Page 38 of Penalty to the Heart

“It’s Caleb. My name is Caleb,” I snap. “Stop with all the Mr. Donovan crap. It’s unsettling.”

I bite into my inner cheek when she makes a note of that, too.

“Very well. Caleb, it is. You can refer to me as Dr. Seymour, but I’ll accept the diminutive ‘Doc’ if that makes you feel more comfortable. Now that we’ve established how to address each other, how about you tell me why you started that fight?”

“You want the real reason, Doc?” I place a sarcastic emphasis on the name.

“Yes. Very much so.”

“I was bored.”

“I see,” she muses as she takes her little pen and writes down some more. “And have you resorted to physical violence before when you felt bored?”

“Nope.” I pop the ‘p’ at the end arrogantly. “Usually, I just fuck the boredom away.”

Nothing.

Not even a blush.

The woman is a fucking robot.

“So, am I to assume that sexual release is your preferred coping mechanism to deal with boredom?” she asks, her expression void of any emotion.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, Doc. I bet a good fucking would do wonders for you too.”

Again, nothing.

Not even a twitch.

It’s settled. This woman’s made of pure ice.

“How long have you felt like this?” she questions, bypassing my loaded remark entirely.

“You mean annoyed?” I blurt out, running my fingers through my hair.

“Discontent,” she rectifies.

“I’m not discontent.”

“Aren’t you? You started a fight during a game because—in your own words—you were bored. You seek out sexual experiences to fill the apathetic hole you feel inside since you have nothing else in your life that gives you quite the same pleasure. I’m sorry to be the one to say this, but that is the perfect definition of someone who is discontent with their life,” she explains calmly while still remaining unattached. “My question is, did you feel like this before or after your accident?”

I get up off the couch and stare at her angrily.

“You talk like you know me, but you don’t. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

Still seated, looking poised and fucking perfect, she cranes her neck back and fixes those amber orbs on me.

“You’re absolutely right. I don’t know you. Aside from what I’ve been told by your GM and Coach Byrne when they referred you to me, you, Mr. Donovan, are nothing more to me than a name on a piece of paper,” she says, tapping her notepad with her pen to drive the point home. “Having said that, if you give our sessions a genuine shot, I can tell you with complete confidence that once we are done, there is nothing I won’t know about you. Because that is my job—to know things you might have never felt comfortable saying out loud to anyone else. Not even to your brother, Jack, who I know you hold in such deep regard.”

I just stand there and look at her.

Her expression might be a blank canvas, unwilling to show any type of emotion whatsoever, but her eyes tell a different story. There’s that golden warmth in them again. It flickers at me, pleading with me, like she knows my pain, even if I’m reluctant to talk about it.

The genuine sincerity in her gaze has me sitting back down on the couch and lying my head back on the cushion.

“So tell me,” she starts, “did your discontentment occur before or after your car accident?”

“I’ve always acted out. It’s part of my charm,” I retort deprecatingly.

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