Page 90 of Twisted Needs

“No. Try again.”

I sigh. “It felt good,” I finally admit quietly.

“Good?”

“It felt really good.”

The words taste awful coming out of my mouth. Sure, he begged and got jealous. He even dropped to his fucking knees. But the fact that some stupid, selfish little part of me had been waiting for it is what makes me feel like a piece of shit. Waiting for him to finally break. Waiting for him to finally hurt as much as I’d been hurting. The realization makes me feel more than vaguely sick.

Helen studies me for a second. “And how did it feel when he ignored you?”

“Like shit.”

“When he pushed you away?”

“Like more shit.”

“When he acted like none of this existed?”

I blink. “Try and guess.”

She nods slowly. “And when he chose you?”

I laugh once, not because anything is funny, but because suddenly the pattern seems so obvious that I want to crawl under my desk. “That felt good too,” I confess. “So fucking good.”

“Interesting.”

I sigh and shake my head. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“The stupid therapist thing where you say one word and somehow make me feel attacked.”

Helen smiles. “You keep focusing on whether Parker wants you.”

My stomach tightens. Right again. It’s like every conversation somehow ends up there.

“What happens if Parker walks downstairs tomorrow and gives you everything you’ve been asking for?”

My chest immediately goes tight. I’ve spent so much time imagining the wanting that I’ve never really allowed myself to imagine the having.

What happens if he finally stops turning me away?

The images arrive so fast they trip over each other. Him holding my hand, or introducing me as something more than Luca’s little brother. Parker actually choosing me in broad daylight instead of the privacy of his own head. For years, those thoughts felt like fantasies. Now they feel terrifyingly possible, but impossible at the same exact time.

Helen watches all of it happen across my face. “Do you trust him with that?” she asks. The room goes quiet.

I trust Parker with almost every version of me. He’s seen all of them, and somehow he stayed. He didn’t call me insane. But loving someone isn’t the same thing as trusting them to love you back.

My throat feels tight. I look away from the camera. Helen waits, sighing eventually when I start hiding behind the silence. “You don’t have to answer that today.”

“Good.” Sighing, I pick at a loose thread on my sweatpants. The truth is sitting somewhere inside my chest, half-formed and raw. If I’m being fully honest with myself, I can’t tell if Parker is the safest thing in my life or the most dangerous. “I don’t think I’d like whatever comes out of my mouth,” I admit.

Helen frowns. “Okay, well, I’d like to change gears for our remaining time, then,” she says a little apologetically. “Graduation’s coming up.”

“Yeah. In a few months.”

“A whole year early, too.”