I Always Will

Therapy-DIY In A Van

Riley

From halfway across the cafeteria, I can see the blotch on her usual pale complexion and the weakness around her eyes.

She's been off somewhere crying.

For fuck's sake.

I take a deep breath. I'm not exactly angry with her, but I am a bit put out.

She did not go to the track. I don't know exactly where she went, but she didn't go there. When she was more than twenty five minutes late, I finally broke her damn security protocol and called AJ.

She's twenty-five minutes late, she's not answering her phone or texts. I'm not asking you where she is. I'm only asking if you have eyes on her. If she's safe.

He hesitated a long moment before answering. I don't have eyes on her, but she's in a secure location. I know she's safe.

So she couldn't have been at the track. He would have been watching her from some overlook point. She went somewhere else, and from the distracted and nervous way she was acting on the drive to PT, I would bet my reputation that she intentionally misled me.

I certainly don't think it had anything to do with Aidan Mosteller, but I don't understand why she would lie to me. I thought we were bloody well past her sneaking around and acting like a rebellious teenager.

Two possibilities I can think of off the top of my head. She met with Chili and had another big fight.

Or she sought a shoulder to share our sex problems with.

Bridge? Her mother? Or did she seek comfort in her incomprehnsibly boundary-less friendship in Bodie?

Good god, she wouldn't really do that to me, would she? Share our most intimate issues with Bodie?

No. I don't think so.

Well, I suppose I do think so, because I just thought it.

It's not a completely off the wall thought. Many years ago she did tell collude with him to steal my DNA to determine if I had fathered her pregnancy. And he was there—physically, emotionally there—in the terrible moments when she learned she was losing that pregnancy. That was pretty intimate stuff.

It's not inconceivable that she would turn to him with this problem. But I really hope not.

There's only so much a bloke can take.

I watch her coming toward me. She's close enough now that I can see a fire in her eyes beneath the puffiness. Hmmm. Maybe she went another few rounds with Chili, then.

I roll away from the handicapped accessible table and take the straightest path toward her. She closes the distance more quickly. She leans down in front of me so that we are level. I know Row thinks this is some kind of courtesy, but there's something about the way that she does this that chafes.

Of course, in this noisy cafeteria, it's the only way I could probably hear her. Her voice is very low when she says, "I'm so sorry. I lost track of time and that was really inconsiderate of me."

I nod. "It's alright, Row, but the thing is...you don't appear to be alright..."

She looks like she might ball again as she says, "Can we get out of here?"

It takes pretty much everything I have left to wheel myself to the car, but I don't ask Row to give me a push.

Once we are loaded in the van, she turns over the ignition and she sits a long moment, as if she can't collect herself. She's overwrought and wiping away tears again.