“Damn,” Morris breathed. “That’s heavy.”
“I don’t want to say anything else.” Mark crossed his arms over his chest, seemingly holding himself together.
“My mom swallowed a bunch of pills,” Morris said. “I was at my dad’s for the weekend. Our housekeeper found her. I’ve never gone back there. She and my dad were getting divorced. They had a prenup. She’d cheated and wasn’t going to get any money. My dad had photos. I didn’t see them or anything because that would have been gross, but her lawyer did. I was there when he told her about them. She was pretty broken up and begged me to talk to my dad, but I didn’t want to be in the middle. Maybe I should have said something…” Morris’s voice trailed off. “Maybe it would have made a difference.”
Claire scooted closer to Morris, placed her hand on his, and said, “My mom had cancer. She didn’t know until it was stage four. She only lived two months after her diagnosis. My dad had a girlfriend. She was twenty-five at the time. He married her the day my mom’s death certificate was issued.”
“Classy,” Morris muttered.
“He always has been,” Claire said. “At least he furnished an apartment for me, so I don’t have to live with him.”
Morris and Claire stared at one another in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable. Like they were about to seek out the nearest closet and make out.
Dr. Pierce called on me and I blurted out that my mother had killed herself. That I’d witnessed her death, but didn’t want to discuss the details.
“Your file speaks of your unwillingness to share or speak freely in a group setting. Why is that?”
“Because I should get to choose how I deal with what happened, and how much of it I want to discuss. No offense, but I’m here because I have to be, not because I think like I’ll benefit from it. I spent three months in therapy with Dr. Ming and her associates and gained nothing from the experience.”
“Because you chose not to participate. Talk therapy works. It helps you to gain perspective. To see the whole picture from every angle.”
“I know what you want me to discuss. I know what question is at the tip of your tongue. It’s the same question everyone asks. The answer is no. I didn’t do it because she did. It was completely random and unintentional, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”
Dr. Pierce wouldn’t be exposing my root today. Possibly not ever.
After making peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to say anything further, he called on Charlie.
“My parents were killed by a drunk driver when I was fifteen,” he said.
“Anything to add?” Dr. Pierce asked after waiting out a long silence.
“No.”
Dr. Pierce exhaled. “I was ten when my sixteen-year-old sister was abducted and murdered. The man responsible was quickly caught, but it ruined my parents. They were never the same after losing her. That’s what made me want to help others struggling with the loss of a loved one. No matter how they go, it’s a difficult thing to live through. Next week, we’ll discuss the stages of grief, which one you’re in, and how to better cope with your feelings.” Dr. Pierce looked around the room, then said, “We can all learn from one another. Until next time.”
Usually Charlie booked it out of the room, but today he walked out with me. We quietly took the stairs down to the lobby. I wasn’t sure why I felt I had to work up the nerve to talk to him since he was such an ass to me all the time. Maybe it was because I was going to say something nice.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” I told him.
At least I still had one of mine.
He glanced over at me then looked back down at his phone as we exited the front doors.
“Wow,” I marveled.
“What?”
I shook my head, feeling incredibly stupid, and wishing I hadn’t said a word to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Samantha darling. I guess I should reciprocate.”
“Forget it,” I said, and walked ahead of him. For once, my dad was on time, and I was grateful.
As I was climbing into Betty’s car, I heard Charlie’s voice, his tone remorseful. “I’m sorry about your mom, Sam.”
I slammed the car door without acknowledging him, and began recounting the number of times I’d heard those words since my mother died. It wasn’t that many, really. I’d mostly heard it from the shrinks I’d seen. A few of my teachers had said it, but no one else at school had anything remotely nice to say. Her death only amplified the cruel chatter about her mental health. One girl, trying to make her friends laugh, told me that I should do the world a favor and kill myself, too. It had been a hard thing to hear, and although it was by far the meanest thing anyone had said, I knew I had to brush it off just like everything else. So I looked at the bitch, smirked, and said, “You first.”
Turned out, I was the one who made her friends laugh.
20
W es came over after I got home from group. I still hadn’t told him how Charlie and I knew each other, but he also hadn’t asked me again. Probably because he assumed that we’d met at the club, which was fine by me.
I was in the game room reading a book. He shook his head and told me to get up and let him teach me how to play pool. My performance was nothing short of sad. I finally gave up, sat down, and watched as he continued to play on his own.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.” I laughed. “I mean, shouldn’t you be skiing in the French Alps or on a yacht in the Riviera?”
Wes smirked at me. “Due to past poor behavior, I’m on a tight leash financially right now. I can’t afford a big trip. Austin usually goes somewhere midsummer, but since he and Charlotte are in love or whatever, he’s staying, too.”
“Is it weird for you that they’re together?”
