Brazen and Breathless (Untouchable #6) - Heather Long Page 0,76
Jake, which meant the five of us would have to stick together.
“And if you can get an appointment,” Jake said, “I’ll take you, or we can ask Rachel. Deal?”
I fired off a text to Erin and another to Wittaker.
“Deal.”
As it turned out, Wittaker was not in the office that morning because he had court, but he did answer me in brief that he would like to speak to me before I spoke with Maddy and he asked for a copy of the letter from the apartments. I sent it over, and he promised to call later that day.
Erin couldn’t fit me into an in-office appointment, but she did do a phone consult over lunch that I took in Jake’s SUV with the heat running, because the temperatures had continued to nose-dive below freezing. It wasn’t perfect, but it did help. More, Erin asked me a couple of important questions that I didn’t know the answers to.
Not anymore.
What did I want out of any conversation with Maddy? Besides telling her to leave me alone, since that was what she’d been doing before anyway, I didn’t know if there was anything I could get out of that conversation. But Erin challenged that answer and told me to think about it.
Think about it, and we’d discuss it at our session on Thursday.
The second question was a lot harder.
If Maddy wanted to work on our relationship, would I be willing?
I scoffed at that second question. I couldn’t imagine Maddy changing her mind after all this time. But had we ever had that kind of communication? No. Did I want it?
Now?
No.
I spent a long time wanting her attention and being left without it.
“I’m not that kid anymore, Erin, I might still be a kid…but I want other things. I want the things she can’t give me and has never tried as far as I can tell.”
“That’s fair,” Erin told me. “So you know what you want to do about her getting in contact with you.”
“I want it to stop. But…” She went silent and let me figure this out, because we’d danced around the DNA tests. I’d told Erin about them but in short form, because we didn’t know much more about them. “But she has answers that I want, too. At the same time, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to trust a word she said.”
“Yet, there is always the possibility that she will reveal something.”
Fuck me.
“Yeah. But could I trust it? Could I rely on that word? Or is it just going to be something else to hurt and undermine me?”
“I don’t have those answers either. So let’s dig deeper into this on Thursday. Do you think you’ll talk to her before then?”
“God, I hope not,” I admitted. “I’m not ready to fight with her.”
“Then don’t fight, you choose how you feel and how you act. You. Not her. You choose how to treat her, not her. You choose your ground. If she can’t respect that, then you can choose to end the conversation and walk away.”
True.
I could do those things.
It just sounded a lot easier than it felt.
I promised Erin I’d think about it, and I took a few minutes to pack some of the emotion away, but when I got back inside, none of the guys asked me anything, even if they all searched my face. I loved that they never asked. They were there for me, if I wanted to tell them or if I just needed them. Otherwise, they said nothing. In the library for study hall though, I threaded my fingers with Jake’s and leaned my head on his shoulder and I didn’t look at a single note.
Chapter Fifteen
A Day in Our Life
Mr. Wittaker couldn’t see me until the following day, but Archie and I ducked out at lunch to go and talk to him.
“Your mother has retained a lawyer,” he informed me as soon as we were seated in his office. He spared Archie a brief look. “And from this point forward, Mr. Standish, I am going to suggest you step out as well, in the interests of protecting attorney-client privilege.”
“You’re still my attorney,” Archie reminded him. While they debated the point, I turned the idea of Maddy hiring an attorney over in my head.
“Why?” I interrupted Wittaker’s explanation of the complications of attorney-client privilege. That wasn’t my primary concern right now. “Why has she hired an attorney? Is she counter-suing, or trying to stop me from getting emancipated?”