Group Therapy, page 19
“Hey! Stop! You have to pay for that!”
I glance out the passenger window as the gas station attendant comes flying out of the convenience store, waving his arms and pointing at the gas pump in anger.
Shit. I forgot.
I pull a fistful of wadded up bills out of my purse and toss them out the window. “I have to go! I’m sorry!”
I search the center console for spare change in case what I threw wasn’t enough, but what I find instead is a silver Altoids tin containing at least five expertly rolled joints.
Thanks, Mom.
“Here!” I shout, letting the little metal box fly. “Namaste!”
“Court! We’re still on for tonight!”
“But you got fired.”
“Nobody knows yet!”
“I don’t know, Lou. Brian is pretty upset about my door, and the group hasn’t exactly been goin’ well …”
“If I say I’ll pay to fix your door, will that make it better?”
“You’re gonna pay to fix my door?”
“Of course not. I just got fired.”
I pass a cute little farmhouse with its front porch all decked out for fall and get an idea. Slamming on the brakes, I pull over onto the shoulder of the road with a screech and a skid. “Hey, Court, I gotta go, but I’ll see you tonight.”
“But I didn’t—”
“And try to get there early, okay? Thanks so much!” I hang up and dial another number as I climb out of the mobile eyesore and tiptoe across the wide, muddy yard. I get to the side of the house and lean against it, whisper-shouting into my phone like I’m some kind of secret agent behind enemy lines.
“Mark, please tell me you’re not at rehab yet. I need you to let us into the bar tonight. You owe me, asshole.”
I pocket my device and peek around the side of the house. Then, when I’m sure the coast is clear, I dash over to the front porch, snatch a pot full of pretty orange chrysanthemums off the bottom step, and take off running back to the RV.
As I drive away, I make a mental note of the address so that I can return them tomorrow.
If I survive tonight, that is.
Thomas
“THOMAS. HEY, IT’S, UM … it’s Lou. You told me to ring when I got on your level, so... … ring, ring.”
Lou’s voice mail has been playing on a loop in my head for the last four hours.
I sat by my mobile for two and a half days, waiting for that call, and when it finally came, I couldn’t pick it up. I’d touched Lou not once, not twice, but on three different occasions, and every time, she shoved me back into the client zone and made it clear that her job comes first. And now, I’m supposed to believe that she’s had a change of heart? No one touches a hot stove four times without being committed to Broadmoor. No one.
“I really want you to come to group therapy tonight. Please? I owe you a proper groveling. Please come.”
Her begging is what pisses me off the most. After being under the thumb of three overbearing women my entire childhood, I swore that I would never let another person control me again. I live alone. I work alone. I do what I want, when I want, and with whomever I choose. But with one little please, Lou has me pulling into The Yacht Club car park at ten o’clock at night in the pouring rain, just to get my heart stomped on all over again.
I pull the car into an open spot in the back and grip the steering wheel.
Let’s get this over with.
Lightning slices across the black sky overhead as I jog through the rain toward the building. It feels like an omen. One that I don’t ignore.
With a deep breath and a heart full of bitter resignation, I pull open the wooden door with the porthole window for what I’m positive will be the last time.
“Mr. O’Reardon, welcome.” Mark sweeps a hand out like a proper maître d’. His demeanor is more professional than usual, but he’s wearing a sweatsuit with the arms and legs cut off, so professional is relative.
He extends the phone basket to me, and I drop mine in, knowing I’ll just be snatching it back out in about forty-five minutes when Lou finds another publicly humiliating way to send me packing.
Mark sets the basket on the host stand and clamps a hand on my shoulder. “For what it’s worth, you take a mean right hook.”
“Don’t you mean throw?”
“Mmhmm … so listen …” Mark steers me through the pub, and I can feel the covert stares of everyone we pass. “I know you love my group,” he continues, “but I’m under strict orders to send you to Dr. Sterling’s group tonight.”
