Addicted to Mr Parks (The Parks Series #2)(64)
I shifted in my seat, soaking up her words of wisdom. Words of truth. “Evey, you have always anesthetised your feelings,” she went on. “You have deep-rooted self-doubt about your worth, chronic anger built into you because of your past, and a compulsive need to engage in the behaviour you see as survival.”
What I saw as survival was the need to put up that front. Be cold. Distant. Place that heavy shield of amour behind all those walls I built. “But my behaviour is changing,” I told her quickly. “I don’t need that survival routine anymore just to get by. Isn’t that a good thing?” I was clutching at straws, figuratively, hoping the trivial change in my nature was progress. Small but surely.
“Of course it is.” Her smile told me what I’d hoped to hear, but she wasn’t done with me just yet. “Every day you’re making progress, but your survival has turned to Wade.” She took another breath, and every time she did it, I gained even more anxiety. “I’m getting the sense that you think you will never be fulfilled. You think nothing will ever be enough to satisfy you?”
“Wade satisfies me.” I chuckled. “Not just in that way. But every day. Yes, he’s the most difficult, arrogant man I have ever met. But he’s also the most loving and kind. He puts me first and treats me like a princess.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
Nia laughed, throaty and loud. “Progress,” she agreed.
I gulped down half of my coffee before it got cold, then glanced over my shoulder to see what had caught Nia’s eye. Seemed it was Tabby. I gave a small wave when she saw me, then shifted back to converse with Nia.
“She’s been watching us. Discreetly. But I’ve seen her.” Nia’s tone was neutral. But I sensed the uncertainty she was trying to cover up. As well as being a support worker, Nia was an extremely great judge of character. Whether it was a sixth sense or just off the cuff, I wasn’t sure.
“Tabby? She’s my friend. Well, sort of. We’ve been bonding.” I scoffed out a laugh, because my new attitude was exactly that to me. New.
“I’m not getting good vibes with that one, Evey.” She quickly shook herself out of it. “Sorry, that’s not my place to say.”
I shrugged a shoulder, breaking off more shortbread. “Tabby’s harmless. A quiet girl but lovely. And I don’t throw those comments around much. I need to clear something up with her, though. That’s probably why she’s hovering.”
Nia tried to laugh along with me, but it wasn’t genuine. She was worried, and it threw me a little, so I went back to our conversation. “What if it kills me like all my other addictions, Nia? What if it takes over my life?”
“You have to find that balance between love and addiction.”
“Love?” I gaped. I wasn’t in love. Was I?
“Love.” She nodded. “Your mind is a slave to physical addiction, but your heart isn’t a fool. The hard thing is, your mind doesn’t always play ball with your heart, so that’s down to you. Which one you choose to side with.”
My eyes narrowed, a sure sign of confusion. “I don’t understand.”
She knew I wasn’t following, so she spoke clearer. “You have a hopeless desire for fulfilment, but no fulfilment can be achieved when you’re an addict because you always want what you’re addicted to. Fulfilment will come,” she reassured my horror, “when you get that balance. When it stops becoming an addiction and when you recognise it as love.”
“What’s the difference?”
She sighed. “Some say there isn’t. But I say there is. Addiction is when you feel like you can’t live without something. It becomes unhealthy. Love is a mutual satisfaction. Love is only painful if it’s wrong.”
“How can it be so wrong if he’s my addiction?”
“Because an addiction is dangerous, Evey.”
“If it’s a danger, then why is he my clarity?”
Her smile was affectionate. “He’s your solace. I can see that. And I can also see that you are his. You will both feel co-dependent because you both take satisfaction from being needed. You hold on to everything Wade does for you because you don’t want that feeling of abandonment, and neither does he. But at the same time, you both have a difficultly identifying what you’re feeling, and have difficulty adjusting to change.”
How did she know so much about Parks when she my support worker, not his? “Have you spoke to Wade before?”
She tapped the side of her nose. “I’ve known him for a while. Put it that way.”
My attempts to delve into their business were surely going to be shunned, so I didn’t bother. Instead, I asked a question that desperately needed an answer. “We will ever have a healthy, mutual relationship?”
“Of course.” She was sure. “But sometimes the beginning is always the hardest.”
I began to shift my mug from side to side, contemplating my next sentence.
“What is it?” she pushed mildly.
“Wade has a temper, I mean, really bad. Sometimes he can’t control it. I know he wouldn’t hurt me, and I’m not scared of him,” I quickly added to reassure her concern. “What I’m scared of is why he has that temper. He won’t tell me what he’s hiding.”