The Fallout (The Therapist #3) - W.S. Greer Page 0,15

an infinite amount of microscopic pieces, and you have the goddamn nerve to sit there and cry about me punishing you. How dare you? How fucking dare you, Eli.”

I choke back the oncoming tears, determined not to let him see me cry again as I walk toward the bedroom, where I will sleep alone once again. When I reach the door, I turn around one last time.

“If you knew how it felt to be cheated on, you wouldn’t be asking me why we can't go back to normal,” I say, feeling an onslaught of tears rushing to the surface. “If the roles were reversed, you’d know there is no normal now. Normal has been destroyed, and if by some miraculous stroke of luck it was able to grow back, it would never look or feel the way it did before.

“I wish I could make you feel this hurt you’ve burdened me with. I wish it more than I can explain. But since I can’t, I guess I’ll just say goodnight and cry myself to sleep for the millionth time since I read that text. While I’m in here crying, I won't have a single thought about how badly I’ve made you feel, because I’ll be too shrouded in the relentless, undying misery you’ve placed on my heart. Goodnight, Eli. Enjoy your TV dinner.”

Neither of us says another word before the door closes between us.

9

~ Demi ~

“Good morning, Demi.”

“Morning, Demi!”

“Hey! Morning,” I call out to my coworkers as I walk through the open concept office filled with cubicles, screaming phones, computers, and social workers grinding themselves down like nails against a file. This is what we call the bullpen, and it’s a tiny gray neighborhood of hustle and bustle. It’s my workplace, and where I spend most of my time doing what I love—saving children’s lives.

I glide through the narrow walkway in the middle of the office holding a Starbucks coffee cup in my hand and an invisible ton of weight on my heart. I didn’t speak to Eli again after our fight last night, and when I woke up this morning, the emotion I felt when I was talking to him woke up next to me and followed me to the office. It’s walking beside me now with its arm over my shoulder, whispering disheartening things in my ear as I do my best to ignore it and plaster a fake smile on my face for my associates. This dynamic has become far too familiar. Smile on the outside, a monsoon of tears on the inside.

As I walk past my coworkers, I find safety in knowing none of them are aware of how I feel internally. There are no X-ray glasses that reveal hidden emotions, so I sit at my desk wrapped in the security of the unseen, and start up my computer as if everything is normal. After just a few minutes, I’m sipping coffee and opening files on my desktop to line up cases for the day.

My career keeps me extremely busy, and it sometimes pulls me away from home more than I’d like. My job is to check on children and ensure they are staying in homes that are properly equipped to take care of them, and sometimes a house call can take place late in the evening. Unscheduled home visits can be even later if there's a report of suspected abuse in the home and a phone call is made for the case worker to do an inspection. On what Eli would call a bad day, I can be out until midnight, but Eli and I see my job differently.

Eli thinks of my job and the time I spend doing it as a burden. I see it as a privilege. I view it as the opportunity to possibly save a child’s life, and keep asshole parents from ruining a young person’s body and mind. I can be a savior sometimes, although I know parents don't see it that way, especially when it’s social workers who come in and pry screaming children out of their parents’ arms when things go wrong, forcing them into the system. I understand the stigma handcuffed to my job, but I like trying to help people. I like trying to be a force for good in a child’s life, and Eli can go fuck himself if he can't understand that.

At least that’s how I feel today.

After I get things in order, I outline a schedule for myself and prepare to put that