With both hands on my shoulders now, Mark deposits me at the end of Lou’s booth, but it’s been transformed. The table is covered in an assortment of glowing candles, potted flowers, and a jack-o’-lantern that looks like it was carved by a child. The ceiling above it is dripping with golden patio lights. And sitting in her usual spot is my mindfuck of a therapist. She’s dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and an oversize band T-shirt, the hem of which is balled up in both of her tiny fists, and somehow, she’s never looked sexier.
Two plump, peachy lips brighten her otherwise miserable face, reminding me exactly why I’ve been so bloody bad at not kissing her lately.
Lou’s cheeks flush the same color as her perfect mouth when she looks up and sees me. Her hand immediately flies to her hair. She tucks her thick, wavy mane behind one ear—a nervous habit—but when her fingers brush over the feather hidden there, it brings a very different memory to mind. The one of me brushing that hair behind her ear two days ago, right before she walked out of my life.
“You came,” she says, forcing a smile.
“You rang,” I reply, taking my designated seat across from her like the summoned puppet I’ve allowed myself to become.
Lou lifts her eyes again—a warm, welcoming amber, rimmed in black lashes—and the sizzle I feel when they lock on to mine is answered with a rumble of thunder from the storm outside. Or perhaps it’s the sound of my defenses rebuilding themselves as quickly as possible before this beautiful, evil woman has the chance to strike again.
“I leveled up.” Lou gives me a small smile before pulling her fat bottom lip between her teeth.
I nod slowly. “And what’s all this?” My eyes cut over to the rather random arrangement of fall decor at the end of the table.
“It’s … a date?” Her dark eyebrows lift along with her shoulders, but when I don’t respond, they plummet. “I want to start over, Thomas. I want to call this exactly what it is. It’s not a therapy group. It never was. It’s an unethical, mismanaged, poorly organized excuse for me to spend more time with you, and now, everybody knows it.”
I glance past her at the other two groups in the room. They’re watching us shamelessly, but they do at least have the common decency to try to look busy when I catch them staring.
“Thomas, you asking me out was the best thing that ever happened to me. This is me saying yes. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
Another clap of thunder shakes the building, and this time, I know it has nothing to do with my defenses. Because I have none. They’re gone, demolished, ground to dust, and they have been since the moment I walked into this woman’s office.
“So … what happens on this date?” I ask, eyeing her sideways.
Lou grabs something off the seat next to her and shimmies her way out of her side of the booth. My heart begins to pound like a proper schoolboy’s as she stands, holding a laptop, and slides in next to me. She scoots over until her thigh brushes mine, and warmth oozes from the spot where we touch. She smells different. Earthier. Like fresh air and campfires, fall leaves and pine forests. I want to bury my nose in her hair and inhale the freedom that scent evokes. It’s wild and alive, and I want to catch it with both hands and never let it go.
But on the outside, I’m the picture of composure—unfazed and unimpressed. It’s a mask I wear well.
Lou places the laptop on the table and opens it. The screen illuminates, revealing the Netflix home page. She turns to me with a shy smile, balling the hem of her shirt in her fist again.
“What happens is … you pick any scary movie you want, and I promise to make out with you through the entire thing.”
Her tongue sweeps across her pouty peach lips, and as badly as I want to follow it with my own, I can’t help but think that this feels like a trap.
“As I recall,” I say, my eyes drifting to her parted mouth, my arteries surging with every beat of my racing heart, “the last time I kissed you in front of all these people—”
Lou’s lips crash into mine, and the rest of that sentence, as well as the fear behind it, melts away on contact. My hands dive into her wild, dark hair, and I’m lit up from the inside out. Kissing this woman feels like taming a flame. I suddenly don’t mind the few times I got burned in the process.
Another clap of thunder rattles the walls, and gasps fill the room. I open one eye to see that the entire pub has gone dark, except for the candles and laptop on our table. Lou is unconcerned.
“It’s probably just a downed power line,” she whispers, brushing her lips against mine again.
