12. Taylor

Taylor

March

" I need you to give me something here, Taylor. Anything."

Unlikely .

With my head resting against the plush back of a sofa chair, I keep my eyes trained out the window. It's only light flurries today, soft flakes drifting down lazily to mix with the slush already covering the ground. It's still snowing in March, can you fucking believe that shit? Winter in Utah is temperamental. Some years, the snow starts in January. For others, it doesn't stop until May.

For the sake of the race next month, I sincerely hope this shit stops by then.

"Taylor, are you listening to me?"

Trying not to .

I hear a heavy sigh and roll my head to peek at the woman sitting behind a stylish black desk. She's rubbing her temples, pink lips pursed. Clearly annoyed with me.

"Do you know why you're here?" She asks, pulling the wool cardigan tighter around her to ward off the chill in the room.

"Because I'm forced to be," I mutter, feeling around my jacket for a pack of smokes out of habit. There's none there, which irritates me further. Ran out two days ago and haven't had money for more.

"Court ordered, yes," she agrees, nodding her head of peppered brown hair. "And in order to eventually pass these sessions, Taylor, you actually have to talk with me."

Which is fucking bullshit. All of it. How a judge can force someone into shit like this should be illegal. I tell her as much.

"No, what you did was illegal," she says firmly, "which led us here. Now, we can talk about what happened, or I can tell the judge you refused, and you can spend some time in a cell."

My brows raise slightly as I give her a look. Fuck kind of therapist is she? Aren't they supposed to be all light and rainbows and shit?

"Let's start with the holidays." Doctor Hart picks up a pen and flips open her notebook. "How was your Christmas?"

"Fantastic," I snap sarcastically, facing the window again. "How was yours?"

It really wasn't, but that's not unlike any other year, so what else is new?

"Mine was great, thank you for asking. But we aren't talking about me. Did you get any gifts?"

Fuck, I really need a cigarette.

"I guess. "

"What gifts did you get?"

Squinting over at her, I scoff. "Weed. Obviously."

Thanks, Christian.

She flashes me a smile. "Obviously. And from your parents?"

"Socks and a bath towel from Maisie. Nothing from my father."

Unless you count the knuckle sandwich he gave me .

"Is that normal for them?"

Rolling my eyes at the atypical shrink question, I shrug and return to the window. "It's...whatever."

Honestly, it's the first Christmas gift Maisie had gotten me in nearly a decade, so there's that. The bath towel was soft, at least.

"Anything from your stepdad or stepbrother?"

My throat closes at the mention of Huck, and I grit my teeth as I shake my head. I can't bring myself to tell her about the brand-new motocross jacket Aaron picked out for me.

"Now, let's talk about what happened on New Year's Eve."

Let's fucking not, Doc .

Blowing a dirty strand of hair out of my eyes, I let my head fall back against the cushion to gaze at the ceiling. "You wouldn't happen to have a smoke, would you?"

Duh. Of course, she doesn't.

Doctor Hart raises a thin brow and sits back in her seat but says nothing, waiting for me to start the conversation.

"Not much to talk about. I got caught smoking weed in the house, and the Good Bishop kicked me out. That's it."

Five months. I made it five months before he gave up on me, too .

She taps her pen before writing something down. "Bishop Davis kicked you out, or your mother did?"

"It was a joint effort," I respond with a sneer.

"According to the police report, you and your mother fought. Is that correct?"

Fuck, this woman's nosy.

"Not really a fight. We yelled at each other."

She glances up. "Is that not a fight?"

"No. A fight involves fists. We had an argument that she blew out of proportion because she never wanted me there in the first place."

"What makes you say that?"

My head pushes back into the cushion again. "Because. She had no interest in my life up until she remarried. It was his idea to make us all live under one roof in the first place."

"So you were estranged?"

Nah, nope. Not talking about my shitty childhood. If I'm forced to talk, I'll talk, but only about the shit I need to.

"Look, I argued with Maisie, and then Aaron told me to leave. That's what happened. Happy fucking New Year."

I'm not going to mention the fact that I called Maisie a cunt. Or that I yelled ‘ fuck your church, fuck this house, fuck your family. '

I fucking lost it, okay? After what happened the morning after the pool with Huck...I pretty much spent the entire week of Christmas break high and drunk off my ass.

"So you borrowed your stepbrother's car," she prompts, and I can't hide my flinch.

"Yeah. "

I didn't borrow Huck's car—I stole it with the spare key I took the night I drove him home from the pool. But like the fucking saint he is, he told the cops that I had permission to drive it, probably getting himself into trouble in the process.

"And where did you go after you left?"

Swallowing hard, I stare down at my hands folded on my lap. "To my Dad's place."

Biggest mistake of my life. One I'll regret until the day I die. Absently, I reach up and touch the scar that now lines my face from brow to cheek.

The therapist continues. "Tell me what happened."

