He types into the app.
“Physically, not at all. After our mother’s passing, I’ve been burdened with my family’s fortune. A fortune I fear that my brother, Hugo, will piss away on his lifestyle, and any stability they have will be lost.”
“But you were trusted with it, so they’ll be fine.”
“They need more love than I can give.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Our family is not like yours, Tris. We were not taught love.”
“So, you show them.”
“To the best of my ability and allowance, I do. I, too, am still learning what it is in the purest sense.”
“Yet you gave advice about my love life.”
“Still learning, but toxic love I know a little about. I was that person with the one woman I have loved in the romantic sense. Marcello, or anyone who would portray you in the way he does through messenger to someone he doesn’t even know, someone whose intentions toward you are not known and unsafe, someone who speaks for you and thinks he owns you, that’s not pure,” is translated.
“I’m toxic, too. I told you I’m fucked up.” I tap my head, a bit too hard, too.
He leans forward and takes my hand. “Life has a way of making us feel that way. I see your heart, your soul, your—”
I pull my hand back. “I’m toxic. I ruined us, and …” I stop when a realization smashes into me like a fucking freight train. “I ruined him.”
“No, Tris. That is not—”
“Stop. Just stop.” I lean down and bury my face in the pillow.
The bed moves, and I feel him sit beside me and pull me into him. “My apologies. But, Tris, you were fifteen, and you’ve grown so much—”
I look up quickly. “How do you know that?”
He leans down and grabs his phone. I suspect he’s going to use his app, but I suspect wrong.
He opens his IG messages and hands me his phone.
“This is toxic and needs to be resolved before you can truly move forward.”
Four days ago, all the monsters came out to play in a near catastrophic storm where lightning bolts in all the colors of every one of my monsters were thrown from the ground up, from beneath the earth, from hell.
I know I was a mess, but I also know he held me together, even when in the darkest of moments.
Even through whispers from Momma Joe that he could leave, he refused.
Even when my parents showed up because I wouldn’t eat, sleep, or take my meds.
Even when I was on video chats with Marley, telling her I thought I was bipolar, in front of them all.
Even him.
The good news? I feel better, a whole lot better, because the biggest monster, the one who was hiding in plain sight, the reason I only want to look in foggy mirrors was … me.
The girl who opened an album that Marcello Effisto told me that we shouldn’t look at and I pulled him right into it all.
Marley, my parents, Momma Joe all told me that was not true. That he was obviously a willing participant. They begged me to believe that I was no villain.
But Matteo, who stayed even after my father told him to leave a million times, who sat silently, was the only person who made me feel like it was okay to feel that way.
Before we left to come back, before I started taking the new pills that Marley prescribed, when things were finally quiet, I sat beside him and thanked him. I even told him the truth about the past, coherently this time. I told him about the pregnancy, which was when things started to go really bad, then the baseball game where Marc told me that we were done and that he was dating my cousins—plural. I told him about the abortion and the fact that I paid some random chick, who I knew had a drug problem, to sit in the waiting room, something my parents don’t even know for fear that, in Dad’s quest to “fix the laws” in all the world that would allow a fifteen-year-old the ability to go through that alone, without more than a pre-counseling session and one aftercare phone call, he would seek her out and make her feel like this was her fault. I told him about the roses and fights—plural—at school and being institutionalized. And I told him about the day I wanted to die and how Dad had to basically stick his hand down my throat to save my life.
I cried, he held me, and Matteo Arias shed tears, too.
Before we left, he made me promise to go home and make peace with my goodbye or starting over with Marley or another therapist if I chose to be with Marcello.
I knew that was it. I knew it was goodbye, but I told him how honored I was to have met him and jokingly told him I was sure Zandor would pay him whatever he asked for pushing me far enough to see the true root of my issue.
Me.
When we left, I sobbed because I knew I would never see him again. And who held me? My dad.
Today, at my insistence, my parents and Sabato and Mel, agreed to allow Marc and I to talk with Marley to “make peace.”
Making Peace
Tris
When he walks in, dressed in khaki slacks and a navy Seashore blazer, I’m already seated in one of the six back-winged leather chairs in Dr. Marley’s spacious office.
He looks me over then stares me in the eye. “I’m assuming on your knees, pet, would be a little presumptuous since we’re in public.”
In a calm voice, Marley says, “I’m going to start by setting ground rules, and any time I feel like this isn’t a healing experience, we’re done.”
He rolls his eyes. “Then I’ll lead with I’m glad you saw the error of your ways and came back to where you know you belong.”
“Marcello,” she snaps, which is shocking because hello, ‘a place of healing’? “How about, hello, Tris? That’s always a good place to start.”
“Hello, Tris.” He shrugs off his blazer and throws it over the back of the chair.
As disturbing as it is, in the wake of all my revelations over the past few days, I find him insanely attractive, and my body, trained by his touch, and ours together, reacts to him.
“Invisible strings yet to be clipped,” he says, pushing up his sleeves and sitting down.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Marley asks as she returns to her seat.
“Well, Dr. Matteson, I wouldn’t want to offend you, so—”
“My nipples. He was looking at them. They hardened. It happens.”
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “Does it happen with him?”
“My friend, Matteo, no. I’m assuming, with you, it’s muscle memory or something.”
“So, you do remember those wicked little games we played,” he says in a deep rasp.
I look at him and am pleased that I can do so without glaring or getting turned on.
His scowl deepens. It obviously pisses him off, which, a few days ago, that would have made me happy. Now it’s a different story. It makes me sad.
“Friends don’t fuck friends, Tris.”
“I’m going to remind you why we’re here,” Marley repeats.
He swings his glare toward her. “How much would it take to make you sit there and observe rather than try to control something well beyond your ability?”
“Marc, shut up, okay? Just shut up and listen to me.”