I follow him to the common room, where Lucy is sitting uncomfortably on a sofa, surrounded by patients. She’s as out of place as I feel. She looks up and sees me, and I can’t help but notice the way she looks at my wrist, eyeing the bandage, probably looking for the crazy.
But she smiles and gets up and hugs me, and she hands me a coffee.
“Your favorite,” she assures me. “With an extra shot of espresso.”
“Thank you,” I tell her genuinely. “This place has shit for coffee.”
“Okay, well, on that note, I’ll take my leave,” Dr. Phillips says. He looks pointedly at Lucy. “Don’t forget what we discussed.”
She nods but seems a bit uncomfortable. “Okay.”
He walks away, and I pull Lucy to a corner to sit in two chairs with me.
“What did you discuss?” I demand as soon as we sit.
She shrugs. “He doesn’t want me to focus on Jude, or anything from the outside. I’m just supposed to be a set of ears for you to vent to, if you want.”
Her eyes are swimming with sympathy, and I hate it.
“They don’t even want me to visit with my sister,” I tell her. “I’m surprised they let you in.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m more impartial,” she suggests. “I won’t remind you of anything from the past, or stuff like that.”
“Maybe.”
She sips her coffee, and her feet are fidgety. “Do you want to talk about anything?” she asks softly.
I’ve been confiding in her for a year, but I don’t think I can talk about this. It’s just too much. So I shake my head.
“Are you sure?” she asks doubtfully. “It looks like I’m all you’ve got for now.”
I think about that, and it’s honestly tempting. I’ve never wanted to talk about any of it, but I was out in the world and surrounded by the hustle and bustle of life, and it was so easy to distract myself. In here, there’s nothing to steal my attention. Nothing I can do to keep my mind busy. And I decide that’s the method to their madness here.
They literally force you to think of nothing else but your issues.
“My panic attacks weren’t caused by the hospital,” I begin. “I let you think they were, but they weren’t.”
Lucy nods. “Okay.”
“They’re from other issues. Old issues. Issues from a long time ago,” I continue, my words slow. “My dad was cheating on my mother, but I didn’t know it. By the time I found out, it was too late.”
She waits, her legs crossed and her fingers wrapped around her coffee cup. “Too late?”
I nod. “Yeah. My father killed his mistress and her husband. I was there babysitting. I was eighteen.”
“Oh my God. Corinne.” She’s stunned, as anyone would be. “I didn’t know. I would never have guessed. Oh my God.”
I look at the floor. “Yeah. So apparently, they say I’ve suppressed issues and memories, which I know I have, but they’ve caused me to sort of implode now. As you know.”
Lucy fidgets uncomfortably.
“But I swear to you. I’d never try to kill myself. Never. I don’t know what happened.”
Lucy’s eyes are drawn to my bandage again, and self-consciously, I hide it under my other arm.
“You must’ve just been...” Her voice trails off. “I don’t know. Overcome?”
“With what?” I ask desperately. “With crazy?”
She shakes her head. “Of course not. Don’t say that.”
I’m silent. I take a drink. I look at the floor again.
“You really don’t remember anything at all from that day?” she asks, and her eyes...they’re both dubious and fascinated.
I shake my head. “No.”
She stares off into the distance, her slender fingers drumming her knee.
“Why haven’t you told me about this stuff before?” she asks gently. “We’re friends, Corinne. I like to imagine that we’re good friends. You could’ve trusted me with this. Trying to deal with this alone...that’s a heavy burden to bear.”
My eyes well up. She has no idea.
“That’s what Jude says. Sorry. I know I’m not supposed to focus on him.”
She fiddles with her cup awkwardly.
“Well, thank you for listening today,” I tell her, and honestly, it did almost feel good. “You won’t mention this to anyone, will you?”
She shakes her head vehemently. “Of course I won’t. Ever.”
“Does anyone know where I am?”
She shakes her head again. “Not that I know of.”
“They don’t know why I’ve been gone?”
She looks away. “I’m not sure.”
“Lucy.”
She looks at me reluctantly. “They know about the...incident. You were brought into our ER, Corinne. You know how gossipy some of the nurses are.”
“Great.”
She’s silent. She can’t fix this.
“I think our time is almost up,” she says now. “Can I come visit you again?”
“Of course you can.” I hug her. “And bring some more coffee.”
She laughs and stands up, and her pants almost fall off. I roll my eyes.
“You seriously need some new clothes, Luce. You’re so beautiful. You should act like it, not dress like you’re eighty-five.”
She grins. “I’m doing mankind a favor. If I unleash this—” and she gestures at her body “—they would all be devastated by my natural beauty.”
We’re both laughing when Dr. Phillips walks over.
“Can I escort you out?” he asks her. She nods, and I do sense reluctance there, but she’s in a loony bin. Of course she’s reluctant.
“I’ll see you soon,” she tells me. And then she pauses. She turns around, and her mouth is next to my ear.
“You don’t have to worry about Jude,” she tells me. “You know. What your father did. I know your husband would never do that. He loves you. So while you’re in here, don’t worry about him at all.”
I have to chuckle at that.
There are many things in life that I worry about, but Jude being unfaithful isn’t one of them.
11
Ten days, fifteen hours until Halloween Jude
Last night, I texted the waitress a picture of my dick like a fucking slimeball.
That’s the plain truth of it.
Now I’m standing at the door of Vilma’s, watching that very girl wait on tables, and trying to decide how to handle this situation.
I’m not going to shirk away from it. God, no. I come here every day, and this is my place. She’s new, and it was simply an error in judgment. I’d had too much scotch, and fuck it. I’m not going to make excuses. I’m married. I love my wife. I made a dumb mistake, and that’s that.
I stride inside.
Vilma is hunched over the hostess desk, her gnarled fingers adding up tickets. I smile at her when she looks up.
“Can I have the window table?”
“Of course.” She nods. “Follow me.”
Zoe is in the kitchen, and so I’m relaxed as I decide upon coffee and toast, and when I look up, she’s bustling back through the kitchen doors.
Fucking-A.
I’d forgotten how blatantly sexy she is. She’s like a bright neon sign, blinking on and off that she’s got young, firm tits and that my dick should stand up and take notice. Her uniform is tight, her legs are long. She’s curvy, and I can tell that in ten years, she’ll be plump. But right now, her curves are like a ripe peach, just perfect for biting into.
I swallow hard as she bends over at a table and her ass strains against her short skirt. I can see the outline of her butt cheeks, and she’s not wearing panties. She’s a bit on the trashy side, but in a young and immature way, like she’s wild and unrestrained. When I think of it that way, it doesn’t repel me like it did the other day. In fact, it gives me a strange rush.
I gulp hard, right as she glances up and meets my gaze.
She stops in her tracks, her temples damp from rushing around, and for a minute, it’s just her and me in the middle of the busy café, frozen as we stare at each other.
An invisible tether connects the two of us, her eyes to mine, and she seems real now, instead of the vague abstract that she was last night on my phone screen. Her face is flushed in an attractive way, the glow of youth radiating from her. Her lips are full, her eyes are bright. There is something there, an unreadable something, but she masks it and smiles. The world unfreezes, the sounds and smells coming back to life around me.
I smile politely back, and she walks straight to my table, holding my credit card in her hands. She offers it to me.
“I’m sure you’re wanting this. If you see strange shoe purchases, don’t blame me.” She giggles and I roll my eyes.