"We fought."

Understatement. He beat me within inches of my life because I provoked him like a fucking idiot. Poked the sleeping bear, if you will.

"Fought?" She looks at me with a knowing smile. "Not argued?"

Shit.

You got me there, Doc.

"Things got heated," I admit, shrugging it off, "words were exchanged. I left."

"And then the accident happened."

"Yep."

‘Accident' isn't the term I'd use for what happened. I knew full well what I was doing. I just didn't understand how bad it would fuck everything up.

"You wrapped your stepbrother's car around a tree, Taylor. Ended up in the hospital for a month. You could have killed someone. "

"No shit, Doc," I snap irritably, my patience thinner than usual these days. "That's why I'm here, isn't it?"

I hadn't even been inside the car. But shifting into neutral and a steep incline had done the trick. It was the only thing I could think of to explain the injuries. But I'd also been drunk, high, concussed, and in massive amounts of pain, so looking back, I hadn't been in the best state of mind.

"Let's go over your injuries." She pulls out a manilla folder and flips it open. "Multiple broken ribs. Ruptured spleen. A head injury."

Her eyes flick up, studying the scar on my brow. Yeah, none of that was caused by a car accident. Just dear old dad. They had to wire my jaw shut for six weeks, and eating through a straw got old real quick. I'll forever be thankful for Christian's mom—that lady is an angel for taking care of me. I broke down in the hospital and finally told my best friend everything about the shit with my father, and I'm pretty sure he told her, which is why she's been so good to me.

"You had to have been going pretty fast. What was the fight with your father about that affected you so much?"

A harsh, bitter laugh exits my mouth. "That's the thing, Doc. It doesn't take much with him. He's a drug addict with a temper. Just breathing wrong is enough to flip his switch."

"Is that what you did?" She folds her arms, crossing her legs at the ankles under her desk. "Breathed wrong?"

No.

To be honest, I don't even remember what started the fight .

I remember leaving the house pissed off at the world, pissed off at myself because Huck wouldn't talk to me, and that's all I fucking wanted him to do.

I remember being confused and jumping into his car because my fucked up brain thought that maybe he'd come after me for it.

Pulling into Arbitrary Hills is a solid memory, but after that, it gets blurry. I'm pretty sure I went straight to the fridge when I got into the trailer and gunshot two beers, which pissed off my dad. And then it just...escalated from there. I blamed him for Maisie hating me and for fucking up my head; he blamed me for her leaving us. Shit hit the fan real quick. Then I left before he could kill me and just...drove. Drove until I couldn't handle the pain anymore.

As they say, the rest is history.

"Have you spoken to anyone in your family recently?"

Maybe it's best if you just stay gone.

"Nah." I glance at the clock, realizing with relief that this hour of hell is almost up. "Don't want to."

Maisie and Aaron were at the hospital in the beginning, mainly to answer questions from the cops when they ran the plates and found out the car didn't belong to me. As for Huck…

I haven't seen or heard from him in three months, not even when I was lying in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. Christian, Salem, Matty, and Xed were the only people who came to see me. The only people that matter, really. For what it's worth, Aaron did try to visit, but...I refused to see him. Couldn't bring myself to look him in the eye.

Since my fuck up had to happen, unfortunately, after the age of eighteen, Maisie and my father have no legal responsibility to get me out of trouble. This shit all falls on me, which is why I'm here—in court-ordered therapy, on probation, pissing in a cup three times a week. Oh, and four hundred hours of community service.

Ain't life fun?

My only saving grace in all of this is the fact that Huckslee's lie essentially saved me from prison time due to auto theft. And I hate the feeling that leaves me with.

"I hear you haven't been back to school?" Doctor Hart continues to write in her little notebook, not looking at me. I shake my head.

"Decided to drop out. I enrolled to get my GED."

Honestly, it's fine. School was never my strong suit, anyway. I was barely passing enough to skirt by, mainly going just to escape. See my friends. Antagonize Huck.

I hate how much I miss him. Hearing his dumb music from the bathroom when he showers every night, his messy curls when he comes down the stairs first thing in the morning. Seeing him in the halls at school, watching him at football practice. Fighting with him. His voice. The kisses…

I hate it even more that I admit to missing him at all.

The urge to glare down at my dick is strong. So you could get hard at the thought of him touching you, but not when it actually came down to it? Make it make sense, motherfucker .

"So, what do you say, Doc?" I rise from the chair and stretch as the clock strikes the hour. "Do I pass your little test? Can I go now?"

She gives me that sweet smile that pisses me off, flipping her notebook closed before folding her hands on the desk. " You're free to go. I'll see you next week for session number two."

What the fuck?

"I've done my three sessions," I argue angrily, but she shakes her head.

"No, Taylor. We met two previous times, and you sat in silence until the time ran out. It doesn't count unless we talk. See you next week."

Fuck my fucking life.