“You wanted this new woman?”
“Yeah, I headed back to my room and called her, told her what happened, and she sounded, I dunno, happy for me.” My heart sinks again, remembering the conversation. “That’s when I told her I wanted more. I wanted a chance, and I blew it.”
“Have you asked her why she only wants the relationship to be casual?”
“No, because I’m an idiot.”
“You said she got out of a rough relationship. Did you stop to consider she’s in a similar situation as you? Stuck on someone or something in the past and unable to move forward yet?”
“We didn’t get too deep into personal stuff, so no, I should have thought of that.” I curse myself under my breath. “You know, she never said octopus.”
“Hmm?”
“The safe word. She told me to use it, even when we’re not…you know.” I can feel her even though she’s not there. How her fingers played in my hair while we watched movies. The feel of her arm curled around me when we slept. I can hear her laugh, and if I close my eyes, the scent of summer fills my head. It’s been like this since I left Los Angeles. But now that I’m back, it’s worse. “It all feels so…different with her. She didn’t say it though, when I told her I wanted more. She didn’t say our safe word. So maybe, there’s?—”
“Chase?”
My throat tightens and the next thing I know, Pongo’s head sits in my lap. “I’m sorry, buddy.” I whisper as I lean down, holding my head against his until I can breathe again. He licks my face and goes back to the sunny spot.
“What happened just now? Before Pongo nudged you?” He hands me a tissue and nods to my hands. My thumb has a bead of blood forming where I picked at it. I haven’t done that in months.Fuck.
“I don’t know. Realizing how bad I fucked this up. She hasn’t called me back, and I told her I would respect her decision, no matter how much it hurt.”
“I’m going to start off with the obvious—You should have called me sooner. I could have told you that a friends with benefits situation would be hard work for you. It’s why you couldn’t take on Steve’s lifestyle successfully, you’re a commitment guy. You don’t want to waste your time with games, you saw your mother do that and your brain actively fights against it.”
“I wish it didn’t have to end. Not like this, anyhow.” He jots down a few more notes and tips his glasses down so he can look at me over the top of them. “In her mind, we’re too…I don’t know…different. But not super different, just, like, I’m a fucking movie star and she’s a teacher. For her, that spells disaster..”
“And you disagree?”
“Yeah. I don’t get it. I mean, she opens my eyes to possibility, she talks to me, she cares, she helps me feel safe. I like her, and I want to give this a shot, you know. See where it goes.”
“Did you open up about your past or the things we’re working through?”
“No. I wanted a clean slate. I liked her not knowing how fucked up I am?”
“Why do you think there’s something wrong with you? Because you were rejected?”
“Fuck you. She didn’t reject me. She just—” I purse my lips and groan. “Dammit. You did that on purpose.” I pick up another cookie and shove the whole thing in my mouth. I eat when I’m nervous and it buys me time to come up with an answer. “I hoped this time I wouldn’t fuck everything up like I did with Cassie, since we’d have no relationshiptofuck up as friends with benefits..”
“Full circle.” He leans forward, tossing his glasses on the table. I’ve gone back to square one. “Chase, we’ve talked about this, and you’re not responsible for what happened to Cassie. The woman who did that will die in prison, you watched her get a multi-life sentencing.”
“Not one of those convictions has a damn thing to do with Cassie’s case! They didn’t find anything to tie her to Cassie or me other than Jamie, and that’s not enough for closure!” I yell before throwing half a cookie to Pongo. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself.
I wring my hands so hard it hurts. “I hope someday I’ll believe it when you say I didn’t hurt Cassie. If she hadn’t been dating me, it wouldn’t have ever happened. I’m the cause, I’m the whole reason she—” I close my eyes and picture Cassie. The memory of my screams rings in my head. The strange way the cries echoed as they mixed with the sound of rainfall from the shower. The taste of iron lingers in my mouth. The ghost that still gives me nightmares. Pongo sits at my side again, leaning against my leg when I open my eyes.
“One step forward, two steps back. It’s a struggle, but I promise you’re making progress, Chase. We need to find a way for you to accept that you did everything you could to protect Cassie. You were a little misguided in that protection, but certainly not to a level of hurting her.” He writes some more in his notebook. “Be proud of yourself, Chase. You’ve taken a big step, even if it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to. You opened yourself to something new. That’s brave.”
We ease into a more relaxed tone for the rest of the session. We shoot the shit about Devin and how he’s handling the season, and about my filming schedule. He gives me a new website to try for recipes; we argue the merits of baking and cooking. He insists I try baking, but I tell him he’s nuts. Baking comes from science, cooking comes from the heart.
When I get down to my car, there’s a large brown envelope on the windshield. I open the door and let Pongo hop inside while I toss the envelope in the passenger seat. I close my eyes and do my breathing exercises while he gets comfortable in the back. When I’m done, curiosity gets the better of me. Inside the envelope, I find a few pictures and another marriage license, which I’m about to laugh off until I read the names..
I grab my phone off the dash.
“Morning, Coop. Did your session go well?”
“Fine. Cyn, I got another fan thing for your collection, but this one you might want to look into. There are photos no one should have of Cassie and I.” I swallow hard before I add, “And a copy of our marriage license. The real one. Can you see if anyone has heard of Julie Horowitz?”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, but I’ll send someone over to pick it up and check it out.”She’s protective, like the mother I wish I had. That’s why I’ve never entertained offers from other firms, no matter how big they are.“You could use some uplifting news. Are you sitting down?”
