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Chapter 9

Cash

Courage: Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.

I folded my arms across my chest and glared at the framed motivational poster hanging on the waiting room wall. Only as deep as the mind allows, huh? Try telling that to someone who’s being stalked by bloodthirsty shadow demons. Dad elbowed me in the ribs.

“Cash.”

“What?” I jerked away and rubbed my side where he’d jabbed me. He used the People magazine he’d been flipping through to point at the man standing in front of us. “He called your name. You’re up.”

Dr. Farber looked about Dad’s age, only Dad still had a full head of hair. This guy had scraps at best. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pressed black slacks and plastered on a warm, fake smile for me. This was real. I was really here. In a freaking shrink’s office about to be analyzed by a dork wearing an argyle sweater vest.

I groaned and stood up. I did not want to be here. He couldn’t help me with my problems, because my problems were real. They weren’t in my head. They were nightmares brought to life. Unless he had a voodoo priest back there who could negotiate with the dead, I didn’t see the point in this.

“Nice to meet you, Cash.” Dr. Farber held his hand out. When I just looked at it, he dropped it to his side.

“Are we going to do this or what?” I asked.

I heard Dad stand behind me. “Cash!”

Dr. Farber held his hands up. “No. No. I get it, Cash. This is the last place you want to be.” He stepped aside and held his arm out to lead the way into his office. “What do you say we get this over with?”

I looked back at Dad. At the familiar you’re grounded look on his face, and sighed. “Okay.”

Everything was wood in Dr. Farber’s office. Even the walls were wood paneling. Books, diplomas, and pictures of family broke up the darkness. I sank down into the burgundy leather couch and linked my fingers together in front of me.

“I’m not lying down,” I said.

Dr. Farber laughed and sat down in the chair across from me. “I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

I nodded and bounced my fists in my knees.

“Are you nervous?”

“No.” Actually, yes. The thought of cracking myself open and letting some stranger see what was inside of me made me want to vomit. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Em had felt every time they’d put her through this bullshit. I leaned back into the plush sofa cushions and let my eyes scan the room for shadows. The only one I could find was the one the green floor lamp made when its light poured over me and splashed my outline across the big Oriental rug between us.

“Funny T-shirt,” he said with a smile. “Did you wear that especially for me?”

I glanced down at my shirt. I couldn’t even remember which one I’d pulled out of the hamper and thrown on. I almost laughed when I saw it. It was the white one with a gruesome-looking fake bloodstain in the side. On the front it said in big block letters, I’m fine.

I looked up and sighed. “Pretty sure you’re not charging my dad a fortune to talk about my T-shirt collection.”

“Fair enough. So, tell me about you, Cash.” He leaned back in his chair and clicked his pen.

“I’m sure my dad’s already filled you in, so I don’t really know what you want me to say here.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“I’m fine. There’s nothing to talk about.”

Dr. Farber cleared his throat and set the pen down. “Okay. Why don’t we start with the fire.”

“What about it?” I averted my eyes to the big, glossy, cherrywood desk behind him and tried to hold my eyes open. When I let them close there were flames. Smoke. Chaos.

“Your father seems to think that’s when most of your problems started.”

“So?” I asked. “Wouldn’t you be a little screwed up if you’d almost died in a fire? Does that make me crazy?” Not crazy. Just haunted. Though hunted would be a more appropriate term.

“Let me ask you something.” He leaned forward and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Why did you go into the house that day? It was clearly dangerous. You could’ve waited for the fire department to show up.”

I finally let him snag my gaze. “And what? Just let her die?”

“Her?” Dr. Farber looked down at his notebook. “I assume you mean your neighbor.”

I swallowed and looked out the window. “Her name’s Emma.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Do you want her to be?” he asked.

I shook my head, feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. “No. No, of course not. Emma’s my best friend.”

“Then why are the two of you estranged?”

I laughed and slapped my hands over my knees. “How much did my dad tell you?”

“Answer the question.”

“We’re just going through a rough patch. That’s all,” I said. “Friends disagree sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”

He scribbled something on his pad. “And it has nothing to do with the fact that she has a boyfriend now?”

“No,” I said, my mind reeling with memories and feelings I didn’t want to deal with. He was fishing. And I could feel his hook in me, bringing it all up my throat. Hell, maybe it was just because she finally found a boyfriend and I was a jealous ass. Or maybe it was because I was dying and I couldn’t stop myself from thinking I’d pissed away the past eleven years with her and now I wasn’t going to get any more. “Okay. Maybe I used to think that someday…”

I closed my eyes and groaned.

“It’s okay, Cash,” he said softly. “Keep going.”

“I used to think that later, maybe when I was done being stupid, and she was done being scared of everything… I thought that maybe we might end up there. Together.”

He nodded and waited for me to go on. When I didn’t, he shifted gears.

“What about other girls?” He cocked his head to the side to watch me. “Any other relationships?”

I rubbed my palm over the back of my neck. There were too many discarded girls to count. What did

Emma always call them? My “disposable girlfriends.” I felt so detached from that guy it was almost as if the old Cash didn’t exist anymore.

“I’ve dated a lot of girls.” If you could call an evening in the back of my Bronco or on the sofa in my studio “dating.”

“Anything serious?”

I stared at my sneakers, feeling a little guilty. What I felt for her was beyond my control. Like it had always been there, just waiting for her to bring it out. “No.”

Dr. Farber wrote something else on his pad. “Let’s talk about your mom.”

I clenched my jaw and sat back. “There’s nothing to talk about. She’s not a part of my life.”

“How old were you when she left?”

“Six,” I said.

“That must have been hard.”

“Of course it was hard.” It would have been a lot harder if it hadn’t been for Em and her mom.

They’d fed me when Dad forgot. Let me sleep over when he was still at work past dark and I was too scared to be alone. Em even insisted they take me on vacation with them every year. God…it was no wonder I clung to her like a freaking security blanket all these years. I didn’t really know how to survive without her.

“Do you think that’s why you push people away?” he asked. “Are you afraid they’ll leave like your mom?”

I leaned forward and met his gaze head on. “She left us. Left us to have a life with her yoga instructor. She left a six-year-old son without a letter or a phone call and never looked back. If that taught me anything, it’s that anybody is capable of anything. I’m careful with who I let in. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious,” he said. “But from what I can tell, you are more than cautious. If the things your father tells me are true, you have alienated yourself. Pushed everyone you love away. The question is why? What has its claws into you so deep that you can’t let anyone else see what it is to help you?”

As if his words had pulled it into the room, a shadow slithered through the air-conditioning vent in the ceiling. It looked like an oil slick sliding down the wall, before it took shape and hopped up onto the desk behind him.

“Talk to me, Cash,” Dr. Farber said. “This is a safe place. I promise.”

The shadow demon opened its mouth and hissed over his shoulder, sliding down to the arm of Dr.

Farber’s chair. Fear pulsed in my stomach, my chest, my temples. I shook my head and stood up, ready to bolt.

“No,” I said, retreating out of the room. “It’s really not.”

Nowhere was safe anymore.