Where Life Takes You Read Free Page A

holiday celebrations, sporting different decorations each year.
    “Change of plans, but we’ll discuss them later.” He fed me ice cream, and took the remote out of my hands and muted the TV. “What’s going on?” He offered me a spoon full of ice cream. “Don’t deny it, there are signs all over you. Your bloodshot eyes tell me you haven’t slept well. Your flat voice over the phone, and not being able to Skype… An old tactic to avoid me because you’re trying to hide something.” I stared fixedly at the TV, hoping he’d get the hint and drop it. “And now you’re pretending to pay attention to a diaper commercial. What’s next? Singing jingles? You might as well tell me, because I won’t move on until you do.”
    “Hmm, it’s a good commercial.” I reached for the remote, ready to hit the internet application and browse Netflix or Vudu. Anything to deflect his attention. I wasn’t fast enough.
    Dan held it up in the air, and used his gray-blue eyes to give me a stern look that said, I’m not happy.
    I sighed and crossed my arms, flopping back on the sofa. “Fine, you win. I haven’t slept in two days. The stupid journal’s driving me crazy. Ironic, right? My therapist’s setting me up to fail, and I’ll end up in the loony bin. Then I encountered Ian’s brother at the bookstore, which shook me.”  Resigned and frustrated, I confessed. “He has a son, and the boy’s a carbon copy of his uncle.”
    Dan closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, there was something unknown in their depths that puzzled me. Was it disappointment, perhaps?
    I’d started therapy about a year ago, and so far, nothing had changed. The memories still haunted me every night and every other Tuesday. Apparently, they would be around until I got the so-called ‘closure’ . Dealing with them took me closer to living a full life—the therapist said—but a full life sounded greedy to me. Someone as screwed up as me shouldn’t expect too much. In any case, all bringing the memories back again had done was make me miserable. The image of my mother shrieking at me in front of the entire neighborhood haunted me, carving one more sliver out of my heart every day. “You’re dead to me,” she’d yelled. Who does that to her only daughter?
    “You should stay with me tonight, Bex. Please.” Dan’s words, and arms, pulled me out of my self-pity party. He settled me in his lap, and dried the few tears that began to escape me with his thumb. He hugged me tight, and gently wrapping me in a secure cocoon where all my problems, fears, and insecurities disappeared. “After you tell me everything, we’ll watch movies. You’ll fall asleep, and I’ll be around to scare off the pesky nightmares.”
    “Ian’s brother triggered the nightmare.” I stopped crying, put on my big girl panties, and narrated my misadventure. Starting with the crowd in the bookstore, and Roger’s wife, and ending when I’d parked my car in the garage and run into his arms. The hardest part was describing the nightmares, because talking about them made them linger. I avoided Chrystal, the conniving assistant—no one should be fired during the holidays. I lunged for the remote, and he gave it up easily—a reward for giving him what he wanted.
    After my narration, I felt better. Dan saved me all the time, even from myself. I was grateful he didn’t have a clingy supermodel attached at the hip. He never brought any of them home. His properties were off limits. He went to hotels, or their houses, and never stayed the night. No long-term relationships. No strings attached. “What happened to Mimi?”
    “Who?” Dan frowned, and puzzlement took over his face.
    “The Australian supermodel you were photographed with over the weekend.” I settled for a Friends re-run. “You guys partied all night at some famous night club, I think.”
    “Over the weekend? Are we talking about the redhead, or the skinny blonde? And I was at a night