Forever Checking (Checked Series Book 3) (6 page)

“No, it isn’t—this is included in your therapy.” His voice gets closer. I feel him move behind me to the other side of my chair. Closer to the front of the salon—and the cash register.

I stand up and look at him, shaking my head and, well, smiling, because he is grinning at me. “Did you forget, Dr. Blake, that I’m not actually paying for my therapy since my insurance wouldn’t really understand our after-hours arrangement?”

He shakes his head. And whispers. “Aiden.” Then he…he puts his hand on my waist, warming the whole left side of my body. He whispers again. Close to my face. “Speaking of our after-hours arrangement, I think it’s time that I get to take you home.”

Him…home…perfect.

But first…

“Almost. But first I’m going to pay.” I swat his hand off of my waist and try to push him out of the way so I can move around—

He puts his arm back around my waist, holding even tighter this time and, well, making me a little dizzy and—

CALLIE.

Against my body’s will, I try to shrug out of his embrace, wiggling around and attempting to push past him and—

And bumping my hip into the next salon table—the one beside the station where my nails just went from clear to blue. The table shakes a little as I make contact.

I stop moving around, regaining my balance. He stands in front of me, still smiling. Teasing. His arm starts to reach for—

Oh. My. God.

Splashing on the bottoms of my nyloned legs. Wet. The tops of my feet. Wet. My copper shoes. Wet.

I don’t even need to look.

I know what is spilling all over me.

The nail polish remover. The bottle with the cotton ball at the top. Only the cotton ball at the top.

Nail polish remover all over my feet, my shoes.

Diseases all over me.

I freeze.

I’m vaguely aware of the pressure of his hand on my arm, but I don’t really feel it. In a fuzz, in a blur, he says some words to me, but I don’t really hear them. His eyes blaze into mine, but I look through him, seeing nothing.

I don’t see. I don’t hear. I don’t feel.

But I know.

I know that I’m covered in germs. I know that I’ve lost all power over my body. I know that I somehow need to get home to my shower.

He must know too.

Arms, his arms, are around me. Guiding me, tugging me, moving me toward the front of the salon.

Tugging. Feet moving. Diseased feet. Ruined shoes.

Moving. Moving. Moving.

Body shaking and numb at the same time.

Him. Right here. So close. Whispering meaningless phrases like “It will be okay” and “No need to worry.” Worthless, worthless, worthless words.

He says some syllables to one of the salon girls too—I don’t quite catch what he says…sounds like a quote from one of those
Terminator
movies, though—as we make it to the front door.

Then he opens the door and pushes, pulls, guides me out. My feet, my body, me. All moving. Moving with him toward his car.

His arms squeeze the top of me against the top of him. Warm. Close. Comforting.

But not enough. Not enough.

He opens the car door and helps me step my diseased, MRSA and SARS-filled shoes inside.

Great. Now his car is—

“Don’t worry about the carpet in the car. I’ll have it cleaned tomorrow.”

Without looking up at him, I nod my head in understanding. In gratefulness. In recognition of the fact that, yes, once again he has accurately read my mind.

He shuts my door, shuts me in, and walks around to his side as I strap my seatbelt around me (at least I can protect myself from
some
dangers).

My feet have no protection. I can feel liquid swirling around in the bottoms of my shoes. Pools of hepatitis and HIV and—

CALLIE!

I’m sure that some people bleed when they get a manicure. They have to with all of those crazy tools that are used. There have to be mistakes. Little nicks. Scrapes. Cuts.

And then, if a stylist uses a bottle of nail polish remover and uses a bleeding person’s…or a scraped person’s cotton ball more than once, then—

My head starts to pound. I begin to pick off the nail polish on my left hand. I—

“Callie.” His hand moves over to mine, trying to stop my busy fingers.

I can’t stop, though. Pick. Pick. Pick. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. His hand bounces up and down on top of mine as I work.

He doesn’t say anything. He drives with one hand.

And we listen to…nothing. Stupid freaking nothing.

