimists. And just like the song, you listen to her too many times—she’ll drive you insane.
For so long I believed that people would be true to their word and do better.
And then they would screw me over. They’d apologize, promise to do better. And I’d believe them.
“And then they’d screw me over. And apologize.
Promise to do better. And I’d believe them.
” I purse my lips, glancing down at my drink as I hurtle involuntarily through my archives, careening through over a decade’s worth of disappointing snapshots across a three-second span.
I exhale a measured breath before turning my gaze back to the relative stranger a foot away.
“I have trouble filtering toxicity out of my life. So I do this thing where I try to filter it on the way in instead. Does that make sense?”
Reed closes his eyes and nods. “It does.”
I take another sip of my mojito, a masochistic grin tugging at my lips as I look out at the view.
“No matter how many times people have shown me who they are, my instinct is to keep hoping they’ll evolve.
And sometimes that works out, but sometimes your dad’s just an asshole, and no matter how many chances you dole out, they never fucking change. ”
We’re quiet for a moment.
I’m a little tipsier than I thought.
I slide my eyes back to Reed.
He eyes me thoughtfully. “Daddy issues?”
I smile. “You familiar?”
He swigs the rest of his drink. “Very.”
I raise my glass in acknowledgment. “They plague the best of us, Reed. Someone had to mess us up along the way to adulthood. It might as well have been our parents. More predictable. Easier to treat through therapy.”
He barks a sharp laugh, and we both sigh.
I drop my chin onto my hand. “It’s so picturesque out there by the lake.”
“It really is. They should have a path leading down there from here.” He glances around. “Why is this a closed-off balcony? We’re only like six feet off the ground.”
I look down over the railing. “You’re right. Maybe we should jump it.”
“Jump it?” He eyes me skeptically. “You want to jump down into the grass and wander around in your heels?”
I’ve done enough random shit tonight—might as well add this to the list. I don’t see anyone around to yell at us. I swipe off my heels and place them on the ground with my drink.
He cocks a brow. “What if you get hurt?”
“What if you get hurt? I’m turning thirty, not a hundred.” I throw my leg over the balustrade.
“Whoa, okay, wasn’t expecting—should I go first to catch you?”
I maneuver myself over like Jack on the back of the Titanic, shimmy down into a squat, hold on to the bars of the balcony, and lower my body toward the ground, one foot at a time.
I drop barefoot into the grass, my skirt getting caught under my feet. The thing’s a little long without the heels, but it’s already screwed from the chocolate, so I’m not worried about grass stains.
“Coast is clear,” I say up to him.
Four seconds later, he drops down next to me. “Is this in character for you?”
“Definitely not.” I smile. “But I’m having some sort of last-day-of-my-twenties existential crisis: knocking over candles, eating dessert early. I’m just gonna lean in—tonight I’m an outlaw, Reed.”
He laughs as we fall into step toward the pretty, probably artificial lake. “Thirty’s not so bad.”
I watch him, studying his sharp features again. “So, how do your trust issues manifest?”
He snorts. “Rikki, you don’t want to know how my trust issues manifest. That shit’s for my therapist.” His eyes bulge. “Shit, I momentarily forgot you’re also a therapist.”
We hike the grassy hill surrounding the water. “Double majored in psych and creative writing at Columbia for undergrad.”
“Kudos.” Reed points to himself. “NYU, acting.”
“No way. Wow, not just drama kid—drama man! That’s why you’re trained in fifty styles of dance! A drama man writing YA contemporary during his free time as he perhaps processes the trauma and loss of his first breakup?”
Reed stops in his tracks, narrowing his eyes at me. “What the fuck, Rikki?”
I stop a few feet ahead of him, smiling. “Am I close?”
He shakes his head, blinking at me in disbelief. “Why would you guess that?”
I gnaw at my lip, focusing on a spot in the distant trees.
“Well, you wrote it while you were in college. You’re single due to trust issues.
You’re super guarded. We put up those walls because we’ve been hurt.
And since you’re putting them up on a first date, maybe you’ve experienced some sort of romantic betrayal.
We’re not that old, and like that song says, the first cut is the deepest. A lot of times that happens in college.
With a significant other from your hometown, you go to two different schools, something happens, you break up.
That’s painful. It’ll make its way into a book one way or another for sure if you’re experiencing it for the first time, and you’re writing.
I mean, cutting out that sort of relationship gives you the time to want to write a book in the first place so .
. .” My gaze shifts back to Reed, whose jaw is hanging open. “Educated guess.”
He closes his eyes for a moment.
“. . . And I’ve freaked you out.”
Reed shakes his head, looking at my feet instead of my face. “No, that’s—no. I just didn’t think I was that easy to read.”
“You’re not easy to read. I’m just paying attention.”
He takes a beat. Pulls on a small smile. “Sorry! We can keep going.”
We start forward again, continuing to crest the hill by the lake.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
He huffs a self-deprecating laugh. “Yes I do. You being good at your job threw me into a baby panic, and that was uncalled for.”
“To be clear . . . I don’t actually have clients at the moment, but being a licensed LMFT is what qualifies me to helm Love Today.”
Reed peers at me. “Was that your plan all along? Get the masters so you can write a relationship column?”
I shake my head, laughing. “No, I thought I’d write in some way, shape, or form, part time alongside being a therapist. But it turned out, the work brought me a lot of ubiquitous anxiety that I didn’t pick up on for a while.
I really wanted to help people. I didn’t anticipate the side effects it’d have on my own mental health. ”
It was the little things that started to add up two years ago when I worked at the clinic.
Losing belongings on the train. Dropping my phone ten times a day.
Forgetting plans. Running into door jambs, table corners.
Waking up every three hours in the night.
Making Jordyn repeat herself constantly because I’d lose the thread of all our conversations.
I clear my throat. “So when there was a perfect full-time gig available at The Minute with the LMFT prerequisite, I jumped on it. Now I like to think I help people in a different way. Less direct, but still valuable, hopefully.”
“I can see that,” he says gently. “Taking on everyone’s most intimate, intense issues hour to hour, daily. That’s a lot.”
I nod, growing increasingly uncomfortable with how vulnerable I’ve made myself, eager to shift the focus back to Reed.
Who is this author I’m haphazardly spilling my trauma on?
He wrote a contemporary book that was big nine years ago. Probably a college-age-ish protagonist.
Derek Roosevelt’s Broken and Bruised was huge around that time. That was my first assignment at Books Today. I read an ARC before it came out—my pull quote is on the cover. He only ever released one other book, which was also assigned to me, and I was so disappointed with it.
I can’t visualize an author photo of Derek Roosevelt.
Was there one? All I can picture is the book cover.
Stark-black background, neon-blue outline of a broken heart.
I thought it was going to be cheesy and melodramatic, but the characters were endearing, funny, and deeply relatable.
The metaphors had a way of striking hard in that completely unexpected, stunning way that leaves you feeling extremely seen and understood.