Page 35 of The Write Choice

I dip my chin to glare at the flat image of her face. “I doubt I’ll ever be sold on the Midwest.”

She chuckles, clicking her pen again. Her eyes shift as if she’s looking over my shoulder. She squints. “What room are you in right now?”

I look around. “Oh, this is my new studio.” I purse my lips against a smile.

“Why that face?” The woman misses nothing, even over the internet.

“I’m pretty sure this room is a bribe.”

“What makes you say that?”

I know it’s a therapist’s job to ask these types of questions, but sometimes I wish we could just have a normal conversation, at least for a few minutes. “Brandon wants me to stay here, so he set up a studio for me to do my artwork.”

“From what I can see, it looks like you have been painting.” She points her pen at the screen.

I twist around in the chair to look at the half-filled canvasses behind me. I swivel back in my seat to face her again. “Um, yeah. I have.”

“I know you wanted to start doing that when you were still living here. How does it feel to get back in the swing of it?”

I bite the inside of my cheek to avoid groaning at her question. How does it feel? It feels fucking amazing. It feels like coming home. It feels like something has loosened just a tiny bit in my chest, and I can breathe again.

I don’t know why, but I’m not ready to admit that aloud just yet. “It feels good.”

Nora hums as if she knows I’m not giving her the full story, but she lets it slide. “I’m glad Brandon gave you this space to do what you love.”

I nod, looking around the room again even as I can feel her eyes still trained on me. I sigh heavily and look back to the screen, clasping my hands tightly in front of me. It’s a good thing she can’t see my knuckles turn white with how hard I’m gripping them together.

She scribbles something in her notepad. Maybe she can see my hands after all. “I know you haven’t been there very long, but have you gotten out at all? Met anyone?”

“I haven’t had a chance. The kids are still home from school. They go back in two days.”

I must sound a little too wistful with that last sentence because Nora chuckles. “Not soon enough. I remember those days,” she commiserates.

“Definitely not soon enough,” I say. As if on cue, a loud crash comes from upstairs, followed by a toddler wail. “Shit, hang on.”

Nora nods sympathetically, and I quickly leave the room. “Mason! What’s going on up there?” I yell.

Mason’s head appears at the top of the stairs. “We were both laying in my bed watching my tablet, and Christine took it and threw it on the floor. It’s okay, though! It didn’t break,” he adds quickly.

“Are you both okay?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Oh. Yeah. She wasn’t mad or anything. She thought it was funny.”

“Right. Well, keep it out of her reach. Your dad should be home any minute.”

“Okay, Mom!” he calls as he bounds back to his bedroom.

I re-situate myself in my chair and give Nora an apologetic look. “Sorry. Christine threw Mason’s tablet—”

“I heard,” she cuts me off. “You know there’s a mute button on the bottom of the screen, right?”

I wince. “I forgot. Sorry.”

She smiles as if this whole thing is incredibly amusing. “It’s fine. So, I want to help you develop a plan for meeting some new people. You should get out of your shell and settle into a group of friends there.”

I immediately bristle at this. “I don’t know how long we’ll be staying.”

Nora levels a glare at me. “I thought we had agreed you’d give this a chance with an open mind.”