{The Goo Goo Dolls at least sing to me. “
Feel the Silence
.”}

I only have two fingers left to scrape off when I remember that my nails are blue, that I must be leaving little pieces of blue all over his immaculate (other than the diseases under my feet) car.

Shit.

So not only did I cause this whole awful situation by being overly confident after getting my haircut and manicure and messing around and being dumb and bumping into the stupid table, but now I’m selfishly destroying his car when he has only been trying to help me.

And I can’t stop.

My fingers keep working. Keep scraping. Keep bouncing his hand up and down on top of mine.

Second to last finger. Done.

Last finger. Done.

Now what should I—

His hand squeezes both of mine. Hard.

He’s trying so hard.

Being so patient. So understanding. So accommodating. He—

Wait a minute.

I turn to look at him. “We didn’t pay. We have to go back.”

Oh my God.
In my idiotic meltdown state, I managed to leave without paying. In my hysteria, I committed a crime.

What the hell? What’s next? Am I gonna start kidnapping people or selling—

He squeezes my hands. Again. Hard. Again. “I took care of it, Callie. I’m going right back after I drop you off at your house.”

Oh…right. He did talk to one of the girls, one of the stylists, as we were—

“Unless you need me to stay with you. I can call and give my credit—”

“No.”

His faces flinches a little as I say it. His hand stops squeezing.

I look down, away from him. Because I don’t want to see him looking hurt. But I also don’t want to change my response. Can’t change my response.

I need to take a shower. I need to do my night routine. And then take another shower. And I need to be alone. And he knows—

His hand starts squeezing again. “You didn’t get any diseases tonight, Callie.”

He doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know whose germs were in that—

“Remember the whole hour thing, how most diseases die in an hour.”

But we don’t know who was in for a manicure right before—

“And, Callie, the nail polish remover is strong. The chemicals in it would most likely kill anything else that happened to get into the bottle. If anything else even got into the bottle.”

He’s probably right. Probably. But still…strange things happen. Odds are beaten—in the bad way. Why wouldn’t—

We are here. Back at my house. He stops the car and comes around to get me.

Then the déjà vu begins.

We’ve done this all before. And it all begins again.

Him carrying me into my house. Depositing me on a towel in my bathroom. Saying goodbye to each other…him probably thinking about his mother and me feeling bad for making him think about his mother but feeling too messed up to make the situation better. Him leaving, saying that he’ll text later. Me having Mandy get rid of my new trash…nylons and two rather new copper heels, a pouf, and a towel. Doing my routine. Showering again. Putting on days-old skimpy silk pajamas. Turning on some show where some person is cooking some dish that I’ll never try to make myself. Reading a reassuring, disease-discounting text from him over and over and over. Trying to sleep.
{Listening to Damien.}

Chapter 5

day two…or seven

BUZZ.

My eyes open to complete darkness.

The middle of the night. A text in the middle of the night.

My feet fling themselves out of my bed.

Melanie must have started blee—

It’s not Melanie.

Unknown Number. One text. At…4:00 in the morning!

One. Two. Three. Open.

If you are still sure about going on with Day Two, I’m picking you up at 8:00 a.m. for an early therapy session before your first class. Please write back to let me know you received this message. I want to give you enough time for your morning…stuff.

UGH. UGH. UGH.

I know that I texted him last night and agreed…probably stupidly agreed…to going on with therapy. But this soon?  What kind of therapy happens this early in the morning?

Please don’t let it be another manicure. Or breakfast with a person who has syphilis. Or breakfast with syrup. Or—

Buzz.

One. Two. Three. Open.

Callie?

Ugh.

One. Two. Three. Reply.

Got it. I’ll be ready.

One. Two. Three. Send.

Send my lie. Because I’ll never really be ready for this therapy stuff.

But I agreed to these weird hour therapy sessions…

So here we go. Morning routine. Super early. GO.

