I let out a soft chuckle. “God, Ruby, neither do I,” I tell her. “But this is part of the deal, right? We talk, no matter how hard it is?”
Ruby wraps her arms around my neck now, leaning in to press a kiss to my lips. “We do,” she whispers, brushing her mouth against mine. “And yes, I will come with you today. I’ll be there however you need me.” I smile, slipping my arms under her knees and her ass before I stand. Ruby squeals, her arms tightening around my neck as she says, “What are you doing?”
I grin, turning and walking back inside the house, kicking the front door closed behind me. “The other part of our deal,” I tell her as I walk us back to the bedroom. “Sex with Ruby.”
Three hours later, we are sitting side by side in a waiting room. We are the only people here besides the receptionist, who’s busy typing away at a computer and not paying us any attention. Somewhere, music plays softly, adding a forced calmness to the space that’s clearly been strategically designed to do exactly that.
Ruby holds my hand in hers, neither of us saying anything. My eyes are on the clock on the wall, watching the hands move as they inch ever closer to my appointment time. My left leg bounces a little, a nervous energy making it hard for me to sit still, even as I have to force myself not to move.
“Caleb Parker?”
I look up to see a woman in her early fifties standing in the open doorway. She’s dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a sweater, which surprises me. I’d expected a stuffy old professor type.
I swallow hard as I nod once. Beside me, Ruby squeezes my hand before lifting it to her mouth and pressing a firm kiss to the back of it. Then she gently nudges me until I’m standing, and I walk toward this woman, who’s waiting by the door, smiling at me.
“I’m Dr Liz Watkins,” she says as she stands to the side, letting me walk into the room. “Call me Liz and take a seat wherever you like.”
I step inside, the sound of the door closing behind me feeling like a death knell. I stop, my eyes searching the room as I try to decide where I should sit. Liz walks past me, heading toward an oversized chair beside a small table. I glance at what’s left, taking in a similar chair across from her and a larger loveseat to the left of that.
“Caleb?” she says.
I clear my throat, as I walk over to the chair and sit down.
She smiles again when I finally look at her. “Can I get you some water or something?”
I shake my head, clasping my hands together between my knees as I try to control the nervous energy that’s continuing to build inside me.
Liz nods before glancing down at her notes. “Okay, so I’m going to guess this is your first time doing something like this?” she asks, pausing as she waits for my acknowledgement. She smiles when I tip my head before continuing. “Well, just so you know, everything that’s said in this room remains confidential. Between you and me,” she adds, gesturing between us. “I know Ed gave you my card, but I don’t know the reason why. You can either tell me yourself or you can sign a document giving Ed permission to give me the information.”
She stops then and I find myself nodding again, although I’m not sure why. Liz offers me another smile before continuing.
“Same goes for whatever you decide to tell me. I can’t tell Ed anything unless I have your permission or a court order.” My head snaps up at that and I watch as she holds up a hand. “It’s unlikely it will come to that,” she says. “And we can discuss how to best handle it if and when we need to.”
She stops again, as though waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she glances down at her notes again and then looks up at me.
“So, do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
I take a deep breath, drawing the air into my lungs slowly, mostly to buy myself some time before I actually have to start talking. That nervous energy has now grown, spreading through me as my left leg once again starts to bounce, my fingers knotting together between my legs.
Liz must sense my unease, because she puts her notepad down before standing and walking over to a small fridge to the left of her desk. She grabs a bottle of water before walking back, placing it on the table in front of me and sitting down again.
“I know this isn’t easy,” she says. “I know it’s quite possibly the last thing you want to be doing right now, but can I just say, it will help. I know it doesn’t feel like it and honestly, it probably won’t for a while, but it will happen. One day you’ll be able to look back on all of this and realize that coming in here was the best thing you could have done.”
I nod again, still unsure what to say, what she wants me to say. My head is a mess, a whirling mix of emotions and memories and feelings that I can’t even begin to make sense of myself, let alone explain to her.
As if she can sense I don’t know how to begin, she clears her throat before sitting back in her chair a little. “That woman out there,” she starts, gesturing toward the closed door with her pen. “She’s your girlfriend?”
I meet her gaze in silent acknowledgement.
“What’s her name?”
“Ru—” I have to clear my throat. “Ruby.”
“Would you like her to be in here with you?”
I shake my head before she even finishes her question.
“Okay, that’s fine,” she says. “But if you ever do want her in here, that’s also fine. These sessions are all about you, Caleb and to do that, we need to make sure you’re comfortable. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say.
Liz smiles, as though me actually acknowledging something verbally is a huge step and in this moment, I can understand why she’s a therapist, because it almost puts me at ease. “Okay,” she repeats. “So should we start?” When I don’t say anything, she waits until our gazes meet. “Do you want to tell me why you’re here?”
I’d like to say it all just falls out of me, but it doesn’t. Instead, images of that night and what I did, flash through my brain, assaulting me with the reality of my situation and everything I stand to lose in this moment.
The anxiety ripples through me, reminding me of just how fucked up I am, just how close I am to losing my shit and bolting from this office. Running out and hiding away from everything that I’ve done and everything that’s about to come next.
“Caleb?”
But I can’t do that. I can’t run anymore. Not now, not when I have Ruby out there, waiting for me, expecting so much of me. So, instead, I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly before I tell her the reasons. “I beat the shit out of my girlfriend’s professor after I caught him jerking off outside her bedroom window.”
Liz says nothing, a silence descending over the room that’s only broken by the slow ticking of a clock somewhere that I can’t see. Eventually she scribbles something down on her notepad before lifting her head to meet my eyes. She offers me a warm smile that strangely doesn’t show any pity or judgment or anything else I expected to see.
“Okay, so while your methods might not have been the best,” she says, pausing to give me a wry smile. “I do get why you did it.”
I actually feel my jaw drop in surprise. How the fuck can it be this easy?