My Remedy (Open Door Love Story Book 3) (17 page)

“Me too. All of it,” I say, wishing Ryan and his confusing words weren’t making a liar out of me. “Well, there is a guy...” I confess.

“Oh, yeah?” Duncan says, taking a hearty pull from his root beer.

“Nothing is going on ... he just likes me and he’s nice. He’s a nurse.” I take a drink. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

Duncan cringes. “He doesn’t work at your treatment center or whatever, does he? That’s sketchy.”

I shake my head no. “No, no. He goes to my gym. He’s a CrossFitter.”

“Fuck,” Duncan drawls, giving me a sad smile. “So he’s an all right guy then.”

“He really is,” I say, almost apologizing. I desperately need to change the subject. “Are you still competing at Takedown?”

“Yes, I’m partnered up with a guy from my new job.”

“You got a new job?” I feel a twinge of regret not knowing what’s been going on with him. “What’re you doing?”

Duncan waves the question away. “I’m working part-time at a nonprofit that pairs shelter dogs with disabled veterans.”

“That’s awesome!” And perfect. More perfect and healthy than any of his other jobs ever were.

“I don’t want to talk about me, Iz. I want to talk about you. Do you like this guy back?”

I shrug. “In a way.”

“In a way?” Duncan asks, drawing his eyebrows together.

“In a way that if you didn’t exist ... if I didn’t still have feelings for you, I could like him. He could be good for me.”

Duncan takes a deep breath. “Am I keeping you from moving on, Izzy?” he asks, so sincere. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

I turn to face him, not knowing what I want to say – feeling like my future happiness and his hangs on my answer to his question. “Honestly, I’m not sure if you’re keeping me from moving on. I might be waiting for you to catch up to me first. But...”

He holds up his hand. “You don’t have to explain. After I judged you without any right and left you hanging ... I didn’t learn my lesson. I still thought I was more in control than you. That night after Hector brought you home, he stopped by my place to check in on me and let me know what happened to you.”

Duncan takes another swig off his root beer and sets the bottle on the coffee table. “I was high. I’d gone directly from here to get some oxy and...” He clears his throat, his eyes filling with tears. “The way Hector looked at me when he realized what I’d done. I don’t ever want him to look at me like that again. I was ashamed of the way I’d talked to you, and of the way I handled everything. And instead of asking for the help I damn well knew I needed, I pretended like I was bullet proof.”

Duncan takes hold of my hand, his touch sending warmth throughout my entire body. “Izzy, I absolutely need to catch up to you, and it was stupid of me to even think I could hold you back anymore. You’re fixing yourself and you’re doing an outstanding job.”

“I don’t know about outstanding,” I say. “I gave up on school before I even got started. I’m using the money I saved up for that to pay for outpatient treatment.”

“Huh,” Duncan says. “Cera told me about the program, but she didn’t mention you weren’t going to school.”

“Because I didn’t tell her. So, she’s your informant?” I say, chuckling. “I haven’t seen her in a month. We just text once a week or so – we mostly send each other links to BuzzFeed articles and nerdy memes.”

“Did you see the one about the Serenity Prayer?” Duncan asks, smiling.

“Dear God, please bring Firefly back!” we say in unison.

Duncan shakes his head. “I think that to myself every time we say the real one at a meeting.”

“My personal therapist lets me off the hook with the Higher Power stuff, but my group therapy doesn’t – they’re a lot like an AA meeting you pay for.”

“It’s all working for you, though,” Duncan says. “You seem genuinely okay – maybe a little bummed about school and confused about me, but you’re taking care of yourself and CrossFitting and coming up in the dog training world.”

I roll my eyes. “Did Cera tell you about that too? Because she may have oversold me. I’m training two handlers at the moment and feel like I don’t know what I’m doing the entire time. I am seriously winging it on the career front.”

Duncan picks up his root beer and relaxes back into the couch. “I have faith in you, Izzy.” He looks at me sidelong. “And no matter what happens between the two of us, I want you to know I will always care about you and support you.”

I smile at Duncan. I want to believe him. My heart is begging me to believe him, but my gut is whispering
he thinks getting an abortion is wrong
and I don’t know how to reconcile the two feelings. They might never be reconciled and I may just have to live with that. I’m learning that’s the stuff of real life.