Thermostat: 70 degrees. Stove: off. Door: locked. Blinds: opened. Alarm: off (because I’m already up—at 4:00 in the morning!) Teeth: brushed. Pictures: straightened (yawning and straightening, yawning and straightening, yawning and straightening). Living Room: cleaned (more yawning). Floor: swept (I wish I could take a nap on the floor...or maybe on the couch).  Refrigerator: sorted (so tired). Dishes: washed (
Don’t fall asleep while washing dishes—you’ll break a plate or something and then have to clean up pieces of glass, and then you’ll accidentally cut yourself and you’ll just be so tired that you’ll fall asleep on the kitchen floor in a pile of your own blood)
. Kitchen Floor: scrubbed (no blood on the floor—
Thank God
).  Doorknobs: wiped. Laundry: started (
Focus, Callie. If you accidentally put a dark in with a white, you’ll mess up everything. Everything)
. Prayers: said (
Please help me stay awake. Please help me stay awake. Please help me stay awake)
. Bathroom: sanitized. Bathroom Floor: steam-mopped. Shower: taken (That helped. I’m more awake now. I probably should’ve showered before I started my routine). Body: cleaned, shaved, lotioned, and weighed. Hair: dried and styled. Clothes: on. 

Morning routine done. Moving right along. Time for my leaving-the-house routine.

7:45 A.M. DONE.

Waiting on the stairs. Holding my purse. Ready to go.

And worried.

What are we doing at this hour in the morning? What if we don’t get finished in time for me to go to class?

I can’t miss class. I’ve already missed so much with my little hospital stint and the stupid conference. If I miss more, I’m probably going to fail out of school and end up never getting a job.

Not gonna work.

So we have to end in time for me to get to class. AND in time for me to take another shower, because I’m on a different schedule today.

The Bleeding Schedule. My least favorite schedule.

I sort of missed it last month since I was in a coma or whatever in the hospital while I was bleeding. I didn’t really ask questions when the nurses and my mother told me about it. I didn’t…don’t even want to know the embarrassing ways that they handled cleaning me and padding me up. It’s too repulsive to even think about.

Just like the bleeding itself. Repulsive.

And the water retention. Awful.

The whole thing. Annoying. Inconvenient. Dirty.

So The Bleeding Schedule requires a lot of additional showers and baths…and a lot of extra body lotion to try to soothe my irritated, dried out skin after all of the extra bathing time.

Very time consuming, this schedule.

And very disgusting, this bleeding.

Better me than Melanie, though. And from her texts last night, it sounds like her bleeding is over.
Thank God.
Doug still wants her to rest, though, so I still get Abby today after—

Knocking. Light knocking at my door. He’s here.

Well, or else Mandy has invited guests over while she’s sound asleep. Or the murderers have decided to throw me off by knocking on the—

CALLIE. STOP.

One. Two. Three. I head to the door.

Peephole check. Him. Smiling first thing in the morning him.

And that would be awesome…if it weren’t for the therapy-related words and directions that, I’m sure, are about to come out of him.
Ugh.

I open the door. Accepting my fate.

White dress shirt. No tie. Open collar.

“Hi.” He greets me, his mouth still smiling. His eyes are only smiling a little, though. They’re worried. He’s worried.

He leans in toward me. Quickly. Nervously. His lips brush my cheek, warm my cheek, for a second only. Quick and nervous.

As he pulls back, I force my mouth open. “What’s going on? What are we doing this early in the morning?”

He nods his head, closes his eyes, and says, “You’ll see.”

Why did he close his eyes? What—

“Come on, Callie.” His eyes are back open now.

Open and anxious. Open and anxious. Open and anxious.

His hand reaches out for mine. His warm fingers surround mine.

One. Two. Three. I let him pull me out of the house. Out of the house and into some new (early) therapy session. I pull the door shut behind me. He takes my keys. And he locks the door.

Handle twist. Handle twist. Handle twist.

Here. We. Go.

NERVOUS CAR RIDE. NO TOUCHING. No talking.