Page 5 of Vallaverse: Twist
“Would you prefer more small talk and pleasantries?”
I hate small talk. And pleasantries.
“No.” I sigh again. “I'm just… I don't know. It's fine, though.”
Dr. Walks scribbles something on his notebook and takes another sip. “Do you already know what your next venture will be?”
Stretching my leg out, I tip my head against the back of the chair to examine the scalloped pattern on the ceiling. “There's a kid across the country. He wants to be a boxer or a fighter or something like that. His manager has contacted me several times.”
“Legal or illegal?”
“What? The kid? He's an adult, if that's what you're asking.”
Dr. Walks smiles. “The fighting.”
“Oh, that. I suppose it's legal. I don't have any reason to believe otherwise.”
“Might want to check on that. When will you call this list what it really is?”
“A distraction?”
He takes another long drink while he waits for me to admit the truth.
“Atonement?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “It's both of those things. Sure. But what else?”
I sigh. Heavily. Then I stand up. “Guilt?”
Pacing gives the sudden restless energy crawling through my body a place to go, but Dr. Walks isn't phased by it.
“That, as well. Anything else?”
“You tell me, Doc.”
“It's better if you come to it on your own.”
I cut my eyes to him. “I'm paying you to help me come to it.”
He chuckles. “That's what I'm doing, Brooks. You're almost there.”
The list he's talking about will never end, and I will never make a dent in it. I was a terrible person ten years ago. I know that. Idon't lie to myself about it. It's a fact, and I won't hide from it. I did terrible things to horrible people. Worse than they deserved in some cases. I kind of lost touch with myself and my limits after I let go of—
“Avoidance,” I say sharply when Laz’s name almost escapes.
Dr. Walks nods. “Avoidance.”
“I'm not avoiding anything,” I argue, thoroughly convinced that I believe what I'm saying. “I know my past. I'm just trying to do some good to even out the scales a little. That's all.”
The good doctor blinks at me and takes another sip from his bucket.
I sit back down in the chair, huffing and pulling on my earlobe.
He takes another drink and waits.
“I can do good things without it being about… something it isn't.”
“I would agree with you if that was true, at least in your case.”
