Murder_ A Sinful Secrets Romance - Ella James Page 0,206

not sure if that’s gross or impressive. It’s like The Exorcist.”

I want to hit her.

“What?” she asks, one eyebrow arched, as I wipe my face with a wet washcloth. “Would you like me to enable you and lie?”

“Enable.” I roll my eyes. Ouch. “Get out.” I wave at her. “I’ll take a shower.”

“Good. When you finish, we’re going out to dinner.”

I feel queasy at the thought.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be your very own bodyguard and life coach. Nic is coming, and he’ll drive us.”

GWENNA

January 24, 2016

“So what was the drinking about?” Helga’s smooth voice unfurls through the cool, clean air inside her office.

I shrug. “I don’t know.” I’m looking at my feet, not even bothering to front. Because I’m lazy, I guess. “Self-pity. Or bitterness.”

“Because?”

I snort, and look up at her.

“Not going to answer?”

I inhale and exhale, not too quietly.

“You know what?”

Her lips purse.

“I’ve come in here a thousand times, and I try every time to have a good attitude. To be honest. To be grateful. To be okay with where I am, and how I am. Because that’s the ‘right thing’ to do. Because I want to make progress, to be better than I am, for…some purpose. Just so I can say I did my best, or something. I don’t know. But let me say this now. Nobody knows what it’s like to be in my shoes. To look this different from other people, to have things like this—” I point to my mouth— “that stand out. I was told, as you know, that I might not be able to have children because of the ovary I lost.” A stark chill grips me underneath my throat as I think about Barrett, where my mind can never help but go.

“I’ve got a lot to deal with,” I hear myself tell Helga. “It’s…a lot.” I fold my hands together, looking at them, and not at her face. “I found out my fucking boyfriend is the one who hit me that night. That he lied. He was with me out of guilt, no doubt. So that’s what the drinking is about. If I’m going to be alone forever, why not be alone and drunk?” I throw my hands up. “Why not?”

Helga’s eyes are kind and warm, almost omniscient. I stand up.

“I’ll see you Thursday.”

I have fifteen minutes left, but I don’t care. I’ve never left her office early. Now can be the first time.

Jamie stands up in the waiting room when I come out.

“You’re—”

“Early. Yes. That’s not your problem, is it?”

Her eyes widen.

“Take me home, please. I don’t feel like St. Jude right now.”

Jamie does as I ask, and she’s even nice about it. I’m still in a rotten mood when she leaves half an hour later.

“You’ll be good? No—”

“No drinking. It was like, a week. I drank as much in a week or two than you did the first three days of spring break in Cabo our senior year. Lay off.”

Again, the wide eyes. I roll mine.

“Sorry. Just leave me to my own foul mood.”

When the door shuts, I sob.

TWENTY EIGHT

GWENNA

February 14, 2016

Valentine’s Day.

It’s when I know for certain he will never contact me again.

How could he let me be alone on Valentine’s Day? If he loved me?

I know from Nic that Bear surrendered at the jail in Breckenridge, and one of his old ACE friends bailed him out.

He’s willing to serve jail time because he didn’t really love me. If he loved me, he would have considered that I wouldn’t want that for him. Would have never wanted that for him.

“Really?” Helga asks me, fingers steepled.

I frown. “Of course I wouldn’t.” What does she take me for? Some kind of savage? “You do remember I already beat the shit out of him, yeah? Nic told Jamie that, but I knew already. I had blood under my fingernails. I went at him. And Helga, he was suffering.” I sigh, lean back against her couch’s saggy cushions.

“That’s the worst thing,” I tell her, picking at a loose stich on my jeans. “It’s not like I don’t know him, didn’t love him on my end of things.” It hurts to say that out loud, so I breathe for just a second. Then I shut my eyes, because it’s too private to say aloud and look at Helga.

“I love Barrett still. Maybe not as a lover. I understand that’s over; he didn’t love me that way. But I love him as a person. I will always love him. Because I knew him. Isn’t that the