In the darkness, it’s even harder to remember that we’re surrounded by people.
That is, until one of them screams.
Lou pulls back and locks eyes with me as more screaming erupts throughout the pub, this time from multiple sources. Maniacal laughter rises above the cacophony, followed by glass breaking and general bloody chaos.
A muffled squeal pierces the sudden madness, and Lou jumps to her feet. “Courtney!”
She disappears from the table, and I follow immediately. I have to stay close to keep from losing her in the darkness. The only source of light beyond our table is the Emergency Exit sign above the front door.
The sounds of mass hysteria continue to fill the pub as Lou and I come to a stop at the Anxiety table.
On the right, a slight man wearing large glasses is rocking back and forth with his hands over his ears, repeating, “Ignore that which you cannot control. Ignore that which you cannot control …”
To the left, a tall, wiry woman frantically brushes the salt off the table while cackling like a witch.
Another woman pokes her head out from under the table near Lou’s feet, startling her.
I wrap my hands around Lou’s upper arms to steady her when a man with a mustache pops up from behind the table, pointing a water pistol at us and shouting, “Stay back!”
In a rather impressive burst of evasive action, Lou darts around the side of the table, leaving me to take a full blast right to the chest. While the water sniper pumps the plastic shotgun in preparation to spray me again, I do something I’ve only seen in American cop movies—I slide across the table like it’s the bonnet of a police cruiser and snatch the gun out of his hand. Before I can retaliate, the mustached gunman retreats below the table. I stand and marvel at the plastic toy in my hand.
Did I just—
“Oh my God, Court!” Lou cries from a few feet away.
I turn and find her staring down at her friend, who is lying on the floor with two salt shakers shoved in her mouth.
As soon as Lou pulls the plastic shakers out of her mouth, the woman from under the table decides to make her presence known, leaping onto Lou’s back and screaming, “Life is chaos! Hahahahaha! Life is chaos!”
Without a second thought, I shove Courtney’s vacated chair out of the way and press the water pistol against the flailing woman’s ear. “Let her go,” I say, “or your brain gets a bath.”
The woman sneers at me but shoves Lou to the side and slinks back under the table with a hiss.
I go to help Lou get back on her feet, but she waves me off and points at Courtney, who is coughing and trying to sit up. Lou and I each take one of her arms and pull her to a standing position.
“Behind the bar!” Lou shouts. “Now!”
As she and her friend stumble through the pub, I walk backward behind them, holding the maniacs at the Anxiety table off with the threat of high-pressure, room-temperature water.
Over at the bar, the Depression group is less aggressive but equally unhinged. An older gentleman is standing on the counter, singing a loud, warbling rendition of “Danny Boy” while dropping wineglasses on the floor, one by one. A middle-aged woman next to him cheerses herself with a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of gin before pouring them both into her mouth at the same time. And a girl who looks far too young to be in a pub is kissing a fellow in a business suit, who probably has gambling debt older than she is.
“Oh my God!” Lou calls out once she and Courtney make it to the other side of the counter. “Dee! Dee, what happened?”
I make it round in time to see Lou’s friend Dee lying on the floor in a bed of broken glass. She reaches up and touches her head, and even in the dark, I can tell that her fingertips come away shiny and red.
Extending one shaking, bloody digit in the direction of the Employees Only door, Dee sits up and croaks, “White bitch.”
I grab a dishcloth off the counter and wet it in the sink, careful to avoid a falling beer stein from Danny Boy up there, and crouch back down behind the bar.
“It’s true!” Courtney says, finally regaining her wits enough to speak. “After the power went out, some crazy woman burst in here and attacked me.”
Courtney pauses to dry-heave as I press the towel against the side of Dee’s forehead. She takes it from me with a glare and holds it in place herself.
“She choked me and threw me to the ground, Lou. Why would she do that?” Courtney’s voice climbs an octave as she reaches up and touches the back of her head. “The fall musta knocked me out …”
“Did you see who it was?” Lou asks.