“If we were in a Nicholas Sparks novel,” I say, making Duncan smirk, “something dramatic would happen right now.”

“Like what?” he asks in a truly horrible southern accent. “We’ve already had our romantic kissin’ in the rain scene.”

“No we didn’t,” I counter. “If you’ll remember correctly, no actual kissing occurred in the rain. Does it count if you’re in the car?”

He balks. “I’m going to cou—”

The sound of thunder booms and the sky flashes with lightning. Rain begins to pour, making a racket on the den roof. The dogs start barking like crazy.

Duncan stands, offering me his hand. “C’mon little lady,” he says. “I’ll help ya get the dogs settled.”

I don’t get up. I know without a doubt that if I go outside in the rain with Duncan I will kiss him or he’ll kiss me and neither one of us are ready for it yet.

“I got it,” I say, giving him a smile.

He nods, understanding. “I think it’s safe for me to go home now. Fireworks are rained out. Thanks for ... it was good to see you, Iz.”

“I’ll see you at Takedown. Good luck.”

Duncan grins. “You’re gonna want to see me bef—” He cuts himself off and gives me a thumbs up. “Yeah. Good luck to you too.”

I watch Duncan leave the room, trying to be at peace with my choices, and wait until I hear the front door close before I get up and head out to the kennel.

The dogs aren’t going too nuts by the time I make it out there. The thunder and lightning have backed off and the rain slowed and steadied.

I walk the aisle in between the pens looking in on everyone. It’s been weeks since I’ve drawn anything. I’ve been so busy with treatment and work and the gym that I let my art fall by the wayside.

“I’ll have to draw you tomorrow when there’s better light,” I whisper to Chicken, an overweight Dachshund.

He responds appropriately by rolling over onto his back and posing like a bathing beauty on the beach.

––––––––

I
’m finishing up my sketch of Chicken – I can’t seem to get his left front paw right – when Cera throws open the kennel door and stands there glowering at me with her hands on her hips.

“What?” I ask, jumping up from the concrete floor and spilling several pencils off my lap in the process. “Has something happened to Duncan?”

“No, something hasn’t happened to Duncan. Something’s happened to you!”

I look down at myself to make sure I’m not bleeding profusely from an injury I somehow missed seeing. “Nope. I’m all good.”

She marches toward me in a way that makes me back up.

“Oh, no you don’t! No more running away from things, Izzy.”

I stop my cowering and stand my ground. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I don’t like being accused of ... whatever you’re accusing me of!”

That breaks her serious expression for a second. “You were supposed to start school last week and you didn’t and I’m pissed at you.”

“Okay,” I say shrugging. “Why is that such a big deal? I’m on a good career path here and I owe my aunt and uncle for everything they’ve done for me.”

“Barf,” Cera says, shaking her head. “No one has passion for a job they’re doing because they owe someone. Your aunt and uncle don’t care about that shit. You’ve just found another – albeit healthier – way not to cope. Why put yourself out there when you can hang out in here all day with the dogs.”

I cock my head to the side. “Uh, I go to the gym too. And treatment. I’m not hiding.”

Cera stamps her foot. “You’re not reaching for the goddamned stars either!”

“Reaching for the stars isn’t realistic.” I put my hands on my hips. “If you want to manage someone, why don’t you manage yourself? I’m not some cause to be adopted. I haven’t seen you in months and you barge in here and start yelling at me,” I yell. “Well, I don’t have to listen to you. What great thing have you done with your life? You work in a bar. Was that your dream?”

“No, but owning one is,” Cera says, her voice dead calm. “I’m on year three of my five year plan and it’s going awesomely.” She sighs and her shoulders slump, her anger sliding off of her. “And you haven’t seen me because I thought I’d give you some space to get shit figured out. Except, instead of moving forward, you’re stalling out, dude.” She furrows her brows. “When Duncan told me you hadn’t signed up for school, I knew I’d let you be for too long and you were in great need of a Cera smackdown.”

I bend over and pick up my pencils. “It’s too late to sign up for anything.”

“Actually it’s not. Your aunt and I just signed you up for Writing 121 and Intro to Screen Printing.”

“What? Really?”

