Finding YOU Finding ME (You & Me Trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

            She
smiled, still clasping my hands in hers. “I know it was shocking to see me in
this role, as Collins McGregor’s therapist. Normally you wouldn’t even know,
except he gave me permission to tell you and to bring you into his sessions
with me. He’s also asked me to work with you.” She became very gentle as she
said, “I know you’re carrying a big burden, a big guilt right now that stems
from something in your past, and it can get in the way of you having a
fulfilling relationship. It can even get to the point where you’re so
debilitated from functioning that you shut down.”

            “I
was…I was, that one time when Derek found me, I was going through so much,” I
said.

            “Yes,
you were, but it was also because of something triggered by Collins or by
something Collins represent. Fear of intimacy, some kind of shame, guilt…am I
right, Sam?”

            I
thought back to just today at Sawyer House. I had felt this panic, the sudden
tightening in my stomach, the dread and then the fear earlier today. It wasn’t
just the training gone wrong of the prank trainer/stalker Billy, if that was
his name. It was the name Billy, whom I have such a strongly negative
association, it generated a sickly physical response in me, just hearing his
name. Obviously, despite my training as a peer counselor, despite how much I
knew about psychology, I still was not over the Billy incident from when I was
thirteen or fourteen and harassed so badly by a bully that I was nearly raped
by him.

            But
that wasn’t all. It was the way everyone treated me afterwards that forever
made me feel damaged, dirty, and unworthy so much so that I’ve spent my entire
life afterwards, working hard to try to win everyone’s acceptance again. I
worked so hard to be the good girl, to be the perfect daughter, and to be what
everyone expected of me…in the end, or at least right now in the present, what
I realized was that all that didn’t matter. It’s the one who stick with you
through thick and thin who matter, and that had been people like Gail, Derek,
and Collins.

            I
finally answered Gail back. “Yes,” I said. “It was, it is. And you’re right. I
can’t do this alone.”

            Gail’s
hand squeezed mine again. “You’re not, Sam. You’re never alone. I know you have
issues of your own that you haven’t dealt with…if you need to talk about that,
feel free to just come into my office, and we can.”

            “Thanks,”
I said, trying not to think about my issues. “I’ll take you up on your offer
for sure.”

Chapter
8

           
T
he next couple of days, I began packing, ready
to move out of the cozy cottage-style Newport Beach house I’ve lived in for the
past four years since we’ve moved to the Orange Coast of Southern California.
Originally a run-down fixer upper older cottage beach house on the cliff with a
view of the ocean, my parents had lovingly remodeled it to the sweet little
cottage house with a white picket fence that it now was.

            Although
I loved the house, I couldn’t live there any longer knowing how my father felt
about me, with me finding out that I was not his child after all, but some
result of an one-night stand my mother had when she was barely twenty, fresh
from the wild country of Texas, with hopes and dreams of making it in
Hollywood…only to be knocked up by the first gorgeous guy who showed her
attention and was nice to her - my so-called real dad who probably didn’t even
know that I existed. And the man who I thought was my father, the boy who
became a pastor and married the seemingly innocent pretty girl from Texas, the
man whom I grew up with, practically avoided me and my mother the last couple
of months since I found out.

            He
wasn’t here this Saturday morning as he was at church preparing for a Spring
retreat. For married couples, go figure. As much of a mess that was our family
life at home with my parents’ impending divorce and my mother’s drinking
problem, which she swore she was managing because of her AA classes, what never
failed about them, about us, was the perfect façade we managed to put out there
for the congregation. We were always on our best behavior when we were at my
father’s church – the handsome charismatic pastor with his beautiful wife and
daughters. Mom ran events and put together ladies’ socials including book
clubs, while I played the piano during sermons or helped out at the youth
center with Pastor Michael, a young handsome pastor fresh from missionary trips
to Asia and South America.

