Chapter 128 (1/2)

I had reached down to grab the binder as Dr. Tran dismissed our group. My panic was short-lived when I looked over at Luke and found the binder in his hands.

“What is all this?” he asked, his eyes going over a page.

“If you would have met me a month ago, you would be swallowing your fucking teeth right now.” I glared at him, grabbing the binder from his grasp.

“Sorry, man, I’m not good at social etiquette.” His smile was uncomfortable, and for some reason it made me feel as if I could trust him.

“Clearly.” I rolled my eyes, shoving all the loose pages back into the pockets.

He laughed. “Will you tell me what it is if I buy you a root beer from next door?”

“How sad are we? A couple of recovering alcoholics, negotiating to read a life story.” I shook my head, wondering how I got to this point at such a young age, but I was so thankful for Tessa. If not for her, I would still be hiding in the darkness, left to rot.

“Well, root beer won’t make you burn any houses down, and it won’t make me say hurtful things to Kaci.”

“Fine. Root beer is fine.” I knew he was going to Dr. Tran for more than couple’s counseling, but I decided not to be a complete dickhead and call him out on it.

We walked to the restaurant next door. I ordered a shitload of food, on his tab, and I ended up letting him read a few pages of my confessional.

Twenty minutes later I had to put an end to it. He would have read the entire thing if I’d let him. “This is amazing, really, man. This is . . . fucked-up in some parts, but I get it. It wasn’t you talking, it was the demons.”

“Demons, huh?” I took a long draw, finishing off the root beer in my glass.

“Yeah, demons. When you’re drunk, you are full of them.” He smiled. “Some of this I just read, I know wasn’t written by you. It had to be the demons.”

I shook my head. He was right, of course, but I couldn’t help but picture a creepy little red dragon-thing on my shoulder, writing the fucked-up shit that was on some of those pages.

“You’ll let her read this when you finish it, right?”

I dipped a cheese stick into some sauce and tried not to cuss him out for ruining my amusing thoughts about little demon creatures. “No. No way would I let her read this shit.” I tapped my finger across the leather binding, remembering how excited Tessa was for me to use it when she bought it. I fought the idea, of course, but now I love the stupid thing.

“You should. I mean, take some of that twisted stuff out, especially the part about her being infertile. That was just wrong.”

“I know.” I didn’t look at him; I looked down at the table and cringed, wondering what the hell was going through my mind when I wrote that shit.