Deep End

by Ali Hazelwood

I nod emphatically. I may not look forward to the agony that comes with exposing the squishy bits of my soul, but I’m not some cliché detective refusing to see a shrink in an eighties crime show. Therapy is a privilege. I’m lucky to have it. Above all, I need it.

This will be over soon. A pinch of discomfort is well worth the obscene amount of lo mein I’ll stuff inside my face once I’m home. I can be brave. I can be anything for noodles.

“Maybe the elephant’s just…blindfolded?” He nods slowly. “And tied up.” “And doing as it’s told.” He looks like he might find that more appealing. “What a good elephant.”

I wonder what it is that ties them together. Blood pacts? Body in the trunk of their car? Same sleeper cell?

My high school therapist kept using words like trauma response and PTSD, words that feel too big, like I don’t have a right to them. They belong to war reporters and ER doctors, not girls with shitty dads who bossed them around and told them they’d never amount to anything.

Scarlett: Do you really want to be reminded of my computational superiority that often? Unknown: I do. I have a thing for women who are smarter than me.

I’m just not in the mood for this. And by this, I mean the way Lukas looks at me, like he can see the little crumpled-up piece of paper tucked in a corner of my head, the one where I wrote down my secrets. Like he could easily flatten it and read every last word.

“Because sometimes I can’t breathe when you’re around.”

I may be at my worst, but I can masquerade as someone who’s doing perfectly fucking fine.

“There is a little bobblehead living inside my skull. She looks just like my therapist and looooves to remind me that if I don’t redefine my concept of failure, I’ll die of acute ventricular tachycardia before turning twenty-five.”

Personally, I’ve had enough experience with the way not-beamingly-outgoing women tend to be written off as bitches to mistrust the rumors.

My cheeks feel wet, because my fucking eyes are leaking.

“Do you want me to fuck you while pretending that you’re not the person I feel closest to in the whole fucking world now, Scarlett? Or another day?”

“What are you scared of, Scarlett?” His eyes look…sad, maybe. I’m not sure. Traces of emotions crease the corners. “Everything.” A deep sigh. “When it comes to what matters, you’re fearless. Try to remember that, okay?”

“But I’m just so fucking happy to see you, Scarlett. I can’t be mad at you, when every time I think about you I am reminded that you exist.”

It has to be love. It’s expansive and all-consuming and full and joyous. Hungry. Thick. At once heavy and light. Everywhere and golden. It’s him and me and the myriad of little strings that tangle us together.

“And then I spent the last few months trying not to fall for you, and failed so fucking miserably that—” He shakes his head. “This is it. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. No more lies.”