            For
all it’s worth, despite the hot mess at my parent’s home (funny how I refer to
this cottage house I’ve lived in for years as their home now instead of mine),
I somehow did not walk away from it all, as I had originally planned months ago
before meeting Collins. Instead of packing to move upper north to Stanford, I
remained in town, opting to go to our local, but nationally highly-acclaimed
University of California school.

            “I
don’t see why you can’t just commute,” Mother poked her head through my bedroom
door. “You’re welcome to stay, and you can save on rent that way.”

            “Mom,”
I said. “We’ve been over this how many times?” I packed the rest of my books
away in boxes, which seemed to be way more than the boxes I had for my clothes,
and began labeling them and categorizing them.

            “Golly,
Sam, the way you go about marking up those boxes…you remind me of an accountant
rather than some young woman about to go off on her adventure after graduating
from high school…”

            “Well,
if I don’t mark these boxes it’ll never get done, and besides, I don’t want to
have to dig through each one to find something I need just because I didn’t
label them right.” I turned around, “And graduation isn’t official here until
next week. Then you can have all this weepy mother-daughter send off. Not right
now…” I smiled. Mom have always been the younger one of us, and from looking at
both of us, you’d think she was only a few years older, having had me when she
was only twenty.

            “I’m
going to miss you moving away, Baby,” Mom said.

            “You
have Nydia,” I said, referring to my precociously cute little seven year-old
sister. “And you have your friends…the ladies’ group, and…”

            Mom’s
face went from cheery to weepy in a matter of seconds. If I hadn’t known
better, I would have thought Mom was drunk, but she didn’t smell like alcohol.

            “What’s
the matter?” I said, dropping my marker and going over to Mom. “Did I say
something?”

            “Oh,
Sam,” Mom cried. “I really screwed up. I thought going to AA was enough. I
thought that’s all I needed to show that I was responsible, that I was a good
parent, but your father…he was able to get the judge to grant him custody of
Nydia. As soon as the divorce is final, Nydia will be going with him.”

            It
was my turn to get weepy now. If it’s one thing that can do that despite all my
resolve and will to keep a “stiff upper lip” as the British called it, it was
Nydia. I protected her like she was my own daughter. I would protect her with
my life. “Mom, don’t cry,” I said, crying myself. “The judge can’t separate you
from Nydia. Nydia needs her mother, and you’re not a bad mother, Mom.” I
swallowed. Did I mean that? 

            For
several years I’ve resented my mother for being flaky, flighty, and I guess
downright fun instead of strict and forbidding like the other mother from
church I’ve grown used to. Yes, she was drunk sometimes, and yes, she had a
drinking problem, but when it came to Nydia and me, she was always there.
Perhaps not always functioning…oh, what was I trying to say? She did, however,
raised me to be the fully-grown young woman I turned out to be, without me
having to be in rehab or in jail…

            “Do
you really mean that?” Mom echoed my own thoughts and doubts.

            “Yes,”
I nodded. “Mom, you’re not perfect, but you’re alright.”

            Mom
wiped her tears with her sleeve and opened her arms. “Aww, come here, Baby!”
She hugged me and kissed me on my cheek. “You always know what to say, you’re
so smart, Sam. How did I get so lucky to be your mother?”

            “Now
don’t make me cry, Mom…Collins will be here any minute, and I don’t want to
have to wash my face from smeared mascara now…”

            “You
don’t wear mascara,” Mom said. “Your long lashes are naturally that long,
thick, and curly. Come to think of it, you don’t wear much makeup at all.” She
played with my hair, already getting into her favorite Mommy mode, dressing her
daughters up, like they were her dolls or something. Even at my age…

            “Where
is Collins taking you?” Mom asked, coyly. She went to my closet to try to pull
out something of mine that she can dress me up in, but opened it to reveal all
the clothes were gone, packed away in boxes the night before, right after I
returned home from my dinner with Gail and Collins, too wired from everything,
from seeing Collins, from getting downright sexy with Collins, and from finding
out about Gail, that I couldn’t sleep.

            “To
check out apartments,” I said. “He’s helping me move, himself.”

