The Problem with Forever(59)

“I’ll get to it.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go ahead.”

“But you’ve seriously only been drawing in class? Not working—”

“I’ll have it down, Mouse. Promise.” He lifted his hand, wiggling his pinky at me. “I’ll pinky promise.”

I sighed. “I don’t...need a pinky promise.”

Rider just grinned as he leaned back and crossed his arms. Taking a deep breath, I stared down at my speech. The words blurred a bit, as if there was something wrong with my vision. My heart rate kicked up. I drew in a deep breath that got caught.

“You can do this,” he said quietly.

I closed my eyes briefly. I could do this. “The United States of America...has th-three branches of the...”

I did it.

Well, I struggled through it, and I was pretty sure my first run did not come in under three minutes. More like ten as I got hung up on a word and then I started stuttering, because my eyes kept wanting to read ahead, so that didn’t help. At Rider’s suggestion, I tried it sitting down. Then standing again. I did it so many times there was a good chance I might be able to remember it by heart.

Rider was patient through the whole thing, which pretty much raised him to saint status, because who seriously wanted to listen to me pause and stutter through an informative speech about a dozen times. Someone could record it and Satan could play it over and over, on an endless loop, to torture people in hell.

“I...I hate that I have to think about every single word.” I sat down and dropped the paper on the table, my arms falling into my lap. “It’s embarrassing. People are going to make fun...of me.”

“People are *s, Mouse. You already know that.” He paused as he scooped some of my hair back, gently tossing the strands over my shoulder. “And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

I glanced over at him. Everything about his steady gaze and the serious press of his lips screamed earnest. But he was wrong. “It is...embarrassing.”

“Not if you don’t let it be.” His leg brushed mine as he turned in his seat, facing me. Our eyes met. “You have the power over that. People can say crap. They can think whatever they want, but you control how you feel about it.”

Damn.

That was deep and mature.

“You sound like Dr. Taft,” I blurted out.

His brows lifted. “Who’s that?”

“He was...” Oh. Hold up. Rider didn’t know I’d been seeing a therapist.

He tilted his head to the side and waited. “He was what?”

Oh no. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Deep down, I knew that having received therapy wasn’t something to feel bad about. With my background—our background—it was, frankly, expected. But just like with not talking, there was an ugly and oftentimes brutal stigma attached to therapy.

And Rider? He appeared to come out of our childhood relatively unscathed. Hadn’t he? He wasn’t seeing a therapist. He talked normally. Was he really unscathed, though? I thought about all the classes he skipped and how he said no one really cared. Rider believed that, so did he expect nothing for himself?

“Mouse?” He tugged on a strand of my hair. “Who’s Dr. Taft?”

I looked away, focusing on the printed speech. What did it matter anyway? I knew Rider wasn’t going to disown me as a friend. I drew in a shallow breath. “Dr. Taft was my...therapist. I saw him for about three years. I stopped a little bit ago, because I...I felt like I was ready.”

“Oh. Cool.”

Cool? Okay. How often did he hear seventeen-year-old chicks admit to seeing a therapist, that his only response was cool? I peeked at him, and he was just looking at me, expression open. “Really?”

Rider raised a shoulder. “Makes sense. You saw some—yeah, some rough shit. Dealt with some crazy stuff. I’m actually kind of relieved you saw someone.”

I studied him for a moment. “You...really believe that?”

He nodded.

“What about you?” I asked, and when he blinked, he looked confused. “You grew up...with me. You’ve seen some bad shit.”

“I’m fine,” he replied, shifting his gaze to the books.

I stared at his profile. “I was there, Rider. I remember some—”

“And I’m fine,” he interrupted, lifting his gaze to mine. “I promise. I swear.”

Pressing my lips together, I slowly shook my head. “You said you thought...about that night.”

Rider stiffened and then exhaled slowly. “Sometimes,” he repeated quietly and then louder, “When I do, I’m thinking about what happened to you.”

My stomach churned, and I was for once grateful that I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. “Rider—”

“I should’ve been there,” he stated, his eyes darkening. “I should’ve found a way to get back into that house. I knew that son of a bitch would do something with that doll eventually.”

I opened my mouth, but dammit, I had loved Velvet. Besides the fact that Rider had gotten her for me the day Miss Becky had taken him to the mall, she was the only thing for years that had been simply mine. The doll was not a hand-me-down. She belonged to no one before me and I hadn’t had to share her. The doll was all mine and she was beautiful.