Page 27 of Fracture

My head is going to spontaneously combust. I scrape my nails along my linen shorts, and bounce my foot against the ground. “God, I mean, I don’t know.”Yes I do. I know what the look he gave me means, I know the way he’s avoided me since that night tells me he wanted very much to spank me. “He’s been in prison a long time, so I think it’s just…”

“He left behind a girl and has come out to find an accomplished, beautiful young woman?” Dr Varden smiles at me. “Again, totally normal. You’ve met each other again as a man and a woman, not as brother and sister. Perhaps that relationship just needs to be fostered again.”

I don’t know how to say that I don’t think I want to go back to being Levi’s sister.

“And what about Dylan?” Dr Varden asks.

“What about him?”

“Are you intending to rekindle your relationship with him?” She uncrosses and crosses her legs, grasping her shiny black pen in her hand.

“I mean, he’s asked for a chance.” Now my eyes start to sting. Because the love I feel for Dylan digs into my ribs, sharp and aching, and I don’t know what to do with it.

“Are you going to give him that chance?” Dr Varden asks gently.

I shrug helplessly. “I don’t know. I want to. But I don’t know if I can forgive him.”

“For what happened that night?”

I nod, biting my lip as my vision starts to swim. “I-I still blame him. I can't help but feel that if he’d just not done that, if we’d just gone to the police instead of them… I don’t know. They ran off to play big heroes, and who stayed with me? No one.” On the wordsno one, the dam breaks. Tears begin to roll over my lashes, and I snatch up a tissue, pressing it to my eyes. “I want to let him in. I do. Because with him, it’s like… all the noise stops. All the chaos and the noise, it juststops.”

“He’s your calm.” Dr Varden’s voice remains soft and measured.

I nod. Dylan is my calm. Levi is my storm. And I need them both and want them both and can’t have either of them because of that.

I cry my way through the rest of my session, at the injustice of it all, at everything that was taken from me, from all of us.

When I get outside, I dial Zee’s number and ask if they have an appointment free for me. I start crying again when they say yes, and I can’t even tell them why.

“Fucking love your hair, girl.” Zee does the little zhoosh thing with their fingers so my freshly high-lighted hair bounces around my shoulders, and they sigh appreciatively. “So pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“And this tan, and the pink lip gloss? Damn girl.” They snap their fingers. “Forget being a lawyer, get an OnlyFans.”

I can’t help but laugh. “You did always say my tits were camera worthy.”

They throw their head back with a groan. “Girl, I dream of your tits and I am asexual.”

“Gee, thanks.” I chuckle, putting my gold hoop earrings back in. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Did you know Jared Marshall was a homophobe?”

Zee purses their lips and shrugs lightly as they pack up their tools. “I mean, he wasn’t especially nice to me in high school. Called me Freak, didn’t leave me alone until Dylan got big enough to defend both of us.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Zee smiles warmly at my reflection. “Girl, you were going through it, OK? We didn’t want to burden you with anything else.”

I dip my head. “I was a bad friend.”

“No.” Zee grasps my shoulders tightly. “You were a great friend, youarea great friend. But we all knew something wasn’t right with you.”

I sniffle, not wanting that dam to burst again. “So, when did you decide to forgive Jared for what he did?”

Zee rubs my shoulders, sighing lightly. “When he got back from Africa, he was kind of a new person. He came to me and told me that the church he’d grown up in had been a nightmare. His parents, too. I guess I forgave him because I know how badly brainwashed you can get when that’s all you hear.”

---