I popped the pill. Perhaps I shouldn’t have skipped the meds last night and this morning. It looked like they did work. I was glad, though, because those fucks deserved what I did to them. My only regret was hurting Jo in the aftermath.
She pulled a pen from her suit jacket. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I told her everything from the moment I saw Furore ruining the library for me forever to trying to reclaim Jo a few minutes ago. My gaze shifted toward the door, making sure Jo was still there. “I just love her so much. I get too jealous. I’m too possessive of her.”
“When was the last time you had an episode?”
“When I tried to bling myself. When I thought she was going to die because of me, and then at the hospital when Furore said he’d take her away and I’d never see her again.”
“I see.” She scribbled something in her notes. “When was the last time you talked to your mother, Tirone?”
My brows hooked. “A few months ago.”
“But you told me you used to be very close before you moved in with your father.”
“Delilah is the least of my problems, Doc. My main issue has always been Furore. We should focus on how to fix me in a way that I’d stop hurting Jo because of him and what he does.”
More scribbles. “Do you miss her?”
“Who?”
“Delilah.”
“What the fuck? Sometimes. But no, not a lot. Even when she called me last night, I didn’t bother answering. That woman lied to me. I’d been living a lie she created for eighteen years.”
“I understand how frustrating that must be. Before your father told you the truth about what she’d done, did you have any suspicion before that she might have been lying to you?”
I sighed impatiently. “I don’t think so.”
“You told me her husband was abusive. He’d hit her in front of you. When did that start?”
I fidgeted in my seat. I didn’t like where this conversation was going. What the fuck was the point? “I don’t know when it started, but the first time he did it in front of me was about a couple of years ago.”
“Around the time you first met Jo?”
I stared at her for a while and then I blinked rapidly. “Why are you asking all these questions about my mother, Doctor Ryan? And what does that have anything to do with Jo?”
She leaned forward. “Listen to me, Tirone. I have no doubt your experience is valid and whatever you think you feel is true, but have you ever considered the possibility that your strong feelings for your sort of forbidden relationship with your teacher have something to do with a different need you were struggling to fulfill back at the time you first met?”
“Excuse me?”
“Let me ask you something simpler. Do you feel protective of Jo? Like you need to save her all the time?”
“Of course. Anyone who is in love with someone will feel that way.” I’d do anything to make her feel protected. I’d die for her. I jumped to take a bullet for her.”
“But at the same time, you mostly end up hurting her?”
My heart contracted at the memories. “That’s why I came to you. That’s what you need to fix, not give me some stupid mommy issue talk.”
“How much older Jo is than you?”
“Five years.”
“Is Delilah the same age as your father or younger?”
“Younger. She’s thirty-six. Now, where the fuck is this going?”
“Hypothetically speaking, what are the odds of you falling obsessively in love with an older woman that you feel the need to protect yet subconsciously punish around the time you found out your mother was accepting of her husband’s abusive behavior when she’d told you she’d left your father for the very same reason?”