Chapter Nine
Tristan
I slept like a rock that night after Elly left. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had since I’d been sober. Fucking her was like a drug and I think I was addicted to it. I woke up the next morning feeling rested and eager to get on with practicing our song. I was looking forward to singing with her.
I showered and had time to stop in the cafeteria for some breakfast before I had therapy. I wasn’t sure how my therapist was going to feel about me after what had happened the day before. I had no idea what my parents told him after I left, but I had a pretty good idea that they had twisted it all around so that I was the one at fault for everything. When I walked in, he looked up at me and smiled.
“How are you today, Tristan?”
I shrugged. “I’m okay,” I said.
“I was afraid you’d be having a hard time after the group session. That was pretty intense.”
I dropped down into the chair across from him and said, “Any time spent with my parents is intense. Now maybe you at least understand why I didn’t want them here.”
He was nodding and then he said, “Yes, of course. But sometimes what we want isn’t always what we need. I think a lot of your troubles are tied up in how you feel about your parents and how that all made you feel about yourself.”
“I’m fine with myself,” I told him.
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Are you really, Tristan?”
“Yeah, really,” I told him.
He leaned towards me. “I believe that you believe that, but what I see when I look at you and hear when I talk to you are a lot of insecurities and unresolved issues.”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling. “Wow, you can see and hear all that? You must be psychic.”
He knew I was being sarcastic. He smiled and said, “No, just observant.” The rest of the visit went on like that. He was trying to “strip off” my defenses, he said. He was starting to get to me, I had to admit. Either that or I was just so bored in that place that even talking to him was preferable to another hour of staring at the wall in my room. I wished Elly could have stayed there with me—I’d never have left. My cock jerked in my pants just at the thought. I replaced Elly’s naked image with the image of my father. That did it—instant cock-block.
When the therapist was finally finished with me, I said, “Elly is coming by today to practice the song we’ll be singing together this week. Can she bring my guitar in?”
He sat back in his chair and gave me a long look. Then he said, “I grant you quite a few favors, Tristan. When am I going to get something in return?”
“What is it you want, doc?”
“I want you to talk to me, honestly for once.” Shit! I didn’t know if the guitar was worth all that, but I finally agreed that if he let Elly bring my guitar in I would open up to him about something in my past at our next session.
I used my phone call again to call Elly and ask her to bring the guitar. She’d taken it that day that I’d thrown it. She said it didn’t look damaged, which was good since I couldn’t afford a new one.
Elly got there around ten that morning, my guitar in hand. We used one of the empty dayrooms to practice. The lead nurse told me the walls were thick, so our music wouldn’t bother anyone. The door also locked from the inside so no one would bother us. There were windows that faced out to the nurses station, so that meant I wasn’t getting laid. At least the memories of our last fuck would last me a day or two.
“Aren’t you just a little bit nervous about this?” she asked me once we were behind closed doors.
“Not at all. If we blow it away and I win, the producers won’t be able to do shit.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. Of course, I am nervous about that too; but I was talking about me singing. You’ve never even heard me sing. What if I open my mouth and something terrible comes out?”
“Is it going to?” I asked.
She clasped her hands together. “I hope not.”
“Can you sing?”
“Yeah….”
“Okay then, here’s your music.” She looked down at it, and I watched her face while she read the lyrics. I could see her mouth moving already. She’d do fine. This I knew because the day I dropped her off for chorus I actually followed her in and listened. If Elly had been my competition on Fresh Voices show, I’d have lost, easily. I was a little bit too arrogant to admit that to her, though.