“No.”
He admired her fixation on Audrey and her ability to tune out the sorority sisters as if they were nothing more than static on a radio station. Dayton also rightfully feared that keenness. Her beautiful, analytical mind that was a little too skilled in discerning fact from fiction.
She hung onto Dr. Merino’s every utterance though she knew it was unlikely he was telling the truth, and even more unlikely that she would ever hear Audrey’s version of the truth. His California arrest pressed against the walls of her mind throughout the recording. A fact that couldn’t be argued or justified into dormancy.
And the city that continued to roll off his tongue, L.A., wouldn’t let Kenna forget that the arrest overlapped with the time he lived there.
When he was in school. When he was in the ‘same boat’ as her. Like they were remotely the same type of person.
“We didn’t date. We hooked up, once.”
It was difficult to listen as Dr. Merino mentioned a past sexual encounter, no matter the absence of detail.
Her voice broke. A hairline fracture. “And would you say that experience was transformative for you?”
“No. It was what followed.”
The notebook pages stared back at her, that sea of white. She hadn’t written a thing. Kenna would have to play the recording on a loop if she had any hope of successfully composing the accompanying paper.
“She had a bet with her friends to see which of them could sleep with me first. To them, I was a joke. Of course, they would’ve never been interested in me if word had not traveled around about my surgery, that golden opportunity for humiliation. Though they viewed me as undesirable, under this new lens, it was overshadowed by the chance for bragging rights and a cash prize.”
She listened as he droned on about the fallout, the mortification, and her doubts multiplied alongside the level of detail he interspersed in the obvious tale of fiction.
He had endured no such thing. She was sure of it.
Dr. Merino wanted to evoke some degree of empathy from her. He was manipulating her, just as he’d done with the others. What he failed to realize was that she didn’t need to be manipulated.
She’d walk into his arms, unafraid.
She’d tread fearlessly into that ring-of-fire embrace and cradle his black heart in her hands and dust it off to prove that it was functional despite a lifetime of disuse.
Kenna knew that, somewhere along the way, obsession had consumed her. An adoration that had planted its roots and whose death wouldn’t coincide with the end of the semester. Something pestilent that would live within her forever, slowly killing her.
“Do you think that was enough?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“For your case study.”
Dr. Merino’s mouth twitched and she cursed herself. He knew that she had been on the velvet chaise in her mind, analyzing herself in circles when she should’ve been going through those motions with him.
“More than enough.” Heat scaled her neck as she made quick work of clearing her belongings from his workspace. “I’ll surrender your desk.”
“Where did you go, just now? Because you weren’t here.”
She didn’t answer him nor did she meet his eye. Why was he asking when he knew? Clutching her pile of books, the muscles in her arms tensed as she rounded the desk en route to the exit. Kenna was possessed by paranoia and was prepared to leave the office without so much as a farewell.
To cut her losses. To hell with temptation. To never look back on the five months she spent with one Dr. Dayton Merino, MD.
But her own curiosity had landed her here and it wasn’t extending any mercy. Before she registered what was happening, he was out of his chair, forming a wall between herself and the door.
His voice lowered to an almost indistinguishable humming and she strained to decipher his speech. “I apologize if I upset you. That wasn’t my intention.” Forehead creasing, he went on, “I was wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner on Sunday. A little bird told me you love craftsmens.”
Kenna wondered why he didn’t project his voice when no one else was around, and then it hit her.
This was not to be overheard.
Silence enveloped the room. She gazed into Dr. Merino’s dark eyes and caught the glint of a sunrise. Miraculous gold on the horizon. Desperation? Happiness? Whatever the case, she was overcome with an unfounded need to please him.