Love Therapy (GxG)

22

Floor to ceiling windows allow the bright light of this sunny day inside sleek living room. An open kitchen on one side, the biggest sofa I've ever seen on the other. Everything decorated with taste, not overdone but not too bland.

"Wow. Maybe I should change my major to Psychology." I say, amazed. Diana chuckles behind me, grabbing the coat I'm shrugging out of. "I don't recommend it. Not many therapists can afford this." She leaves it at that, and I decide not to pry more, as it's the first words she has said to me since the cemetery.

While she turns the kettle on and arranges mugs, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. A text from Joy awaits. I glance up through my eyelashes to make sure Diana is busy, as I don't want her to think I'd rather be on my phone than talk to her, but her attention is firmly on me. "Go on, it could be important."

But the way my face reddens as I read the text is a clear giveaway that it all but important. I clear my throat and quickly push the phone in my back pocket, quickly thinking of a subject of conversation.

"Everything all right?" she asks, turning around to pour the hot water in two mugs.

"Oh, yeah. Just Joy" being Joy.

Diana's back is still facing me. I admire the way her hair cascades down her back, revealing her waist. "What's up with that, by the way? Is she your girlfriend?" She turns around at the end of her sentence, a mug in each hand, and the curl of her lips show me that she's teasing me. "Come on, we'll be better on the sofa."

I sit quite heavily on the sofa, and Diana hands me my tea.

I sip quietly on the hot beverage. "I don't think my girlfriend would leave me alone with, and I quote the 'most beautiful woman she's ever seen'. No, Joy's a very good friend."

She looks up in surprise and a hint of amusement. She sits back a little, flips her hair on one side and my eyes linger on her neck. "Really, she said that?"

"Mhm."

I cringe inwardly at my little white lie. The truth is, the text Joy just sent me contains much, much worse. I just summarized it. Nothing wrong with that. Diana doesn't have to know everything. She already knows enough as it is.

For no particular reason, I remember the day Eva and I ran into her. She had seemed off. A light bulb lights up in my head. I recount to myself what happened at the cemetery, her barely looking at Joy, asking if she's my girlfriend Was she jealous? That could only mean one thing.

"Hold on," I start, but it's like Diana already knows what I'm about to say. The way she's looking at me makes me unconsciously clench my thighs, her cheeks are a little red, as if she just ran up the stairs.

And I'm almost a hundred percent sure what I'm thinking is right.

But she cuts me off before I can voice it. "So, how're you holding up?"

The question is surprisingly open, but I choose to give her some slack and not act like I don't know what she's talking about. I make a quick mental note of this, wanting to remember to tell my new therapist that I'm finally starting to act like an adult.

"I don't really know. I'm sad, and some part of me cannot believe Mr. Clay's gone but I can't find it in me to cry either. It's like, I'm sad, and it's normal, but I'm not feeling much of anything else."

The sound of the mug on the coffee table reminds me I'm not alone. "Kennedy, you do know that everyone deals with grief in their own way. You don't have to feel ashamed or guilty for not being able to cry. You don't even have to feel sad. We never have to feel anything. We just do."

I can't stop rolling my eyes at her. "Stop that. Don't do that. You're not my therapist." I put my still half full mug down, next to hers. "And if you brought me here to do some sort of unofficial therapy session," I smack my thighs and get ready to stand up, "then maybe I should go. You invite me here, I don't know why, barely talk to me the whole way there and now start to pick my brain. I'm not ashamed, or guilty, to admit that right now, I'm pretty pissed off."