Free One Day His (The Someday Series Book 2) by Melanie Shawn Page B

didn’t know what to say. It felt like some sort of horrible test with no right answers, as if Dr. Newsom had previously told my mother that the specific type of mental deficiency I had, could be determined on a check-off list based solely on what my first words in this meeting were.
    “Soooo.” My gaze bounced like a Ping-Pong ball between the doctor and my mother, who were, both, holding their aggressive stares, not wavering or softening. Feeling a little nervous and also having gotten about six hours sleep in the last thirty-six hours, I was also a little loopy. Next thing I knew, I heard myself speak in what I can only assume was my best Bugs Bunny impression, “What’s up, Doc?”
    The second it left my mouth, I wanted to do a face palm. Where had that come from? I wasn’t back in Arcata, where I could be myself. This place was like an alternate universe version of my life where I had to have the personality of a trained pony.
    Needless to say, my Looney Tunes impression went over like a lead balloon with both my mother and the doctor. Neither one of them responded to me verbally at all, but Dr. Newsom’s pen was moving furiously as he wrote in his notebook before returning his gaze to mine. Although I had never met the man before, I could’ve sworn that his expression indicated that he was disappointed in me. After I didn’t say anything for a moment, he and my mother exchanged yet another little knowing look and then he jotted down another note in his notebook.
    My intuition was quickly overriding any optimism I had been trying to conjure up just moments before. I was getting the distinct feeling that this was some sort of intervention and I, not my mother, was the focus of the intervening.
    “So, what’s this all about?” I asked calmly. The sooner I knew, the sooner I could get this ‘emergency broadcast’ over with and return to my regularly scheduled programming with Jace.
    “Well,” Dr. Newsom spoke in a carefully modulated tone, the voice therapists used which was meant to be so completely devoid of judgment that it actually ended up coming across as incredibly judgmental, “after your mother’s incident, she is taking steps to communicate more effectively with the people in her life. She has a lot of feelings that have been bottled up, that she hasn’t had an appropriate outlet for, and that she has now realized she has been working through in destructive ways. That’s a pattern she would like to change.”
    Oh. Okay. Maybe I’d jumped the gun on the whole ‘intervention’ thread. Maybe this could actually be constructive. What he was saying, at face value, at least sounded good. I could definitely get behind that.
    I sat patiently, waiting for him to continue or Mother to jump in and say something. After all, although that was some nice background information, I hadn’t yet heard how it might apply to me in any way. But, rather than saying anything, they simply continued with their radio-silence tactic.
    Awkward.
    As that same feeling that the other shoe was about to drop and the rug was going to be pulled out from under me began to creep up inside me, I tried to keep my posture relaxed and my demeanor calm. Then I decided that, instead of trying not to let this interaction affect me, I should face it. Maybe the direct approach would work. After all, Dr. Newsom was a man of science, and I imagined that he would probably appreciate me asking a direct question rather than dancing around the topic.
    “Is there something going on here that I’m not understanding? I feel like there’s a predetermined expectation that I am just not catching on to.” I took a slightly shaky breath after the words left my lips. When I folded my hands in my lap and noticed that they were shaking, I was still proud of myself for how far I had come. At least I had put a voice to the questions running through my mind like a toddler on a sugar high.
    Three months ago, I would’ve just sat there on the couch,