“No. They’ve been flirting since the seventh grade. I’m actually shocked that it took so long for them to hook up. I think they were afraid it would ruin everything because they’d been friends for so long.”
“Fear is a great deterrent.”
“True.” Wes’s eyes landed on mine, and then he smiled. “Let’s get out of here. Go put on tennis shoes.”
“I’m not going running,” I said.
“Do you really think that my cigarette smoking, whiskey drinking ass is going running midday in June?” he asked, making me laugh. “You should probably wear shorts, too. I have to make a call, I’ll meet you out front.”
I put on a pair of jean shorts I’d gotten while shopping with Betty and a teal t-shirt. I wadded my hair into a messy bun and met Wes, who was leaning against the hood of the Range Rover, texting. He was wearing a pale yellow shirt and navy shorts with tennis shoes. I smiled at the sight of him.
Before we’d gotten out of the driveway, Wes’s phone dinged four times. He picked it up from the console, swiped at the screen, and chuckled at what he saw. “The girl I put off to hang out with you is a little miffed.”
The phone dinged three more times.
“I’d say she’s more than a little miffed. What’s she saying?”
“She’s sending nudes, so I can see what I’m missing.”
“Seriously?”
He turned his phone toward me and the screen was filled with boobs.
The phone dinged twice more and I groaned.
“You’ve never sent Charlie a boob shot?” Wes asked, almost laughing.
“That would be hard to do without a phone,” I answered, even though I knew he was joking.
“Has he asked you out yet?”
“Nope.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for a sign from you. The Fourth of July party is coming up. You should ask him to take you if he’s not working.”
“If he wants to go with me, he’ll ask,” I said, knowing the likelihood of that happening was low, especially after our last interaction. But it also wasn’t as if I was clamoring for an invitation to anywhere from Charlie.
“Stubbor
n girl. Have you masturbated yet?”
My whole body blushed. His phone dinged again and I hoped the subject would change. After glancing at the screen, Wes handed the phone to me. “Now she’s mad.” She’d typed fuck you, fucker about ten times.
“Have you been with her before?”
“No.”
“You should probably take a pass.”
He grinned. “Probably.”
“But you won’t.”
“She may be mad now, but that’ll disappear the moment she sees me.”
I shook my head, rolling my eyes. His phone dinged again and I considered tossing it out the window.
“I’ll silence it,” he said.
“You don’t have to. I’m just… it’s strange how she can be so comfortable sending you photos of all of her parts like it’s nothing and I’m considering avoiding having sex altogether because I’ll have to be naked and I’m afraid of how much it’ll hurt.”
“I’ve seen you in a bathing suit, Samantha darling, there’s no way you’re not beautiful naked, so rid of that worry.” He glanced at me and smiled. The compliment surprised me, and I was certain that my cheeks were bright red because of it. “Also, I read that the more relaxed you are, the less painful it will be, and that the easiest way for a girl to lose her virginity is on top because you can control how the guy enters you.”
“Enters me?” I snorted.
“It keeps him from cramming himself in too quickly. You’ll want to ease him inside a little at a time.”
“Then what?”
“Then you’ll begin to move.”
“How?”
“However you want.”
“So I should just do The Conga on the guy’s wiener.”
Wes laughed hard. “Um, no. But if you want to compare it to a dance, it’s more like a slow twerk.”
I frowned. “I can’t imagine my body moving that way.”
“Only because you’ve never done it.”
“I don’t think I’m going to. I’ll just abstain and become the world’s oldest virgin. Guinness will sell t-shirts with my face on them. It’ll be sadly awesome,” I announced gleefully.
“So dramatic.” Wes shook his head, and then pulled into a bowling alley parking lot.
“Is this what we’re doing? I’ve never bowled before.”
“So much virgin territory,” Wes moaned. “Let’s get in the backseat.”
“For?”
“Just do it, Sam.”
We sat down in the back and Wes patted his lap. “Straddle me. I’ll show you how being on top works.”
“Um… do you mean…?”
“No. This is for demonstration purposes only.”
I swallowed the nervousness that was creeping up my throat and maneuvered myself onto Wes’s lap, facing him. My chest hurt from my heart beating so hard. “What am I supposed to look at?” I asked.
“The guy.”
“Won’t that be weird?”
“You can kiss if it gets weird. That way you’ll still be engaged without having a staring contest. Or you could do like me and close your eyes.”
“Why don’t you look at the girls?”
“Honestly, I do my best to avoid this position to keep down eye contact. It’s intimate.”
“Eye contact is intimate?”
“It can be. Especially during sex.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“We’re not actually doing it. I’m just teaching you something.”
“How to have sex in a position you avoid.”
“This isn’t about me.”
It never is, I groaned in my brain. “So teach me.”
“Okay. Movement.” Wes placed his hands on my hips and gently urged them to tilt forward, then back. “You’ll lift up, creating space between you, then come back down. And repeat.” He let go and I continued moving my hips. “See, you can do it. Now you have to get up.”
