I can’t help but wonder if this is a sign that I’m getting better or that I’m truly broken.

“Tave, I really want to make sure we talk about this more tomorrow when we can discuss it face-to-face. Is that okay with you?”

“Sure, I guess,” I say, almost hating that I told her at all now that the panic has passed. But she’s my psychiatrist—this is the kind of crazy stuff I’m supposed to tell her. Still, I feel like I just spilled someone else’s secret rather than sharing my own thoughts.

The silence stretches again, but I’m in no mood to deal with it anymore. “I gotta go,” I mumble, looking for an excuse to hang up. “I have a physical therapy appointment.” I force a sharp bark of laughter. “You know, my other therapist.”

Elizabeth chuckles and then says, “Okay. Go in and … stretch. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” I say dryly, and hang up. I walk toward the center, trying to sort through my conflicted feelings.

She didn’t tell me not to see him again. But I feel like it was too easy. Mentally, I know Benson’s reaction made more sense. Perhaps part of me wanted Elizabeth to confirm that I really should stay away from him.

But she didn’t. And I can’t help but wonder why.

CHAPTER SIX

“Hey, Tave,” Jay says as I slide into the passenger seat, my leg throbbing from ankle to hip. Usually Reese picks me up from PT because Jay’s at work.

“No lab Nazi today?” I ask, buckling my seat belt. The combination of aches from therapy and knowing that he tattled on me to Elizabeth makes me much less than happy to see him.

“Worse,” Jay says, pulling into traffic. His voice is scratchy and he stifles a yawn. “I have research to do at home.”

“The virus?”

He pauses, so briefly I almost don’t catch it. “Yeah.” But he doesn’t elaborate. “What happened to your head?”

My fingers fly to the scrape, preemptively sabotaging any lie I might have tried to tell. Clearly, my bangs aren’t doing their job. “Um.” I fumble for an explanation. “I ran into a wall.”

“Let’s see,” he says when we hit a red light. He stretches his arm out toward my face. I try not to flinch, but when his hand stills midair, I know I’ve failed. I don’t like people reaching for me—not anymore. Too many months of doctors and nurses checking my eyes, my stitches, my ears, my temperature, my scar, and—of course—about a million needles, all pointed toward me.

He doesn’t push it. Jay’s always pretty good with stuff like that.

“Please, Jay,” I say, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my hands as I feel a headache building. “I’m totally feeling like a dork already—I was just a stupid klutz. I promise.”

He hesitates longer than I think is really necessary. It’s just a scrape.

“I know you talked to Elizabeth,” I blurt after a short pause, my anger making me brave. When in doubt, go with a diversion. Or better yet, an accusation.

He smiles guiltily, tilts his head like a puppy that got caught chewing on a shoe. “I didn’t really tell her anything,” he protests. “Not even what the dream was about.”

“Did you tell Reese? What it was about?” I clarify.

“You know I tell Reese everything.”

I can’t be mad at that. They’re married. And family or not, I’m an intruder in their life. “Light’s green,” I mutter.

“It was really casual,” Jay says, trying to placate me. “Dr. Stanley calls once in a while to make sure everything’s going well at home, and she happened to call this morning.” He pauses, glances over at me. “I didn’t think it was confidential; I mean, was it?”

“Not really,” I admit, feeling my frustration ebb. It wasn’t that big of a deal. “I just feel like I don’t have any privacy. Like, ever.”

“I’ll warn you next time,” he says earnestly. “In fact—peace offering—when we get home, you go upstairs and put a dab of makeup on that scrape before dinner and I’ll make a teeny exception to my tell-Reese-everything rule. Our little secret,” he whispers with a grin. “Truce?”

I go ahead and give him a weak smile. It isn’t that I don’t want Reese to know, exactly. But she worries. A lot. Not that I blame her—her stepbrother died in a plane wreck and she inherited his crazy, damaged kid. Death makes people paranoid.

I should know.

Just before we pull into the garage, I catch sight of the billowy curtains in Reese’s office fluttering through her open window. Wind chimes that Reese let me mount across the front porch a few weeks ago sway in the slight breeze. As I take in the ringing of the chimes and the classic beauty of the house, I feel my whole body relax. For some reason, I’ve always found their home comforting.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Jay says as we walk in the back door, “but I do need to get some work done before dinner.” He yanks off his already-loose tie and tosses it over the arm of a chair as he heads into his “office.” It’s more like a lab, complete with three computers, charts of molecules plastered on the wall, and one side of the room entirely taken up with bookshelves full of colorful reference books in very non-alphabetical order.

His actual chemistry stuff is at the lab—he says it’s too dangerous to bring home—but every simulation and research tool you could possibly want is in there.