Courtney shakes her head. “No, but...”—she presses a fist to her mouth, and her cheeks puff out as she dry-heaves again—“I think she’s lookin’ for you.”
“Me? Why?” Lou asks.
“Are you okay?” I ask Courtney.
She shakes her head again. “I think I might have a concussion. Or what if I’m overdosin’ on sodium? I read once that—”
Without warning, Courtney turns and pukes on Dee’s arm.
“What the fuck?” Dee cries, shoving Courtney.
She uses the cloth from her head to wipe off her arm, but Courtney tries to take it from her.
“I’m so sorry, hon. Let me do it.”
A scream so loud that it rises above the chaos of the pub rings out from the back. A male scream.
Lou locks eyes with me. “That was a—”
“Bad scream,” we say in unison.
The two of us leave Courtney and Dee squabbling behind the bar and creep over to the Employees Only door a few feet away. The closer we get, the louder the shouts and crashes inside become. I wrap a firm hand around Lou’s forearm and feel the same surge of electricity I felt when I touched her for the first time, only amplified. I feel the same primal need I felt when I saw her draped in my shirt, smelled my cologne on her skin, only stronger. I feel a sense of purpose I’ve never known. It’s as if the reason why I came here is finally clear.
I have to protect this woman.
Lou’s lips part, and her eyes lift to mine.
“I’ll go in first,” I say, pressing my forehead to hers, “but stay close. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Lou nods and presses a soft kiss to my determined lips.
Tucking her behind my back, I take a breath and push the door open, just a crack. What I see has me pulling it shut again.
“What?” Lou whisper-shouts over the noise in the pub. “What’s happening?”
I turn to face her. “The inmates have taken over the asylum.”
Lou reaches around me and pushes the door open to see for herself. Her eyes go wide as she takes in the shirtless, four-way MMA fight happening on the yoga mats in the center of the storage room, and they practically pop out of her head when she sees Mark strung up on a forklift by the back of his sleeveless sweatshirt in the corner of the room.
Lou and I push through the door, dodging swinging fists and flying feet as we make our way over to Mark. His cheek has three bloody scratches on it. Two have a gap in between them, as if whatever animal did this to him was missing a claw.
Mark tugs at the neck of his sweatshirt with both hands to keep from choking. “I told ’em no fightin’, Lou! I did what you said! But then the fuckin’ Drama Llama burst in here, screamin’ about not being invited, and clawed me up!”
“Kimberly?!” Lou asks, searching his dangling body for other injuries. “Is she the one who put you up here?”
“No,” Mark chokes out. Even in the dim glow of the Emergency Exit sign, his face is noticeably red. “These heathens saw the blood and lost their gotdamn minds. It was like Shark Week up in here!”
Lou ducks, and Mark gets hit in the face with a pickle.
“Did you see where she went?” I ask, but my question is immediately answered by screams coming from the kitchen.
Lou turns toward the sounds. “Shit!” She swivels back to Mark, looking helpless. “How do I get you down?”
While Lou messes with the forklift controls, to no avail, I crouch down and put Mark’s dangling legs over my shoulders.
“Hold on,” I say, taking a few labored steps forward until his sweatshirt slides off of the raised forklift platform.
Mark sits up straight and spreads his arms wide. I have to wrap my hands around his furry shins to keep from dropping him as he shouts, “I’m flying, Jack! I’m flying!”
Just then, Coach Beth runs in from a back hallway that I assume leads to the kitchen. “Lou,” she pants, “come quick!”
Lou takes off running behind Beth, leaving me holding her traumatized roommate. I try to shrug him off, but Mark resists, clinging to my head like a spider monkey as he shouts, “No! Don’t put me down! They’re savages!”
I begin to panic. I have to get to Lou. That woman could be in the kitchen, the one who’s looking for her, and—
I grab Mark’s hands, prying them off my head as I bend at the waist, trying to throw him off.
