“Now go.”
Having gotten what she came for, she silently left my room.
Chapter Six
Present…
“Let’s talk about the photograph on your wall.”
I don’t know why Doc insists on saying let’s at the beginning of our sessions. He’s the only one talking.
“Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,” he tells me, as if I don’t already know this. “Do you know the story behind the sculpture?”
This has to be the worst kind of punishment. It’s monotonous. It’s mind-numbing. It’s a waste of my fucking time.
Tick, tick, tock.
“Let’s start with Psyche, shall we?”
Questions. Questions. Questions. How long will he go on with no reply? Knowing Doc, forever.
“So, Psyche was the youngest and most beautiful daughter of the king and queen. She was revered as a goddess by the locals in the village she came from. This would make any woman…” He pauses and taps his top lip with his index finger—one, two, three. “Feel special. Important.”
I know where he’s going with this. He’s so predictable lately.
“Did he make you feel special, Addison?”
And…there it is.
“Come on. You can talk to me.”
Tilting my head to the side, I speak for the first time since I have been admitted into the Pine Groves Psychiatric Facility.
“Yes. But I don’t want to.”
Tick, tick, tock.
Past…
Friday afternoon rolled around before I knew it. I thought it would take forever to get here, but it didn’t. I’d made myself behave in class today, even though I’d spent the entire time wanting to kiss my teacher.
In his khaki-colored dress pants and black polo shirt, I could see all of his muscles clearly defined. I also noticed for the first time that there was a hint of ink on his left bicep that poked out of his sleeve every time he raised his arm to the board. Mr. McKendrick had a tattoo.
How was I supposed to behave in the face of all that?
The idea that, at eighteen, we were all sweet, little virgins seemed ludicrous to me. Because the last time I checked, all I could think about was sex. Who I could have it with, when, and how often.
Oh, and the popular fallacy that only boys were horny at our age—well, the people who came up with that hadn’t had to sit through a class with Mr. McKendrick walking around at the front of it.
“Addison…Addison?”
My name cut through my thoughts as a hand touched my shoulder.
Turning, I found Miss Shrieve standing in front of me with an expectant look on her face. Ugh, why did she have to go and jack things up between us?
“You ready for this?”
I kept my face neutral as I nodded at my coach and then jumped up and down, shaking my hands out by my sides. I’d just finished screwing in the new spikes on my shoes and was now finishing my warm-up. I glanced around the track and up into the bleachers, trying to spot my mother in the crowd. She said she would come tonight, and as always, if she said she would be somewhere, she didn’t lie. There she was—third row back, sitting in front of Mr. McKendrick.
I didn’t have too much time to think about why he was there because my heat was up first, and we were being called to the start-up blocks.
Pushing my thumbs into my track pants, I kept my eyes on my mother—oh yes, thank you, Mom, for sitting right there—and then let them shift slightly behind to the man who was…hmm, aiming a camera in my direction.
I removed my pants and kicked them aside so I was standing in tight mesh shorts, and out of the corner of my eye, I was sure Mr. McKendrick shifted in his seat.
Feeling a smirk hit my lips, I reached up to my long ponytail and tightened it, knowing that it raised the Lycra tank I wore up over my navel.
“I know you can do this, Addison. Your times have been outstanding in practice,” Miss Shrieve told me as we walked to my lane.
Lane four. That was where I was running today. I would have preferred three—one, two, three—but I got four. I would make do.
When we reached the starting blocks, Miss Shrieve grabbed my forearm, stopping me and forcing me to turn.
“Are you okay today?”
With a little more force than was necessary, I tugged my arm away from her and gave a swift nod, still remembering the way she had invited Mr.…ahh, this is where she’d invited him. To photograph the race, not on a date like he’d led me to believe. Nice try.
Finding my mother in the bleachers again, she gave the perfunctory wave. I smiled like the good daughter I was, but my eyes were on the man who was waving at the woman beside me.
As Miss Shrieve returned the gesture, she looked back to me with a smile left over from him, and I had a huge desire to scratch it right off her face.
“Okay, you can do this.”
I waited for her to take a step back behind the start up blocks, where she could time me. I walked into position and sized up the other girls I’d be competing against.
Competition didn’t seem so tough, and as the announcer started to call out our school affiliations, I placed my hands on my waist and started to bounce from foot to foot in a small, flirty dance that loosened my hips and would hopefully lengthen my stride.
As my hair swished back and forth with my little jig, I heard Brandon and the other boys wolf-whistling and calling out my name from the sidelines.
I knew they loved it when I did this. It had become something of an event in itself, and Brandon had once told me it was the sexiest shit he’d ever seen.
I made sure to look up at Mr. McKendrick as I did it for the final time, and his eye, I was pleased to find, was pressed to the viewfinder with the lens directed my way.
He was watching me, and I was about to give him the show of a lifetime.
How the fuck could any red-blooded man look away from that? I thought as Addison—lane four, with school-colored ribbons in her hair—danced up and down from toe to toe.
It would be bad enough if that was all she was doing, but add in the outfit, one pair of short shorts, a tank top that molded to every curve she had, and that sassy smirk she was definitely aiming my way, and yes—I was fucked. With a capital fucking F.
Coming here tonight had been a terrible idea, and now that I was seated in the bleachers tempted by my own personal version of Eve, I knew, if offered, I’d be biting that fucking apple.
Who was I kidding? She’d already offered. All I had to do was bite.
When Addison had waved in my direction, at first I’d thought she was waving at me. Until the woman seated below me raised an arm and her—mother, I assumed—waved back.
There I was, thinking about how Addison’s long, lean legs would feel wrapped around my waist, while her mother was here to watch her daughter race.
In my mind, there were only two places for people with thoughts like mine.
Prison or the fiery pits of hell.
Still, I zoomed in on the flirty girl through my camera, and I couldn’t find it in me to care.
Not one little bit.
With my feet in the starting blocks, I focused on the 100-meter lane ahead of me and blocked out everything else. All of the surrounding noise ceased, and I listened, instead, to the constants.
Tick, tick, tock—my watch—Tick, tick, tock.
Tickticktick—BANG!