Page 183 of Perfect Pitch

“My father is not a part of this conversation. I refuse to let him—or my mother—become media fodder.” Shoving to my feet, I walk over to the locked door and begin pounding against it. “Nurse! Can you take me back to my room?”

I yell the order several times before an orderly’s face pops into the window, confused. I clearly enunciate, “I would like to return to my room.”

Dr. Laurens quickly tries to backtrack as the locks on the door are slid open. “I wasn’t trying to pry in the way you’re thinking.”

I step forward and wait for the orderly to grip my arm. “Until I can trust you, my parents aren’t a topic I’m willing to discuss.”

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

Do you listen or do you think you listen?

—The Fireside Psychologist

“I apologize for our last session, Austyn.”

“Perhaps I overreacted.”

“I’d like to give you something.” Dr. Laurens hands me a bound journal.

I run my fingers over the rich, embossed leather cover and say, “I take it I’m not to be trusted with any tools to write in it. Should I use dribbles of spit to mark in Morse code?”

Dr. Laurens laughs. “You’ll be able to write during certain times.”

“Supervised?”

“Yes.”

“Well, doesn’t that just get the creative juices flowing.”

“Prove to me you won’t use sharp objects for anything else, and we can renegotiate,” she challenges.

“I assume you want to see what I’ve written.”

Shockingly, she replies, “While this is a gift for you to write down your thoughts—how you feel about the loss of the baby, being away from your friends, family. Hell, you can draw funny pictures in it—it will be monitored by another psychiatrist. Not by me.”

“Why not by you?”

“Because I shattered your trust by asking about your family. I truly didn’t mean to.”

Turning the journal over and over, I give her a roundabout apology. “I think it set me off the way you asked the question. Like a reporter.”

A spark of understanding fills her eyes. I lift my eyes and whisper, “I’m more broken being famous than I was being a little nobody from Texas.”

“That’s what we have to make you understand.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve never been a nobody. Not to the people who matter.”

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

Carys Burke-Lennan stated DJ Kensington is traveling after some recent shows. She will return to New York shortly and resume playing at clubs around the city.

Thank god.

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