She smiles. “Yeah, you’ve only missed two classes. You start Monday.”

I have to laugh. “I would kill you and Aunt Nina, but I’m too excited for school.” I walk over and pull her into a hug. “Always bug me, okay? I’m sure this isn’t the last time I’m going to need a Cera smackdown.”

“Deal,” she says, squeezing me back. “You can repay me by making me a sweet t-shirt with a pic of that chubby wiener dog on it. It speaks to me.”

~

I
get off the MAX with seven hundred other people all wearing over-stuffed backpacks and walk the block to school.

After Aunt Nina woke me up with her signature scare and surprise tactics this morning, she made me pancakes for breakfast and presented me with my new dark green backpack that she’d apparently bought all the way back in April when I’d come to live with her and Uncle Stan. She’d even put notebooks and a filled pencil case in it.

Since I missed the first two classes, I am determined to find my Writing 121 room with a quickness and get caught up before class starts. I hurry across campus, because of course it’s all the way on the other side from the train stop, and go directly to the ugliest building I’ve ever seen. It makes the Beaverton Bakery look like an architectural masterpiece.

Brick, wood, concrete; a dash of the ’80s, and ’90s; two separate front entrances; and a teal metal roof make up this mishmash. If the art building looks anything like this, I’m going to have to consider transferring to MHCC from PCC. But, I suppose for a place that houses a bunch of boring Intro classes, it will do.

I go through the left front entrance, because why not, locate the sign that points the way to my classroom, determine I should have used the right front entrance, and then jog down the hall.

I’m twenty minutes early, but there is a light on in the classroom and a man with his back to me is writing some notes on a dry-erase board. He must be the teacher or at least a TA who can give me the syllabus and other handouts I need.

“Hi!” I call out and walk directly up to the front of the room.

The man turns away from the board and his eyes meet mine.

Loser boy looks at me and snorts. “Isn’t it ironic?”

I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Don’t you think?”

“When I saw that an Isabelle, ‘Izzy’, Sundall had joined my class, I wondered if it was you. I never did catch your last name.”

I nod once. “Yep. It’s me. Mr.?”

He puts his dry erase marker down on the table between us and leans across it, his hand extended. “Mr. Schmidt.”

I cautiously shake his hand.
This is not a setback. This is not a setback.

“Look,” he starts, pulling his hand away from mine. “This doesn’t have to be weird. You’re not the first student I’ve hooked up with and won’t be the last.”

Ick. I want to chastise myself for ever being dumb enough to fall prey to this idiot, but he’s giving me an out. An out I’m going to take, with conditions. My conditions.

“You’re right. It doesn’t have to be weird. Just as long as you understand that I won’t be hooking up with you again and that if I feel you’re grading me unfairly based on my not hooking up with you again, I will report you.”

He grins and pulls a manila file folder from his gray tweed messenger bag. “Here’s the syllabus. The first paragraph of your first five-page paper is due today, but I’ll give you until Wednesday to get that in to me. Homework is always due on Monday, so you won’t have to double up or anything. Is that fair enough for you?”

I take the syllabus. “It is. Thanks, Mr. Schmidt.” I sit down at the desk directly behind me and he goes back to writing on the dry-erase board.

Thank God I signed up for the 90-day treatment plan because this shitty coincidence is just the kind of thing therapy is made for. I’m not feeling much about it now, but I suspect a whole lot of pain is going to unspool from me by the end of the day – hopefully while I’m sitting on the smushy couch in Lori’s office or hanging out feeding the dogs at home. The bottom line is, I need to make it through the next hour, my next class, CrossFit, then whatever happens, happens. I need to get through that cycle on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next five weeks and then I never have to take a class from Dick Schmidt ever again.

I take a deep breath in, close my eyes, and let the breath out. For me, having a plan of attack makes all the difference. In theory.

Two guys come into the classroom and sit up front, off to the far left side. They’re engaged in a deep conversation about
The Walking Dead
and pay me no mind. Other students begin filing in and sitting in the desks around me. A couple of girls smile politely at me, but no one says anything. For once, not being the center of attention makes me feel safe.

~

M
y screen printing class is all the way across campus and there is only a ten minute gap in between classes. I pack my stuff up quickly and hustle out of writing so I can get to art on time.