Page 2 of Twisted Therapist

But I didn’t because I didn’t want to seem like a puppy.

His voice was low as he said, “I am staying here until I find a house nearby. I didn’t know you would be back so soon from your university.”

Right. The reason I was soaked with mascara running down my face and the constant ache in my heart.

Images of Jason in bed with Amanda flashed in my head, making my eyes burn and stomach heavy. Was I that naïve that I didn’t know Jason was cheating on me for half of the year we had been in a relationship? Probably. Amanda, my friend and dorm mate, and Jason, my now-ex-boyfriend, used to hang out a lot, and I passed their relationship as platonic, trusting both of them.

I came back home with a suitcase as fast as I could.

“Yeah,” I cleared my throat and looked down at my soakedSpirited Awaysocks, which Zara had bought for me. I felt like that. A wet sock. “Things happened and I…”

Shaking my head, I trailed off and peered up at him. “I never thought I’d meet you so soon.”

His lips quirked. I knew after knowing him from years that it meant he was happy. “Me too.” Stepping back, he said, “I… I had to leave Denver and come here.”

I furrowed my brows at him and waited for him to say something more, but neither of us wanted to talk like that standing in the hallway after years of not meeting each other face-to-face.

I took a sharp breath when he tucked a wet lock of hair behind my ear. “I know he made you cry, Petal.” His eyes hardened when he gazed at me as if he could read me like a poem. “But we will talk about what that shit did to you to make your cry after you take a hot shower.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, not able to meet his piercing eyes. I must be crazy to find his domineering tone hot. But my chest warmed hearingthattone. Aiden always used it with me to make me eat food on time when he was sleeping over at our house, telling me to be careful while I chopped onions and holding my hands under tap when I cut my finger, disapproving of my prom date and telling me not to go to the after party.

I wish I had listened to him because I had calledhim, not my brother, at two in the morning at the after party of the prom. Crying and asking him if he could pick me up. He had even given me his hoodie that I never returned and buying me ice cream at early morning.

He never once mocked me with his told-you-so look, just took care of me when I needed someone.

I didn’t think he would enter my life once again when I get my heart broken by Jason.

“Yes,Dad,” I teased, walking past him, his knuckles brushing my arm.

I shivered with goosebumps and hurried upstairs to my room when I felt him watching me. Hayden had insisted on having a room of my own in his house because he wanted me to visit him more. After leaving for Azmia, he had given me the keys, but I had lived at dorms to be more social.

Everything was still the same. With beige walls, a twin size bed in the corner with a metal head frame, white lace curtain surrounding the bed, fairy lights all over the walls hanging over Audrey Hepburn’s poster, my half-empty closet, a vanity dresser with mirror and a bookshelf filled with fantasy books and my soft toys from childhood.

I trailed my finger over the picture frame of us three. Me, my brother and Aiden when I was a kid. Being nine years older than me, I didn’t get to hang out with them a lot, but when I did, they treated me like their equal. I was smiling shyly at the camera because I was insecure about my braces at thirteen, my dark hair in two pigtails, my lilac dress flowing in the wind. Hayden was grinning, his blue-grey eyes as bright as the ocean behind us in the backdrop. My eyes averted to Aiden, the person I had been crushing on since I was six.

His eyes were clear, piercing grey, facing the camera with his face stern, his onyx hair tousled perfectly as if he had rolled out of the bed, a lock of hair falling over his forehead and touching his slashing dark brow. The corner of his lip curled just a little. He was amused and happy. I knew it even though some would think he looked bored. After knowing him for all these years, I knew he seemed happy at that moment. I glanced at his arm, his hand pressing against my shoulder, a friendly gesture, but it made my stomach flutter like it did when I was thirteen.

Stupid. That’s what I was. Stupid and naïve that someone like him, like Aiden, would ever return the feelings I have been harboring inside me since we first met. He was smart and poised, treating his patients with kindness and being awarded for his voluntary work in hospitals. Being one of the best therapists in California, he was nothing short of a celebrity in his community. Compared to him, I was a twenty-one-year-old girl who got her heart broken because she couldn’t see through Jason’s sorry excuses.

I huffed and stripped out of my soaked clothes, heading straight to the ensuite bathroom. I would need a warm shower, some food and some alcohol to talk to call my brother and have a chat with Aiden.

---