This Close to Okay(81)

“Do you want me to stay here?” Joel asked.

“Joel, I’m done playing games. I’ve had, like, two hours of sleep. I don’t have time to argue with you. Stay or don’t, but I’ll be back,” she said.

“Fine. Okay. I’ll be here,” Joel said quietly.

Rye shoved open the door. Down and down the stairs with Tallie behind him, saying his name.

“Rye, stop,” she said as they stepped onto the sidewalk.

“You’re a doctor? Not a teacher? You lied, too! I came clean, and you said nothing,” he said.

“You didn’t exactly come clean…you got caught. And I’m not a doctor. I’m a therapist.”

“You’re a thera…You’re kidding,” he said. She had to be kidding.

“No. I’m not kidding. I’m a licensed therapist, and like you, I didn’t want you to know, because I knew you’d treat me differently.”

“So this was, what, pro bono work for you? That’s the only reason you were being so kind to me? Did you know who I really was?!” Rye said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so stupid. A therapist. Everything she said, everything she did: fake. She’d been sneakily practicing on him. Impossible conspiracy theories formed in his brain. Had someone sent her after him? Had someone been following him? Watching him?

“No! Absolutely not. The connection we had was real…is real. I wasn’t pretending,” she said. Rye sat on the ground, put his back on the stone.

“I told you I wasn’t pretending, either. But now it’s done. Will you give me a ride to the bridge, please? I could walk or hitch, but it would be delaying the inevitable, and honestly, at this point, I’d like to get it over with,” he said. Everything was a tinderbox; everything could go up in flames, not just Lionel. Him, Tallie, the hospital, the entire world. This was it. It was time to go.

“Get what over with?” she said frantically. “You really think I’m going to help you?”

“I’m done with talk therapy, Tallie. It didn’t work for Christine, and it’s not working for me.”

“Emmett…Rye, you want me to take you to the bridge, then let’s go. Let’s go to the bridge,” she said, wrestling with her purse to find her keys. She jingled them out, held them up. “Let’s fucking go.” She began walking toward her car, and he stood.

“Sounds good,” Rye said, following behind her.

When they got to her car, she opened the trunk and doors for him.

“Stay here. I’m going to tell Joel goodbye. Just be here in the car when I get back, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go,” she said.

“Is this Therapist Tallie talking now?” he asked. “More fake intimacy?” All her sincere moments had come through a professional filter. Nothing about their weekend was real. He couldn’t believe how guilty he’d felt for lying to her when she’d been lying the whole time, too.

The world was shit, and everyone was a liar.

“Is this Clementine Emmett talking now?”

“I’ll wait here. I’m done talking,” Rye said, yanking his stuff from the trunk and slamming it closed. His hands still hurt. So what?

“Promise you’ll wait here,” she demanded, looking right in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. He sat in the passenger seat, closed the door. When he looked in the side mirror, he saw Tallie walking toward the hospital.

(Tallie tries the stairwell door, but it is locked. She goes around to the front entrance. A car door slams. A truck engine starts.)

*



“I didn’t see you in here when I walked out,” Tallie said when she returned to the car.

Rye had put the seat back, closed his eyes.

“I told you I’d wait” was all he said. He wasn’t going to let her get anything else out of him. Game over. She started the engine.





TALLIE




Inside the hospital, Tallie had found Joel sitting in the hallway with River on his lap like some sort of bizarro-world Madonna and Child. She put her hand on River’s head when she got to them. Joel bounced his knee, causing River to giggle with glee. The mirth echoed down the hospital hallway.

“Zora stepped out for some fresh air,” Joel said.

Tallie sat in the chair beside him.

“Listen. It’s really nice of you to fly all the way out here and show up,” she said, too tired to argue anymore.

“Hey, what can I say? I wouldn’t have felt so comfortable if I hadn’t hoped you were reaching out to me, but…a prank is a prank, right?” he said before making a gushy airplane noise at River, who got a kick out of it.

“Auntie Lulah, can I play games on your phone?” River asked Tallie, and she handed it over to him, letting him know she’d be leaving soon.

River sat in his own chair next to Joel, who was relaxed and looking at Tallie with the brown eyes she’d lost herself in so many times before. Those brown eyes she’d married; those brown eyes that had broken everything.

“But the emails didn’t sound like you. Not all the way. Didn’t seem like something you would do. Wishful thinking, maybe…that you’d write and want to forgive me after…everything,” Joel said.