I leaned back against the headboard of my bed—same frame, but a new mattress from when I’d lived here.“I promised you I was going to change.”
“I know.I just wasn’t sure you could.”
I still wasn’t totally sure, but I was trying.“This guy isn’t so different from my hockey coaches.He wants me to hurt.”
“What?If he’s not helping you?—”
I appreciated the support but explained what I meant.“He thinks I’ve avoided dealing with painful stuff in the past so I need to feel it now, or something.”
“Do you think he’s right?”
I didn’t want him to be, but I had to try.Try so that Jess could be happy and my team could trust me.Both really good reasons to do the hard work.And if there was anyone I trusted and could bare myself to, it was Jess.
“Maybe.When I punched Alek—it was like all the stuff from that summer, after we found out about the Denbrowskis, just came out.And I couldn’t punch his parents, but I could hit him.”
“Oh, Jus.”
I heard a creak.It sounded like the stair, second from the top, that I always avoided when I was sneaking in.
I’d had Jess on speaker, so I set the phone down and slid off the bed quietly.In bare feet, I crossed to the doorway and glanced around.
Marge was on the creaky step, her phone in her hand, pointed at my room.It looked like she was recording what I said.
That anger we’d talked about surged.I jumped around the corner and reached for her phone.Her eyes went wide when she saw me and she jerked her hand, the phone slipping and falling down the stairs in three or four thuds.
“What the fuck?”I roared.
She turned tail down the stairs and I followed.She reached for her phone, quickly grabbing it, but I made a living using my reflexes.I was able to snatch it from her with my left hand and hold it up out of reach.
“Were you recording me?”
Her eyes skittered around the hallway.“I, um, I need to report?—”
I could distantly hear Jess’s voice on my phone, asking what was happening.I took some of the deep breaths my therapist talked about.
“You wait here,” I told Marge.
“My phone?”
I ignored her and climbed the stairs, shoving her phone in my pocket so I could pick up mine.
“Sorry, Jess, something’s come up.I’ll call you back.”
I didn’t wait for her response, just ended the call and then went down to face off with Marge again.
Her arms were crossed and her chin raised.“I need my phone back.”
I couldn’t tell if it was still recording, the face smashed and the screen dark.It could have gone to sleep, or it could be broken.In any case, I didn’t want anything Marge might have accessed to leave the house.
I scrolled through my contacts to the team liaison who was supposed to be handling my “problem.”
Marge bit her lip and took a couple of steps back, toward the front door.
“You, stay.”
Trevor answered.
“This is Justin Johnson.We have a problem.”