I didn’t have to ask why, I’d felt him hardening against me.
“Get back in the front seat.”
“We’re not bowling?”
“Hell no. We’re riding roller coasters.”
Wes and I stayed at the amusement park he took me to until it closed. I’d never felt more like a kid. We laughed and talked and sometimes held hands. I wasn’t worried about anything. All I had to do was have fun. It made me better grasp what my dad had said about enjoying life. Getting a taste of what it could be like to feel unburdened made me want even more of that feeling. It made me want to live a long, healthy life so that I wouldn’t miss anything the world had to offer.
I’d hoped that since we’d had such a great time together that Wes would want to hang out some more when we got home. Instead, he said he’d see me tomorrow and went to see boob shot girl.
21
D r. Pierce called and asked me to come see him. He wouldn’t say why, and although I knew it was unreasonable, I hoped he would tell me that I would never have to come back to group again.
Betty drove me and offered to wait since I didn’t think whatever Dr. Pierce needed would take long.
When I entered the therapy room, Charlie was there.
“What’s going on?” I asked Dr. Pierce.
“I thought it would be a good idea for you and Charlie to have a supervised talk outside of group.”
“And what do you think about this ridiculousness?” I asked Charlie.
“I agree with him. I think we should talk.”
I groaned and plopped down in a nearby chair. “So talk.”
“I would like to apologize for the way I acted after our last group meeting.”
Looking at Charlie, I pointed to Dr. Pierce. “Is he making you do this?”
“No. I wanted to,” Charlie said.
“So you were in on arranging this shindig?”
“Sort of.”
I stood up and said to Charlie, “I forgive you,” and then looked at Dr. Pierce and asked if I could leave.
“Isn’t there something you’d like to say to Charlie?”
“I’ve said all that I need to say to Charlie. I’ve done nothing to him, and yet he’s been antagonizing from moment one of meeting me. I said I forgive him and would like to get back to my life now.”
“I shouldn’t have bothered,” Charlie complained.
“Now you know how I felt when I was nice and you were a dick.”
“Oh, so, this is your childish way of getting back at me.”
“You two sit, please,” Dr. Pierce instructed.
I crossed my arms over my chest and reluctantly fell back into my chair. Charlie sat directly across from me.
“Now,” Dr. Pierce said. “You’re each going to say something complimentary about the other. Sam, I’ll let you start.”
“You’re not disgusting looking,” I said.
“Neither are you,” Charlie retorted.
“That’s not what I meant,” Dr. Pierce said.
“I don’t know enough about him to say anything other than that.”
“Just think about what Charlie has shared in group and find something positive in it.”
“He’s mostly ragging on me in group, but I did have him as a waiter once, and he was very professional. He acted like he’d never seen me before.”
“I can’t socialize while working,” Charlie defended.
“Oh please,” I moaned. “I tried to say hi and you told me to go away.”
“I could lose my job, Sam, and unlike you, I need to work.”
“There you go again, assuming shit about me.”
“It’s not an assumption if it’s true. You don’t need to work in order to eat. I do.”
That comment took me down a good dozen notches. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“There are plenty of things you don’t know about me.”
“Ditto! But what I don’t understand is why I should give a shit. Why are you so invested in getting to know me?”
Charlie surprisingly smiled. “You wanna
have lunch with me?”
“You’ve seriously lost your mind.”
“You may see one another outside of the group as long as it doesn’t turn romantic,” Dr. Pierce said dryly.
“What the hell is happening right now?”
“Have lunch with me,” Charlie said.
“If I say yes, does that mean I can leave?”
“You don’t have to say yes, but you can leave,” Dr. Pierce said.
I stood from my chair and Charlie followed me down the hall and into the elevator. I was nervous about his intentions. “So… why?” I asked as the elevator car began to move.
Charlie turned toward me and smiled. “Are you always suspicious of boys who are interested in you?”
“Only the ones who couldn’t stand me at first sight.”
“That’s not exactly true. I have a car. I could leave right after group lets out, but I wait, so I can see you. If I couldn’t stand you, I would just go home.” The elevator doors opened, and he took my hand and held it until we reached the main exit. It was strange holding his hand. I wasn’t sure I liked it. I’d gone along with the whole being hot for Charlie thing for Wes’s sake. I never thought he’d actually be interested in me. Or that he would ever ask me out.
Outside, I opened the passenger door of Betty’s SUV and Charlie leaned inside and asked if he could take me to lunch.
“Why don’t you come to our house, Charlie?” Betty said.
“What? No,” I protested.
“Why don’t you want me to come to your house?”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to, it’s that I didn’t think you’d want to.”
“I’ll have Ellen make something yummy,” Betty said. “Get in, you two.”
Samantha darling Page 10
