I knew I was early picking up Sky. Her appointment was an hour long and I arrived just as it began. I didn’t want to fuck up for my boss. Malcolm was a good man and I wanted to make a good impression, wanted him to trust me with Sky and show her I could be relied upon for anything.
I parked the bike in front of the building and stared up at its glass façade. It looked official and intimidating, a place I might never be caught dead entering upon my own will. I pulled out my pack of cigarettes and cupped my hands around the end as I lit one. It was impressive Sky could integrate so well back into society after what she’d been through. I wasn’t sure if I was that strong. I’d imagined a life of always wandering the margins, rejected by mainstream society and the institutions that held it together. But I’d forged my own path thus far and it hadn’t really been so bad. The problem arose when you wanted something that belonged to the status quo. And I wanted Skylar Miller more than I cared to even admit to myself.
I flicked the cigarette and watched it bounce across the pavement. Guess I was about to go inside and sit in a waiting room. Try to act normal and chill the fuck out so as not to scare anyone. In places like these, my cut, my size, the scars and tattoos, made me an outsider. But for Sky’s well-being, I’d put on a show and suffer through it to keep her happy and safe.
…
The waiting room was posh with real floral arrangements, a water bubbler and walls of frosted glass. The receptionist gave me a raised eyebrow and checked me out with disdain eyeing me from head to toe.
“Sign in on this sheet,” she said as her glasses slipped down her nose.
“Don’t have an appointment. Just the chauffeur,” I told her. I wasn’t short on words and I could have explained more, but I didn’t want to. I sat down in a chair that barely held me and picked up a magazine.
The other people in the waiting room looked like parents. I wondered what had happened to their kids to make them want therapy already. I’d never had that as an option during my upbringing, the only treatment I received with regularity was an ass beating at the hands of my alcoholic father. And although my mother tended to those wounds and soothed away the hurt, she too received the same type of treatment.
When I was bored of Popular Mechanics, I picked up a pamphlet on the Gestalt Method. I didn’t like the looks of it right away, with words like radical and roleplaying, body work or confrontation. All of those things sounded dangerous and I didn’t like to think of Sky being that vulnerable, even in the hands of a trained professional. I felt possessive of her, protective of her mental health struggles. I knew she’d had problems with panic and sleeplessness, episodes of post-traumatic stress that had been difficult on the whole family. I knew because Rough had confided in me, I also knew because I kept an eye on Sky even when Rough and Claire hadn’t specifically asked me to. I wasn’t a stalker or a bodyguard, but sometimes I couldn’t sleep until I’d checked on her. I knew where her classes were, the buildings and the times. Knew her shifts at the shelter and what time she returned home at. And although this was my first time inside, it wasn’t the first time I’d driven by the building when Sky had an appointment.
Truth was, I had been watching her for years. No one knew that I did it. I always kept my distance. I would just go wherever she was and wait, follow at a distance and make sure she got home safely. Watching Sky was comforting to me, like my own form of therapy I’d made up for myself. Knowing she was tucked away in bed at night, under the watchful eye of Rough, I could let go enough to get some sleep myself. I never thought about what I’d do if she caught me. Try to play it off like a coincidence or a happy accident. But I didn’t think I had the capacity to lie to Sky. When I looked at her I spoke the truth, gave her the real, unfiltered version of the man I was, broken, battered, but full of heart and soul.
I tipped my head back and pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the exhaustion of the day overcome me.
Then I heard a blood curdling scream and all of the hair on my arms rose up in attention.
Sky.
I bolted.
“Sir, I’m sorry but you can’t—”