Chapter 11

Tam met Bethany in the hall outside the girl’s favorite treatment room.

The brightest suite in the office, the walls were a lemony yellow with white trim and white furniture and a wide picture window that overlooked the courtyard. Beth said it always felt sunny in there, even when the weather outside was gloomy.

Today didn’t seem to be a gloomy day for Beth, even after her hospital stay. Usually the girl came out of a hospitalization harboring an intense resentment toward Tam, who she viewed as the real person to blame.

Not today. She giggled when Tam waved her through the door. “Wow. You get some weirdoes in here, Tam. Some dude just danced with me.”

Tam put on a professional smile, certain she didn’t have to ask who that “dude” had been.

“Whoa, Tam.” Bethany leaned close and sniffed. “I didn’t know you smoked. You rebel, you.”

Feeling a tad bit defeated, she made a mental note to thank Burns properly the next time she saw him. Closing the door, she sat on the empty seat.

This room had soft, white armchairs and billowy balloon curtains, a fresh mid-eighties feel that reminded Tam of Lisa Frank stickers and Molly Ringwald movies. Bethany had pushed her chair close to the window, something she did whenever she was in a good place.

Interesting. Tam had expected just the opposite, considering the intensity of the girl’s outburst at group. Perhaps Burns had a positive effect on her. Hmm. Maybe Burns should attend group—

Scratch that. He really had no place there. He had no place anywhere in her practice. Considering how he’d just set the place on fire, she wasn’t sure there was a good place for him anywhere.

Tam left Bethany’s folder closed on her lap. “Do you remember when you decided you were ready to join the skills building group?”

“Yeah, you said that I’d find support there.” Bethany chewed on her little finger. “Huh. Some support. I mean, look at what that jackass did. That was hardly supportive.”

“Well, that’s part of why I wanted to talk about it. Do you remember the rules we set forth?”

Beth shrank into herself, her jaw set. She grumbled a bit before answering. “Yes.”

“Yes,” Tam said. “The group doesn’t work for everybody if we don’t work hard to follow the rules. We need the structure so that everyone can benefit.”

“Well, some of the rules are really stupid.”

“I understand that you might feel that way. But still. One of the top rules is that, while it’s important for participants to form personal relationships outside the confines of the group meeting, it is against the rules to develop a sexual relationship with another group member.”

“But, that’s stupid! People have to be able to form healthy sexual relationships. It’s part of our integration into society—”

“So, you have been listening.” Tam nodded, a subtle sign of praise. “But do you remember why it’s against the rules to become intimately involved with another group member?”

“Because someone will go justifiably ballistic when the jackass decides that it didn’t mean anything after you bare your whole soul?” Beth emphasized her last words with a grand sweep of her hands.

“Because it has the potential for the relationship to hinder open participation. Derek called and said he didn’t want to come to group anymore.”

“Chicken shit.” Beth pulled her burgundy hair back, revealing dark undyed roots. Winding her hair into a ball, she secured it with one of several hair bands on her wrist.

“I think he might feel uncomfortable about expressing himself. Would you?”

Beth leaned back in her chair, sliding her rear to the edge of the seat. “I never do. You know me. Am I in trouble?”

Tam tilted her head. “In trouble? Why would you be in trouble?”

Beth shrugged, tucking her shoulder up around her neck. “I broke the rule.”

“You’re not in trouble.” Tam leaned forward, forging a connection to Beth. “But we do have to deal with the consequences.”

“Love isn’t supposed to have consequences.”

“Relationships always have consequence. Relationships change us and change the way we look at everything from that point forward. They change the way we interact with our friends and family. They change the way we look at ourselves in the mirror. And changes are the biggest consequences of them all.”

“Well, I didn’t change.” Beth crossed her arms and hunched in her chair, her chin jutting beneath a frown.

“No?”

“Nuh uh. I can’t change. Not anymore than how Bobby changed me.”

Ah. Bobby. The first true love. Bethany didn’t like talking about him. He always evoked her strongest feelings and the girl had trouble handling them. “How has Bobby changed you?”

Legs straight out, Beth rocked her heels and tapped her feet together. Bump-bump, bump. Cadence of a heartbeat. “He made me—made me feel…like I was worth liking.”

“You are worth liking,” Tam said, her voice gentle.

“Yeah, well.” Beth drew her knees in and pushed back into her chair. “Derek didn’t think so.”

Her cheeks flushed, reddening quickly. It only took a name, a single word, to completely redirect her mood.

Tam allowed her a moment to level off. “Perhaps you didn’t resonate with each other.”

“Resonate?” Beth scowled, perhaps not understanding the word.

“It’s a scientific term that describes vibrations that are in harmony. When two sets of vibrations resonate, they hum together, as if they’re one.”

Bethany nodded. A glow settled over her, the sense of a cherished memory. It animated her, gentling the flush of her cheeks. “I resonated with Bobby and Bobby resonated with me.”

She smiled, a quick flash that she stifled with her hand.

“Thinking about him makes you happy,” Tam said.

Beth nodded, still grinning into her hand.

“But you try not to.”

The grin evaporated, replaced by a heaviness that sagged her face, her entire body, sinking her deeper into her chair. “I don’t deserve to.”

“Why don’t you deserve to think of him?”

“Because I didn’t try hard enough to love him back. I took him for granted. I figured I had loads of time to get around to showing him how much he meant to me. I didn’t know—” A tear broke free of her lashes and streaked down. “I didn’t know we’d run out of time.”

“But you would have showed him.”

“Yes. I would have.”

“Then don’t punish yourself,” Tam said. “An accident got in the way. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to do it.”

Beth tugged and twisted her bracelet, silent. Tears dropped, one by one, a sniff. Tam pushed the tissues toward her.

“If thinking of Bobby makes you happy, then think of him. You deserve those happy memories.”

“I don’t know if I deserve them but…” She knuckled her cheek. “I’m grateful for them.”

“Why?”

“Because Bobby made me feel like I was worth liking before Derek tried to make me feel like I wasn’t. And Derek can’t change what Bobby did. Derek couldn’t resonate with me to save his life. Do you resonate with anyone?”

Tam wasn’t prepared for such a question. A month ago, she would have re-directed the focus away from herself. Today…well, today was different.

She was different.

She rocked back in her chair. Did she resonate with someone?

Who was she kidding? There was only one someone.

Burns. He had struck a chord in her, sending a hum that penetrated her and rang through her bones. The way she felt when she was near him—the way she could feel—

It was a harmony, even when his crazy magic nonsense left her reeling and clutching for composure and the cool confines of logic. She knew him, even if she didn’t really know him. He plucked her strings as if he knew her, too.

Familiarity. Harmony. Complete resonance.

Tam issued a breathy laugh. “Yeah. I suppose I do.”

Beth crowed and clapped her hands. “Aw, Tam, you better be careful. Relationships always have consequences.”

The laugh froze in her throat. Beth had meant it in a teasing way, but it hit Tam with the opposite effect. To her, it sounded ominous, something she would do well to remember.

Relationships always have consequences. That wasn’t a tease.

That was a warning.