Losing to Win

“So.” Dr. Julie peered at us over the top of her glasses. “Last session. Give me a few words to describe how you feel?” The cameras swung toward us and awaited our answers.

“Tired,” I said baldly.

“Over it.” Carissa nodded.

“Hungry.” We’d stayed up watching movies last night and then overslept and had to race here to make it on time.

“Starving!”

“Is ‘red ta go’ considered a word?” I asked.

“Only in Louisiana, babe.” Carissa patted my hand.

We were in Dr. Julie’s makeshift office at the host hotel for Losing to Win. When they announced that we had to attend a wrap-up session with the life coach, everyone groaned. This was the only time both Carissa and I could come in due to my practice and travel schedule. We were limping into the last part of the show and we were more than ready to wrap it up—though wrapping it up meant discussing what came next and that was an area where Carissa was dragging her heels.

Dr. Julie started talking about setting continuous achievable life goals and I held in a snort of laughter. She wouldn’t find two more goal-oriented people than we were. I tuned out the rest of Dr. Julie’s lecture and allowed my eyes to wander along Carissa’s frame. Though I doubted she’d find it so, I thought it was funny that she was dressed in a T-shirt and wide-leg pants and had her hair pulled back so that her outfit and hair were similar to how she’d looked when the show ambushed her a few months ago. But this time her clothes fit and flattered. Her skin was glowing with good health. Her smile was wide and genuine. Her chin was lifted at a jaunty tilt and her eyes were bright. The time had restored more than her shape. She was back to being Carissa Wayne.

Her hair bounced as her head swung toward me. “Malachi, are you listening?” she asked me.

“No. No, I’m not.” I shrugged.

She smirked. “What are you doing? Daydreaming?”

Dr. Julie smiled. “He’s looking at you, dear. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you for the past ten minutes.”

“Oh, really?” She quirked a brow.

“Tell me, Malachi,” Dr. Julie probed. “When you look at Carissa, what do you see?”

Finally, a question I liked. “I see beauty and strength, intelligence and charm. But I always saw that in her.”

“What’s different about what you see now than what you saw a few months ago?”

“Now I see the future; before, I only saw the past.”

Carissa blinked and her eyes went wide.

Dr. Julie asked her, “A future with Malachi...What would that look like, Carissa?”

She looked completely panicked. “I don’t know, I haven’t—I don’t...I’m not sure.”

“You haven’t thought about it at all?” Dr. Julie asked incredulously.

I watched her squirm her way to an answer. “I didn’t say that. I’m just not ready to decide what the long-term future is going to look like.”

“Hmm. That seems selfish.” I was glad Dr. Julie said it because I was surely thinking it.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You do realize your decisions affect other people? There’s Mal, the place where you work, the kids you teach, your family and friends, and let’s not get into Jordan.”

“No, let’s not,” I agreed hastily. The thought that dude was lurking just around the corner waiting for me to mess up so he could swoop in remained a thorn in my side.

“I do understand I’m not an island anymore. Thank you, Dr. Julie,” Carissa said sharply.

In an instant, my patience snapped. “I guess I don’t know what more I can do to prove that I’m worth your time and trust. Have I let you down once this summer?”

She jumped a little at my question. “No.”

“Have I ignored you, flirted with random women, or made anyone or anything else a higher priority than you?”

“No,” she answered in a small voice.

“So please tell me, educate me, teach me—what’s it gonna take?”

“I don’t know. Time, maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“Well, you’re putting me on the spot, Mal.”

“Putting YOU on the spot? I’m on the spot. I’m on the hot seat every damn day. I’ve got reporters asking me about you. I have teammates teasing me. I have your friends and family plus my friends and family warning me to do right by you. Telling me to do the right thing. I’m trying to do the right thing. What are you trying to do?”

“I’m just trying to live!” She flung her arms up.

“Wow. If I said that to you, you’d call me selfish and tell me I hadn’t changed.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is maybe it’s time you owned up to your part in the soap opera of Carissa and Mal, don’t you think?”

“What did I do?”

“Well, I can’t make a relationship work alone and I can’t break a relationship alone. But I can’t read your mind, Cari. I couldn’t then and I can’t now. If I’m not doing what you want, giving you what you need, if you’re upset or feel mistreated, you have to say something and speak it plain. Don’t wait until it gets unbearable and then bounce.” I sat back in the chair and crossed my arms, belatedly wishing I hadn’t said all of that with cameras rolling.

“So you’re mad.”

“I’m frustrated.”

“You’re still sitting here.”

“Right, you’re the one who leaves when she’s upset. I stick.”

She winced. “Oh. Direct hit. I guess I never apologized for that.”

“For what?”

“Bailing and stealing your new car. And not coming back when you got hurt. That was tacky of me.”

“It was.”

She got up and slid into my lap. “I’m not perfect either.”

“Oh yeah?” I mocked her and looped my arms around her waist.

“But I’m still here. I’m here with you.”

“That’s not going to be enough for long.”

“I understand.” She kissed my cheek.

I turned toward Dr. Julie. “Are we done?”

She chuckled. “You two do a better job of counseling each other than I could. Stay like that. Be open with each other and remember that there’s a reason you’ve been in each other’s orbit for all these years.”

We both blinked at her because she lost us with that orbit comment.

Dr. Julie stood up and extended a hand. “It’s been a pleasure working with both of you. I expect to hear great things about you in the future.”

We shook her hand and exited without a single look back.

“As an apology for jacking your Benz, how about I buy you breakfast?” Carissa joked and took my hand in hers.

“This better be a hell of a breakfast.”

“Are you really still mad about it?”

“Do you think if I was mad about it I would’ve paid it off?”

“Good point. Then you can buy me breakfast.”

I shook my head. “Always so high maintenance.” We were cutting through the lobby when Niecy and Meshach got off the elevator.

“Who’s buying breakfast?” Niecy asked.

Carissa raised her hand. “I have a car note to pay off.”

“What?” They looked at her in confusion as we laughed.

“Everybody order the lobster omelet,” I teased. “That’s all I have to say about that.”