            “Isn’t
he a billionaire?” Mom asked. “Why doesn’t he just hire someone…”

            “Mom,
that’s not the point,” I said. “Just because he’s got money, and lots of it,
doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to experience it himself.”

            “But…he
doesn’t have to,” Mom said. “He can avoid all that back breaking work, and…”

            Right
when she was about to go into her lecture on the best use of time and money,
the doorbell rang. At the same time, my phone buzzed, and I saw a text from
Collins fly across.

CollinsM:
 
I’m out in front. You decent or do I have the pleasure of seeing and tasting
your sweet skin so early in the morning again

            “Collins’
here!” I said, straightening my white lace soft shift dress, and slipping on my
red mule sandals. I ran to the door, and practically jumped onto him when I
opened it and saw him looking even more sexier than he did last night.

“Sam,”
he bent down to kiss me plunging his tongue in to taste mine while he moved his
hand over the back of my dress. “It’s only been a few hours, but I’ve already
missed you. I. Want. You,” he said, pressing up against me.

“Um,
company still…” I gasped, pulling back. “Come in.”

Collins
smiled and walked confidently into the house in long strides, his legs clad in
jeans that hung off his hips just so to reveal his tanned smooth stomach and V
underneath. Even dressed down in jeans and a v-neck grey shirt and his hair
fresh out of the showers messy, he looked delectable. If he had asked, I would
have a hard time refusing to move in with him. Being so close to him, feeling
his body heat so close to me, smelling his masculine spicy and musk scent,
instantly caused my body to ache for his touch. As much as I wanted to
constantly be in close proximity to Collins and his hot lickable body, I knew
both of us could lose control and end up triggering some part of us that we
haven’t dealt with yet, which would be worse. “So, I’m taking it upon myself to
show you a few places I checked out for you.”

            Collins
looked around my cottage-style Newport Beach home, and leaned in. “Who’s here
that I have to impress about taking you out?”

            As
if she was in the other room just now, my mother came padding out of the
kitchen, with a tray of lemonade and cookies. “Collins McGregor, so nice of you
to visit,” she said.

            “Mrs.
Sullivan,” Collins said. “You look lovelier each time I see you.”

            Mother
blushed. Collins reached out a hand and said, “Here, let me get that for you.
Lemonade, my favorite. And cookies!”

            “My
my,” Mom said, “You sure are a charmer…and hot to boot!” 

            Now
I was the one to blush. But Collins just laughed it off.  He reached for one of
the cookies, and when I thought he was going to take a bite, he brought the
cookie up to my mouth, pressed the edge of the cookie against my lower lips and
used it to open my mouth so that it was in my mouth before I knew it, and I had
to take a bite with him still holding onto the cookie. In a way, it was very
seductive how Collins can get me to open my mouth so easily, and with any
object. When I took a bite of it, he took the cookie away and bit the cookie
right in the area where I had just bitten it. When my mother wasn’t looking, he
stuck out his tongue and traced the rest of the area on the cookie where I’ve
bitten while fixing his icy blue eyes on me. “Yummy.”

            Oh,
the blood from my brain immediately rushed down to my lower body, heating me up
so warmly that I had to shift in my chair. Somewhere between his biting the
cookie and tonguing it, the crotch of my panties became wet. I stood up, and
was about to head into my room to change panties when Collins said, “Look at
the time. We have our first meeting in fifteen minutes.”

            Mom
was staring at her glass of lemonade forlornly when I nudged her. I knew what
she was thinking…thinking she should have spiked her own glass of lemonade with
something stronger maybe. “Oh, Collins, so nice of you to just sit and have
lemonade and cookies with me. It’s nice to know young men have manners like you
do. It makes it easier to say yes to when he wants extra sugar, doesn’t it?”
she nodded at Collins. 

            I’ve
never seen Collins turned red before, and he didn’t, but he did almost choke on
his drink.

            “Mom,
um, I don’t even know what to say about that, but, we have to go now so I’ll
see you later.”