Page 41 of Dare To Kiss You
“You should go home, Hunter. Think about what happened here tonight, and how the hell you’re going to fix things with Kat. Because I don’t like seeing my cousin hurting like she is right now.”
He’s giving me an out and I’m gonna take it before the rest of the Donnelly family finds me. No goddamn way can I face Kat’s parents right now. I give Leo a curt nod and hustle my ass out of the hotel.
What have I done?
I don’t know how I manage to make it home without crashing my car. Between the tremors in my hands and my racing thoughts, I’m definitely a liability on the road.
Blindly, I push through my front door, not letting myself even chance a glance over to Kat’s house. I drop my keys God knows where, loosen my tie, and fling it along with my jacket down on the floor. Going into my kitchen, I grab the bottle of tequila Ash brought back from Mexico last year and drop down on my couch.
But as the first burn of liquor goes down my throat, instead of the oblivion I thought I wanted, I feel only shame and regret. Which is why I make the smartest decision all night and send an email to my therapist requesting an emergency appointment tomorrow.
Then I get drunk.
“Hello, Hunter. It’s been a while. I must admit, I was surprised to see your email last night. Can you tell me what it is that caused you to reach out?”
Looking at the compassionate yet detached face of Audrey, my therapist, through the screen of my computer, I finally have the epiphany I needed to have a day ago.
For years, Audrey was my safe person. The one who knowseverythingabout me, my anxiety, and my past. She’s been the only person I truly felt I could be vulnerable with and not risk judgment.
Yeah, I know, she’s a goddamn professional. I literally pay her hundreds of dollars to be that for me.
But looking at her face today, I realize she isn’t the only person who makes me feel safe anymore. Kat does, too, and I’m terrified I might have lost her simply by being too damn scared to tell her.
I can only hope I’m not too late.
“Do you remember Becky?” I ask. It’s an odd way to start my confession, but Audrey knows when I’ve escalated my brain works in pretty disjointed ways. She’s good at following me.
“I do. That was your high school girlfriend, correct?”
I nod. “Yeah. We dated for two years. Even though we were young, I honestly thought I might marry her one day. She came with me to the hospital when I had my first panic attack, and she’s the first person I told when I was finally diagnosed with anxiety and my learning disability.”
Audrey writes something down off screen, then turns her eyes back to me. “What makes you bring her up today, Hunter?” She never hesitates to get to the root of things. It’s why I still use her as my therapist, years later. She cuts through any bullshit and helps me see things straight. I just hope she can help me see a way throughthis.
“When she broke up with me, she basically said she was better off without me because of my issues. And I took that to heart. I spent the next decade never getting too close to a woman, and never letting anyone outside of my family and closest friends know about my learning disability or my anxiety.”
Audrey nods again. “Yes. I recall we spent several months unpacking those feelings and working on strategies to help you remember your value is not dependent on other people’s opinions.”
“Right. Except I never had the chance to put those strategies to work. I never field-tested them. And when I finally needed them, they failed. I fucked up, Audrey. I lost the one woman who might have been able to understand me, accept me, and love me.” My voice cracks.
“Okay. I’m hearing there have been some significant positive changes in your personal life lately, but when you were faced with a challenge in this new relationship, you didn’t handle it the way you wish you had. Is that fair?” I nod and Audrey acknowledges me with a tilt of her head. “Alright, when you’re ready, why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me about this new woman.”
I take a deep cleansing breath and send my thoughts back in time to when I first met Kat. The warm summer day I moved in next door and saw her outside wearing cut-off jean shorts and a bikini top as she washed her car, I knew.
I knew something was about to change. I just didn’t know what.
Chapter nineteen
Kat
I let Serena drive me home from the gala but refused her offer to stay with me a while and talk it out. I wasn’t ready for that. The one thing I did ask was that she go back to the party and make sure my parents and Lily knew the basics of what happened and that I needed some time to process things. And most importantly, that theynotget mad at Hunter. No matter what the boys told them.
Because despite the way my heart is hurting, I still love the man. And when I see headlights flash out front, telling me he’s home, probably hurting just as much as I am, my heart breaks even more. I had to stop myself from putting on shoes and going over there to make sure he’s okay.
After sitting in a hot bath, letting my tears fall, I go to bed, but there’s no chance I’ll fall asleep easily. Not with all my emotions racing around in my head.
Somewhere around midnight, I throw back the covers, remembering a mental health course I took last spring. I get up and dig out my notes and texts. Not that learning from a textbook is anywhere near enough, but I need to do something — anything. And maybe I can gain a bit more understanding of what Hunter lives with every day.
With a cup of chamomile tea, I read through everything, hoping for some glimpse, some nugget that will help me figure out what to do next.
