Page 75 of Two Wrongs

Griffin grunts, and I shoot him a warning look. Now is not the time for him to show signs of jealousy. He steps in front of me and catches the man’s attention. “Griffin Hale,” he greets, squeezing the man’s hand a little too hard. “I’m guessing by that white coat you’re Dr. Taylor?”

He nods and shakes out his hand. “I am. If you’ll both follow me to one of our meeting rooms we’ll start the session.”

My knee jerk reaction is to reach for Griffin’s hand. Despite the tension between us, I know there’s comfort in his touch. I manage to catch myself in time and wrap my arms around my middle. The desire to be anywhere other than here is so strong I almost turn around to run out the door.

Liam is waiting for us in another blandly decorated room. He’s wearing scrubs and looks more haggard than I’ve ever seen him. His hair isn’t styled the way he usually wears it, and there are large bags under his eyes.

Griffin steps up to him, and they do that manly half hug, backslap routine so many guys do. He passes over a bag of clothes he got together for him, all without drug or alcohol references, drawstrings, buttons or zippers. Liam immediately pulls out the slip on boat shoes and puts them on. I hadn’t realized until then he’s only wearing socks.

Liam finally looks over at me and smiles. He heads my way, and I can see he’s coming in for a hug. I try and stop it, but my entire body recoils, and I step back to avoid his touch. Now that I know who he was cheating on me with, and that they’re having a baby, I feel physically ill at the thought of his hands on me.

His face falls, and he lets his arms fall to his sides.

Dr. Taylor steps in to smooth things over. “Let’s all have a seat, shall we?”

At least this room has comfortable looking arm chairs. I guess forcing someone to sit on a hard wooden chair doesn’t exactly entice someone into emptying out their psyche. Griffin jumps ahead of me so that he is sitting between Liam and I. He’s struggling with the need to stake a claim on me, even here. While it appeases a primal side of me, I hope no one else catches on to what he’s doing.

“You don’t have to protect her from me,” Liam grumbles.

Griffin’s mouth opens, but I give him a subtle shake of my head. The last thing we need is for the two of them to get into a pissing match over me. That will lead to questions, and unlike my husband, I’m a shit liar.

“Maybe it’s you he’s trying to protect,” I spit out. I’m not exactly sure why that’s the first thing that comes to mind, but I decide to run with it. “I wasn’t exactly excited to come here.”

“Let’s start there,” Dr. Taylor interrupts. “Why were you hesitant to be here today, Mrs. Hale?”

“For fuck’s sake, she already told you her last name is Parker,” Griffin snaps.

The doctor looks at my left hand, then flips through the papers in his file. “I’m so sorry. I was under the understanding that Wren and Liam are married.”

“We are,” Liam asserts. “She chose to keep her name for some asinine reason.”

I clench my jaw. We’ve had this argument many times in the past. When we first married, I was still feeling the loss of my parents and not ready to lose the one thing I had left from them. I’d already had to give up the home I lived in with them. At first I told him when we had children I’d hyphenate it. Since we didn’t have children, I decided to keep my name as it was.

Liam looks at my hand, and sneers. “Ditched the ring already? Are you cheating on me, Wren?”

My hands clench, my nails digging into my palms, the bite of pain helping me to keep from lashing out in return. It’s what he wants, for me to fight with him. It’s the only way we’ve been able to communicate for almost a year.

“Liam, this session is not about placing blame,” the doctor chastises him.

He turns his ire toward his therapist. “You don’t think the disintegration of my marriage is one of the reasons I had to escape with drugs and alcohol?”

I press my nails harder and feel a little wetness coat my fingers, probably blood. I imagine all sorts of scenarios where I tell him exactly what I’ve been doing with his father. How his dad is the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything, and my mouth fills with a coppery tang of blood. Telling him would feel good for a moment, but the destruction of Griffin’s relationship with his son isn’t worth my momentary satisfaction.

Answering Liam, I say, “Whatever I’m doing, and whomever I’m doing it with, is none of your goddamn business. You lost that right when you knocked up my best friend. For months I tried to talk to you, to work on our marriage. You left me alone. To this day you have no idea all the shit that happened during the nights you told me you were working late. And, you know what, it’s pointless to rehash everything now. I’m glad you’re here getting the help you need. I do hope you find peace and happiness. There’s a child you have to think about now, and this petty bullshit between the two of us means nothing in light of that. He or she will need you whole.” I stand from my chair and pull my purse up onto my shoulder. “What is clear to me is that my presence is not going to help you get better. The opposite in fact. I think we only bring out the worst in each other.”

“Wren, please wait,” he calls after me. “I’m sorry, okay? You know I say things when I’m frustrated. I know I’ve fucked up. I need you right now. I can’t do this without you.”

I turn my wrist over. “You’ve never even asked me about this,” I say and hold it up for him to see.

He scratches his head. “You cut yourself cooking. Right? I mean, it makes sense, you’re a horrible cook.”

“Hardly,” I laugh, a tortured broken sound. “No, I took a broken shard from a mirror and sliced it myself. You never noticed I was gone for several days when I went to the hospital and ended up on a psychiatric hold. No one noticed, actually. I made it through all of that alone. You can do this. You’ve got your dad, Charlie, and Au—“ I stumble over saying her name, and clear my throat. “Audrey. You’ve got a lot of people cheering you on. You won’t miss me, you never did.”

I continue to make my way to the door and try to escape to the truck. Before I make it out of the room, Griffin reaches out and grabs one of my hands. “Why are you bleeding?” he demands. He strokes his finger below one of the cuts I made with my nails and wipes away some blood.

I can see Liam eying us speculatively, and I yank away my hand. “I’m fine.”

“C’mon, Wren,” Liam begs. “Don’t go. I was there for you when your parents died, can’t you be here for me now?”

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