I’d already done that—lived for another man.
My father had made sure that fairytale and reality were understood. This was the real world, where real world things happened. Sometimes you didn’t get what you wanted. Sometimes your mother died, and left you with a mad man. Sometimes, love wasn’t in the cards.
“Turn left up here, and go about two miles until you see the old truck on the right. Take the turn just after that,” Tate said, interrupting my morose thoughts.
“Okay,” I said softly.
Too softly, apparently, because he said, “Did you hear me?”
I nodded my agreement.
“Why aren’t you talking to me?” he asked.
Why wasn’t I talking to him? I wasn’t not talking to him. I just didn’t know what to say at this point.
What did you tell the man that you loved that you weren’t going to have anything to do with him anymore? That you’d transferred his care to another psychologist. That you’d called a realtor to find you a house that was not only not in the vicinity of him, but was in a different town entirely?
“I’m talking to you,” I hedged. “I think I’m coming down with a cold.”
The lie felt bitter on my tongue, but I didn’t really want to talk to him, even though I knew I would have to before the night was over.
He was acting like everything hadn’t changed overnight. Like he didn’t have a child to take care of now—a dying child at that.
I’d learned more over the last couple of hours since I’d been to the diner. Krisney had done nothing but text me for the last four hours about him, and at first I’d ignored them, but my curiosity had always gotten the best of me. This time had been no different.
Although it was all just stuff she’d heard, I was fairly sure that it was true.
If it hadn’t been, the look I’d seen on his face when he’d been talking to Ariya wouldn’t have been there this morning.
It was kind of hard to hide pain like that.
“I’m sorry to hear about your child,” I told him.
He looked over at me, studying the side of my face.
“You heard.”
Not a question, a statement.
“Yes,” I said. “The diner was all abuzz about it this morning. I’d, of course, heard little bits and pieces about it earlier than today, but I’d always written it off to the town gossips having some fun. Apparently, you confirmed it today with her.”
“Hmmm,” he rumbled.
“I’m sorry that she didn’t tell you,” I continued. “I feel terrible.”
“Turn right there.” He pointed.
I did.
“I mean, if you want to talk about it, I’m always here.”
“Are you?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“Funny you should say that,” he said. “Because I got a call from another psychologist. A Dr. Joan McQuaid.”
My stomach tightened at the lightness in his tone. Almost as if he were trying to control his temper.
“Yes,” I licked my lips as I turned on my blinker and turned where he’d indicated. “About that…”
“I told you that I could handle it on my end, didn’t I?”
I worried my lip and nodded. He had told me he’d get it handled. However, I didn’t want to chance him getting in trouble. I wanted to make sure that he had it figured out, and if I were being honest…I was scared. Still was scared, as a matter of fact.
My father had shown me that, despite what was on the outside, it was the inside that counted.
And though Tate had never outwardly done anything to me, it was only a matter of time.
My head was fucked up. So fucked up.
But I’d always wanted Tate. Always wanted to see what it would be like to be near him, to be sucked into the Tate Casey stratosphere. However, I’d never once thought that it’d be as terrifying as it was.
I thought for sure that I’d be able to handle everything that came to Tate.
I was na?ve.
I didn’t have a single clue. Not until I’d done some serious thinking today.
I didn’t know that being around him would make me turn into a simpering idiot that only wanted to make him happy. Something I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do after I’d finally clawed my way out of my father’s clutches.
I didn’t know that when it came to Tate Casey, I wouldn’t care if I lost myself.
But after getting some perspective this afternoon, I knew that what I had with him, while it was fun, wouldn’t be something I could continue to do for the rest of my life—not and live with myself.
“I don’t like what I’m seeing on your face.”
I winced.
“Where do I go now?” I asked, my eyes taking in the city around me.
I’d never once been this deep into the ‘South Side’ as everyone in town called it. The preacher’s daughter wasn’t the kind of woman that went to places like that—places where drugs were plentiful, and there were men and women on the street that very obviously belonged to a gang.
“What is that?” I pointed to a man in a car.
Or at least what I thought was a man. I couldn’t quite tell. When I looked at his face, he looked like a he. But the hair and the top? Those screamed woman.
“Transvestite,” he said. “Turn right at the whore on the corner.”
I bit my lip to keep the laugh buried.
“I know you want to laugh,” he said. “The sad thing is that I was being serious.”
I knew he was, which was why I turned at the street following the woman dressed in a tight short blue jean skirt, a white wife beater that looked like it’d already been well used before she got it, paired with red hooker heels. Or at least heels that I would constitute as ‘hooker heels.’
“This is where you stop,” he pointed to where a set of tracks was already in the dirt off the side of the road. “I’ll be back in five minutes, tops. If I’m not back, you leave and tell Reed or Baylor where you left me.”
He was smoking something if he thought I was going to leave him here, but I would call Reed if I needed to. I had his number from back in high school when he and Krisney had been an item. I’d also heard that he hadn’t changed his number since then, which was why I still had it.
Though, that information was gathered from Krisney when she told me she drunk dialed him one night and he’d actually answered.
Before I could tell him that, though, he bailed out of the car and disappeared through the woods.
I bit my lip and watched him go, wondering if I ever had a life with Tate, if that was what I would have to look forward to. Him saving dogs. Repossessing cars and getting shot at—though I’d heard that from Krisney and not Tate. I was only assuming that Tate was having to deal with that.
I worried my lip as I thought about what that would feel like—having to worry about that day in and day out.
What would I do if one day Tate was hurt, possibly even killed?
I could tell you that I’d feel pain. Even now, thinking about him being hurt even when I knew I needed to distance myself from him…well, it scared the living shit out of me how much I cared.
Before I could get too deep into these thoughts, though, the window of my car was knocked on, dragging my thoughts away from Tate.