Page 150 of The Wild Card

Our first one. For real this time.

A smile spreads across my face before I can stop it. I read the messages again. Then a third time.

For real this time.

My fingers fly across the keyboard.

Yes!

Pick me up at 7?

His response is almost immediate.

I live with you.

Fine. Knock on my door at 7. Make it romantic.

A pause. Then:

I’ll see what I can do.

I’m grinning like an idiot when I pull into the parking garage.

I have a date tonight. A real date. With the grumpy man who taught me that love doesn’t have to be perfect to be real.

And for the first time in months, I’m not afraid.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Breakthrough

Crew

Dr. Reyes’s office hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve been coming here.

Same beige couch. Same abstract art on the walls that I’ve never understood. Same box of tissues on the side table that I’ve never touched. The consistency used to comfort me—one more thing I could count on, one more anchor in a world that felt perpetually unstable.

Today, it just feels familiar. And that’s enough.

“You seem different,” Dr. Reyes observes. She’s a small woman in her fifties, with kind eyes and a bullshit detector that could rival any FBI interrogator. “Something’s shifted.”

“Maybe.”

“Care to elaborate?”

I stare at the abstract art—blue and gold swirls that might be the ocean or might be nothing at all. “I’m taking Emmie on a date tonight.”

“The roommate.”

“Yeah.”

“The one you ended things with because you were convinced you’d ruin her life.”

I wince. “You don’t have to say it like that.”

“How would you prefer I say it?”

“I don’t know. Less accurately.”