Page 40 of For Her Own Good

Mission accomplished, I suppose. That’s what I wanted, right? To be so humiliated that I wouldn’t be able to speak to him again? It’s worse than I expected though, far worse. Should’ve listened to Holden. I hope he’ll at least refrain from I-Told-You-So-ing the shit out of me.

I gather my things, check twice before I bail that I haven’t left anything else of mine that Lowry will have to clean up. He’s cleaned up after enough of my messes already.

Chapter 14

Starla

“This one hasa vertical layout and this one has a horizontal. Does either of those play nicer with your brain?”

Lois wrenches her mouth to the side and studies the planners I’ve laid in front of her.

“I don’t know that my brain has a preference about that.”

“Cool. Sometimes people feel really strongly one way or the other. Like for me? I cannot even with a vertical layout. Makes my head hurt. How about Sunday versus Monday start? Because this one has a Sunday start, and this is a Monday.”

Helping people pick out planners is definitely one of my favorite parts of my job. Especially when they super nerd out over them and develop elaborate systems of stickers and color codes and washi tape and whatever else. I can’t do it myself, so I stick to a super basic system. Only because I invariably let it slide toward the end of my ECT cycles when I start dragging and then I feel bad for failing. But I love looking at other people’s pretties, they’re works of art. I get the feeling Lois might be one of those.

“Oh, I hadn’t even noticed that. But now that you mention it, I definitely prefer the Monday start so the weekends stay together. Is that weird?”

“No, not at all. That’s why I asked.”

I smile at her and she smiles back. She’s doing a lot better with her short-term, day-to-day getting shit done using a white board that has the everyday things labeled with washi tape so she doesn’t have to write those over and over, and blocks of time left to let her brain do whatever it wants. It’s good mix of keeping up with the basics but also letting her brain run wild sometimes so she doesn’t feel frustrated and restless and always eyeing the new shinies. Now we’re tackling the best way to keep track of longer-term plans so she doesn’t double-book herself, which has been a real problem.

“So why don’t we go with the Monday start for now? You’ll use it for a couple of weeks and we can check in on it during our next meeting. Make sure you write down what you like and what you don’t, so if it’s not working, we can tweak it. If there’s not a perfect planner for you on the market already, I can help you customize one. There’s nothing wrong with being picky as hell. I don’t go for that right away because they tend to be pricey and it sucks when what you think you want and what actually plays nice with your brain aren’t the same thing. Hopefully this way saves you some money and some headache.”

A lot of my meetings I do by phone or video chat, but Lois works close to my apartment and it turns out we both like sushi and boba tea, so we’ve started doing our meetings over lunch. It’s nice.

“This is awesome,” she says, flipping through the pages. I can practically see the stickers and washi and pens and clips dancing through her brain already, and I can’t wait. “I’ve always liked the idea of a planner, but I never had the patience to go through a whole bunch of them and figure out which one would actually work best, so I always ended up using them for like a day and going back to my Post-its.”

“Hey, Post-its are awesome, right? But for one-off reminders that you can stick on your fridge or the edge of your monitor. Somewhat less than ideal for organizing your entire life.”

“Ugh, exactly. You’re so freaking smart.”

I have to laugh. “Smarter than a box of rocks, anyway. But it’s more about paying attention and translating people’s strengths and weaknesses into systems that emphasize the former and minimize the latter. I’ve been doing this for a while, so I’ve usually got a good baseline of where to start depending on what people struggle with the most.”

Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I’ve been able to help her, and will hopefully be able to help her more. Super satisfying. As is this almond milk tea with tapioca pearls. Cold, creamy, and sweet, I suck some more through my straw and get the ideal number of bubbles with it, which is obviously three. Fight me.

“Well, I think you’re brilliant. Between you and Doctor Campbell…” She trails off and looks up at me, pursing her lips conspiratorially. “He’s real cute, isn’t he?”

I almost inhale my boba. That’d be mortifying. I can see it now:Billionaire Heiress to the Patrick Enterprises Fortune Chokes to Death on Tapioca Pearls.Not today, motherfuckers. I pound against my chest with a fist and swallow.

“He is an objectively good-looking man, yes.”

“But not your type? Not even with that accent? God, I think it’s killer.”

Can she not see the flames emanating from my face?

“I’ve known Doctor Campbell for a very long time,” I say carefully because I can’t admit my real feelings for Lowry, but I’m not going to outright lie. Especially when she’s sharing. I think we could be friends.

“Oh yeah? How do you know him anyway? He never said.”

Of course he wouldn’t have. Because privacy.

“I was his patient back in the day. He saved my life.”

“Oh, wow.” She really does look impressed as she dips a piece of cucumber maki into the soy sauce/ginger/wasabi concoction she’s mixed together with her chopsticks. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s good at his job, like you. But still, that’s cool.”

“Yep. Very cool.”

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