𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 || baxter radic

57.

◈ 𝒎𝒂𝒚𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆'𝒔 𝒑𝒐𝒗 ◈

When Bax and I enter my therapist's office, I expect it to be like every other time I've been with her. But it's not. There's an odd tension hanging in the air. My stomach starts to spin and every nerve ending is firing, telling me to leave.

"Welcome back May. It's nice to see you in person again." I simply nod my head at her in fear of throwing up if I open my mouth to speak. "You must be Baxter."

I look at Bax. His shoulders are tense, it's clear he would rather be anywhere but here. "Bax is fine." He corrects her, hating the use of his full name. It always makes him feel like he's in trouble. I mean, that's practically the only time it's used.

"You two seem to be in good spirits." We're not. At least I'm not. I am having a really bad feeling about this appointment. Bax must sense it because he instinctively wraps his arm over my shoulder, pulling me into him.

"Just a bit nervous." Bax fills the silence leaking into the room. I can't speak for the first time ever. I'm normally spilling ever dark thought, every dark secret, every single thing I think would already be laid out in the table by now. I just can't find it in me to do it.

"Well there's nothing to be nervous about. I'm here to help give direction. Help you both understand why you may feel the way you do. So why don't we start by talking about your relationship. Maybelle has told me a lot but I would like to hear your side Baxter." Bax flinches at the use of his full name. She's blatantly disregarding his comment to not call him that. Something was very off here.

Bax starts retelling our most recent interactions. Explaining how he sees the change and still loves me. But she interrupts him. His face drops as he looks toward me. This couldn't be going any worse.

"From the beginning please." She quite literally demands.

"I'm sorry I just I don't understand why I need to be here. I love May, more than anything but I don't like how you're speaking to me. I came to make her happy but I don't think I can do this." Bax stands.

I look at him with puppy dog eyes. "Please give it a chance."

"She's judging me already. She's analyzing every word I say May. You've told her about my trauma I can see it in the way she looks at me. She doesn't think I'm good for you. I'm sorry not everyone wants to get help. What should be the only thing that matters is that I love and care for you." Bax runs his hands through his hair.

"Baxter, you should sit there's a lot we should go over." My therapist's tone is condescending and it's even starting to piss me off.

"I told you not to call me that." He spits at her.

"Do you really think having someone like this in your life is healthy Maybelle?" She directs her attention toward me, ignoring my seething boyfriend.

"You're upsetting him." I finally speak at her.

"He has a short temper Maybelle. I've just asked him to answer a simple question. If this is how he's reacting, there's no way of knowing how he will snap one day at you." I can literally feel the rage starting to fill the room. Bax is mere seconds from exploding and no one wants to be around to see it.

"Bax would never hurt me. I've been over that with you before. Yes, he saw other people in hopes to upset me. But it was an act of karma." I reach for Bax's hand but he pulls it away from me. He wants to be left alone, and I respect that. He was doing this for me, I owed him what he wanted in return.

"You realize you're making excuses for him. I would say that is a step back in your progress Maybelle. Maybe we need to rethink your reintegration with your past life." She raises her brows at me. Like my entire life rests in the palm of her hands. In a way it did. She had the power to rip me away from everything.

"If you try to take her away from me I swear I—" Bax grits out his words, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

"Babe," I stand up, getting between the two people trying to end each other right now. "Hey, look at me." I reach up, directing his attention toward me.

"I'm not going to do anything." He assures me. I knew that he wouldn't. He wouldn't risk ever losing sight of me. He wouldn't chance being thrown into a looney bin, even if I might get locked up beside him.

"I know you aren't Baxxy. You know I love you right?" He nods his head on my hands. "And you know I'm here now, I'm not leaving you again, okay?" He nods his head again. A softness filling his features the longer he looks at me.

"The pain she's trying to make you feel isn't worth it. She's trying to get a reaction out of you. It's a test. A test to see if I can have you around me. If you fail, I leave. I have no choice. The choice rests at her fingertips. Not ours. Can you please tell her how you fell in love with me?" I run my thumb along his cheek as he starts to speak.

"I saw her and I instantly knew I had to make her mine. I would say it was love at first sight. But it was more like heart break when her best friend told our friend group that she had a boyfriend. It was like being shot straight in the heart. But if I couldn't have her, I might as well have the next best thing closest to her. If I could have her best friend at least I'd still get to see her around. But that crashed and burned pretty quickly. Not by the choice of my own. Childhood friendships always reign as a superior choice of a life partner. I just fell second to that." Bax's eyes don't leave mine as he retells our story for what feels like the hundredth time.

"This wild girl though, even with a boyfriend seemed to always be around, lingering only around me. One day, I finally stopped her, questioned her, found out the truth; that my heart hadn't be shot, just a bit misled. From there we just fell together like two puzzle pieces. Two broken people falling together to make the most beautiful piece of art. But then her mother arrived, tried to kill me and the nightmares took over her mind." Bax's eyes start to water.

"I still loved her though. Had myself believing that I was just as fucked as she was. That I had as much trauma and pain. I really believed that I understood what she felt because I had trauma of my own. But they'd truly never compete. How could they?  She had truly lost a family member, mine were just too in love with their own lives instead of their children's." A tear breaks down his cheek and I swear one mimics on my own.

"Then I go away. I try to give May a little space to gather herself. But being away from the person that I loved just didn't feel right. I come home to find her a mess. Completely out of control. May wasn't May the night she left me. I didn't see it in the moment but I see it now. She had been slipping for so long I failed to realize how far down the rabbit hole she had gone. I was lost in my love for her. My blinders had been set up, ignoring all red flags. Then she was gone. She'd broken up with me and left. I didn't know where to. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. I knew nothing." His eyes glance to the ceiling in an attempt to stop the tears.

"So I got with other girls to stop myself from becoming a worse version of her. Then her best friend confessed to me she had left to get help. The weight of the world lifted off my shoulders but the pain still existed. She broke my heart, I wanted her heart to hurt too. Even though I did love her, it all just didn't seem fair." He shakes his head before looking back at me.

"Then she showed up like a fucking angelic angel. Like hymns played as she walked onto the beach. All this fire relit inside of me, but I was still angry and upset. I wanted her to see me with a girl, see me happy with them. But it's May at the end of the day. May has always read me like an open book. I can never hide my true feelings from her." Bax drops his forehead to mine.

"I've loved her since the moment I saw her. I've loved her through her darkness. And I've loved her every second she was gone." A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth.

"And I will continue to love her for as long as she allows me to. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, has showed me more care, love, and attention than she has. Even when we both thought we never had a chance."