Far From You

33

NOW (JUNE)

“You’re quiet today,” David says halfway into our second therapy session on Monday. “What are you thinking about?”

I look up from my place on his couch. I’ve been twisting the rings on my thumb, tracing the grooves of the letters like they’re a key to a lock I haven’t found yet. “Promises,” I say.

“Do you keep your promises?” David asks.

“Sometimes you can’t keep them.”

“Do you try?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

David smiles. “In a perfect world. But I think you’re well acquainted with the unfairness of real life.”

“I try to keep mine. I want to.”

“Did Mina keep her promises?”

“Mina didn’t need to. You always ended up forgiving her, no matter what she did.”

“You care about her a lot.”

“Way to state the obvious, David.”

David’s eyebrow twitches, his pleasant smile dropping at my hostility before settling back to neutral. “You forgave her a lot, too.”

“Don’t talk about her like you knew her,” I say. “You didn’t. You won’t.”

“Not unless you tell me.”

I don’t talk for a long time, just sit there, and he doesn’t force me to continue. He folds his hands together and sits back in his chair to wait me out.

“She was bossy,” I say finally. “And spoiled. But really thoughtful. And smart. Smarter than everyone else. She could bullshit her way out of anything by just smiling. She was a bitch when she needed to be and she’d never apologize for it. She’s the first thing I think of when I wake up, the last thing I think of when I go to sleep, and the only thing I think about in between.”

I stare at the framed diplomas on the wall, the award David got from some organization for homeless youth, another from an abused women’s group. By the time he speaks, I’ve practically memorized the entire wall.

“That makes her sound like an addiction, Sophie.”

I keep staring at the wall. I can’t look at him. Not now.

“I don’t want to talk anymore today.”

“Okay,” David says. “We’ll sit here just a few minutes longer, in case you change your mind.”

When I get into the car, my phone vibrates. I’d turned it off during my session, but now I see that Rachel has left me a message.

I call my voice mail and freeze in the act of turning my keys in the ignition, listening to the message play: “It’s me. I got the drive open. You need to call me. I think I know why Mina was killed.”