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I want to be spanked.
Taking a calming breath to settle my nerves, I make my way into the dungeon.
TWELVE
JUSTIN
“Your hands look different.”
“Huh?” I question, giving Doc Miller a bemused look. I pull my hands off the back of the couch in the Doc’s office and examine my fingers, trying to see what’s new about them.
“Your nails. They’re painted,” she explains.
“Oh,” I say, stretching my arms along the back of the couch again and putting my ankle over my knee. “Yeah. I couldn’t sleep, and the font in my book was starting to blur. So, I painted my nails.”
Dark blue with glitter. I’m choosing to think I picked the first color that caught my eye, and that it’s not some fucked-up metaphor for my thoughts right now—broody, with my sparkling personality straining to break through.
“Ah,” says the Doc with a sad smile. “I was hoping the burst of color was an indication that there has been positive movement on the home front.”
Great. So she caught the symbolism too. Fantastic.
“Yeah. That’s a no,” I say, scratching at my chin. “Remind me to bring you in one of the paintings Julia is working on. I’d love to have you analyze it.”
“That bad, huh?”
I shake my head, then shrug in non-committance.
“They’re beautiful, like everything she does. But blacks and greys are heavily prevalent.”
“Art can be very healing,” the Doc intones, as if by rote.
I don’t actually think Julia’s doing much healing, so I hum noncommittally again.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Do I? I don’t really know. She takes my silence as a means to suggest something different. She taps her pen on the back of her iPad case, and I wonder for probably the thousandth time why she always has a pen when she takes her notes electronically.
“Well then, I’d like to request we talk about something different today, if you don’t mind.”
I blow hot air through puffy cheeks and take a moment to crack my knuckles.
“What’s the matter, Doc,” I say sarcastically. “My love life not interesting enough for you anymore?” I ask her with a smirk.
“On the contrary,” she says with a smile, leaning back in her chair. “I want to talk aboutyou, and how the current situation makes you feel. We’ve talked about Julia, and Remington, and the ways in which you can be there to support them in the pain that they’re feeling, but we haven’t really touched on how you are.”
Her couch is a leather buttercream yellow, and I find myself fantasizing about taking a blade to the cushions and slicing the stuffing out rather than talking about how I’m doing. Strange, since I kinda love to talk about myself.
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, then follow it up with my best cocky smile. Doc Miller gives me a skeptical stare. My eyes roll, and I huff in annoyance, adjusting my position on the couch.
“I’m fine,” I insist again. “I have to be fine. This...this situation we’re in. It’s none of our three’s fault. I don’t blame Remi any more than I blame myself. So, I’m fine. I have to be fine.”
I sound like a parrot, repeating the only three phrases it knows.
Doc Miller examines me for a moment, and I resist the urge to squirm under her stare.
“You don’thaveto be anything.”
Gah! She’s just so...so…
