Nothing Scientific About It | [COMPLETE]

Chapter Twenty Two

I dropped myself into the exact middle of the couch. Cade stayed on the floor, his eyes darting back and forth between the two of us.

Carly looked a little bit older than any of the other girls I had seen so far tonight, but it may have just been the terrible lighting. Or it could have been the glasses.

"Please sit down over here." Carly pointed from Cade to me. He shook his head, but didn't say a word. Carly wagged a finger at him. "Why not?"

"I don't want to do this."

"You're going to have to be more specific, Mr. Carter."

"It's fine. Really." I tried to be reassuring. "I want you to sit with me."

"She really does." Carly added.

Both of us glared at her.

"This is what we have to do, Cade. You know it. I know it. Let's just do it, okay?"

"Why don't you just add 'let's get it over with' while you're at it?" Carly wrote something in her notebook. She was still barely smiling. "What kind of professional help were you needing?"

"I don't need help." Cade grumbled, his arms were now firmly crossed. "We don't need help."

"But she asked me for help." Now she was smiling. She was like the Cheshire Cat. I reflexively nodded as my brain reminded me of the strange wonderland I had fallen into ever since coming back home. "Right?"

"I've made a lot of really shit decisions lately. So very many." She nodded and I felt the temperature of my blood tick up a notch. "You don't have to agree with me." I said. I wanted to add that she didn't know me, but I could only assume Eleanor had already keyed her in on everything she would ever need to know.

"You're fine. Everything's fine."

"Mr. Carter," Carly stopped writing and turned her back to me. She stood exactly in between us and leaned down. "If you want to be a part of this conversation, you need to be sitting on the couch."

"Everything is not fine." I wished I could see Cade's face, though I did hear him make a faint squeak as I spoke. "It could be, though. It's not too late."

"What are you talking about?" He grunted, and as Carly stepped out of the way I could see that he was pulling himself up. "What is not too late?"

"I just..." I froze as Carly turned back to me. The two of them were now standing side by side and staring down at me. My body tensed and I pushed myself deep into the cushions and silently wondered if I could disappear down where all the loose change goes. Mom once lost a curling iron in this couch for three whole months. I bought it for her as a birthday gift and she sat right here where I was now and opened it, looked at it, read all the directions, and within a half hour it had wriggled its way into the cushions. She thought she accidentally threw it away with all the wrapping paper. We checked beneath the cushions, too.

It was only after those months when she went fishing for a remote that she noticed a hole in the fabric just below the armrest. The iron had somehow fallen through the hole and had wedged itself amongst the the metal subframe. I had already bought her a replacement.

"You just what?" Both of them said it. Their voices harmonized. I wanted to scream.

I sighed. It was loud. Judging by the looks on their faces it may have been too loud. "I just want a relationship that works. I want to be happy with someone in a way that isn't based on drugs, mental health problems, or being young and stupid. God, I was so young and so stupid."

"You're not stupid." Cade stepped toward the couch and I saw his eyes scan across it and grow as he realized how I was sitting. He gestured at me to move with his fingers, but I shook my head.