Page 73 of Your Secret to Keep

Brooks puts his hands on my waist and backs me to the door frame, the wood gently hitting the middle of my back. He puts one arm above me as his other hand touches my face, pushing through my hair before tucking a piece behind me ear.

“Like, the door lean? I knowallabout it.” He moves slowly, his nose brushing mine before our lips meet. His tongue sweeps against my bottom lip and I let him in. My hips press into him, and I reach one arm up and around the hand he’s holding above me. I grab his wrist and he moans into my mouth.

“I owe you a secret,” I whisper against his lips. His eyes burn into me, and I swear I can see flames licking on the edge of the caramel brown. “I’ve never, in my entire life, been more turned on than I am right now.” I kiss him again, feeling his lips pull up in a grin against mine.

“Well, we should do something about that,” he murmurs before his lips are back on mine.

Yes, we should.

Chapter 44

Brooks

Youneverknowwhatyou’re in for when it comes to a therapy session. Some feel like a casual chat with a friend, while others are the equivalent of staring at pieces of a puzzle that never seem to fit together—like they’re not even from the same box.

My foot taps as I settle into the leather chair, my usual spot, as Jen sits across from me. With the season in full swing, our visits are sporadic and typically virtual. Today, all the stars aligned to bring me in person for my session.

“We haven’t talked since your shoulder injury,” she starts. “How are you feeling?”

“Today I feel good. It’s not something that should have long lasting issues, not like the knee, so it seems to be trending in the right direction.”

Jen pauses—the thing she’s so good at. Before asking another question, she always gives me the room to keep going.

“At first, it was terrifying,” I continue. “Like, being on the court, having everyone run over to me. It brought up a lot of what the knee injury felt like.”

“How did you cope with that? I know that time was difficult. You put in a lot of work, mentally and physically, to get back where you wanted to be.”

I go back to my bedroom, to the moment before I took the sleeping pill and needed a break from everything. Even being a few days removed,I could look back and know it wasn’t all that helpful, but sometimes you have to fucking feel.

Rubbing my hands together, I admit, “The first couple days were bad. It was Thanksgiving and my mom was supposed to come to my place, but she had travel delays that kept her from coming home. That sort of set me off, or over—however you want to view it.”

Jen nods, her face completely neutral. “Tell me about the last part. Setting you off.”

Something I respect about Jen is that she doesn’t judge me or ask me questions which make me feel like I didn’t do the right thing.

My knuckles strain against my skin, turning white. “I don’t know if you’d call it a depressive episode or what the term is, but I felt like I flew back. Almost to how bad it was when I was trying to get through the knee injury. The thought of doing anything was fucking overwhelming. I turned my phone off. I didn’t want to text anyone or see another notification. Basically, I spent two days in bed, one of those being Thanksgiving.”

“What happened after that?” Jen asks.

Part of me is grateful she doesn’t want to dwell on this. Saying it out loud kind of makes me feel like a fucking loser. Like I can’t handle basic emotions. But that’s probably not true.

“I did some at home rehab with the training staff and then I went back to practice. I felt better.”

“What does better look like?”

“Like I could get up and do something. It wasn’t that I really wanted to, but it was something I felt was possible. Like I wasn’t a complete dark cloud but almost like a light gray.”

“And how do you feel today?”

“Good.” I let the smile spread on my lips and watch Jen smile back at me.

She sets down her pen and looks at me. “Brooks, I’ve never seen you smile like that. Why do you think you’re feeling this good? Sometimes with therapy, people think we should only focus on the dark, but that isn’t true. It’s important to examine and understand all the light.”

Well… here goes nothing. It’s not that Jen doesn’t know about Lia, but we’ve not talked about her a lot. Mostly because there were lots of other things to cover and it didn’t feel like the right time. I guess that’s what happens when you find out you have secret siblings and a parent later in life.

“Do you want the long or short version?” I joke with her.

She looks at her watch and replies with, “Long version. Always. We’ve got time.”

---