Page 24 of For Her Own Good

“Course.”

His lopsided smile kills me, and I can barely stand how much I like this man, how good he makes me feel. I hand him his cocoa and he takes a sip. He’s cute, and offers me a one-sided cheers since I think if I have any more I will explode. Or be awake all night from the caffeine, which may be piddly if you’ve had one cup, but I’ve had three. So.

Lowry stands, slings his skate bag over his shoulder. “I know you’re perfectly capable of walking home by yourself and that you do it all the time, but do me a favor and allow me to walk you back to your building?”

Now it’s my turn to half smile.

“Next time we meet up, are you going to ask me to text when I get home?”

He grimaces and it occurs to me that it’s probably because he would have liked to ask me for that and didn’t. I don’t know quite what to make of that. It’s that same feeling of knowing I’m not supposed to like him being overly protective, but I do. While I still don’t think he would be okay with the extent I wished that were true, I don’t want to discourage him. I’ll take these bits and pieces and make what use of them I can. Before he backpedals, I volunteer, “I could do that. Next time. And I wouldn’t mind company on the walk.”

There. That wasn’t so bad. Very mature. And I’ve had about enough of acting my age.

It’s snowing, pretty flakes drifting from the sky and Beacon Hill with its gas streetlamps and picturesque purple-windowed town houses as the background. It’s like we’re in a snow globe and it’s so pretty I can’t stand it.

I’m pretty sure my mother loved the snow, maybe because they didn’t get much of it in Southern Italy where she was born. I am very sure my father was completely smitten with her. It’s in every picture of the two of them; he’s almost never looking at the camera because he’s looking at her.

I don’t have any memories of my mother. Not real ones. I was only two when…when I didn’t have a mother anymore. There are a lot of pictures from when I was a baby, though, and my mind has elaborated on those moments frozen in time. Has made movies out of stills, written novels from a single word scribbled on a scrap of paper.

Anyway, this weather reminds me of her, and one photo in particular, when she was holding me in a snowsuit that was so poufy I looked like a star. She was swinging me around, my little body nearly parallel to the ground. I like to imagine I remember her laugh.

My eyes water and surely it’s the cold breeze that’s kicked up, sending the flakes into delicate cyclones. Whatever it is, it makes me want to run. Skip. Lowry got the opportunity to soar around the rink and now I want a chance to fly.

* * *

Lowry

Starla’s taken off with a whoop that nearly makes me drop my hot chocolate. Truth is, I don’t care for the stuff. It’s too sweet and I’d rather have coffee or a hot toddy. But I wasn’t about to say so when Starla had done something thoughtful. I’m also aware that she can be—has always been—self-conscious about some of the things she enjoys because other people have insinuated or outright stated they were immature. Fuck that. If it’s not hurting anyone, we should all take pleasure wherever we can find it.

Starla has apparently found it whirling like a dervish through the storybook paths of the Common. But she could very well injure herself because it looks beautiful, but is in fact treacherous.

“Starla, careful. It’s icy in some spots. I saw someone slip on my way over.”

Yes, there’s an undercurrent of worry as I watch her skip and spin, but it’s overcome by something more than fondness. Something that has been building, shifting since the day I met her.

When she was my patient, Starla was a serious girl. Big eyes, rarely a smile on her face, especially when I first started seeing her. Most of that, I know, was the monster she’s always carrying on her back, but some of it was something else and it took me a while to crack it.

She came into my office one day when she was fifteen, looking absolutely miserable. Which was worrisome, but honestly, less so than when she looked blank. That flat affect would send ice flooding my veins, because when she was so numb she wasn’t feeling anything at all, that’s when things got the most dangerous. When she was most likely to tell me she’d been thinking about hurting herself or worse. So misery, I’d take. Misery I could work with.

“Some boys at school were being assholes.”

My hackles went up like a hyena’s when someone’s trying to drag away a tasty carcass it’d claimed. Despite having a lot of experience keeping a neutral look on my face, I had struggled to keep my voice level because I wanted to kill those fuckers.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. If this fucking depression hasn’t killed me yet, no way am I going to let some shit-talking pubescent dickheads do it.”

Shite, it was hard to keep from cracking up when she said things like that. But somehow I managed to only let the corners of my mouth turn up instead of full-on cracking up.

“That’s fair, although you know just because something doesn’t kill you doesn’t mean it can’t bother you. Whatever these boys did obviously bothered you.”

And I obviously wanted to rip their faces off.

She shrugged. “Just their normal taunts, which are sucky. But the worst part…” She shook her head, not looking at me. “Never mind.”

“Ah, but you know I do. Mind, that is. Come on, let’s have it.”

The look she gave me then made me feel it—the heaviness she always had pressing down on her, as though this seemingly average high school sophomore had the weight of the world on her shoulders. Then she shook her head and pursed her lips slightly.

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