Page 5 of Follow Me
Chapter Two
Three Weeks Later, Early November
That Monday morning, Mal was not looking forward to today’s joint therapy session with Kel for a lot of reasons.
The main one being she knew how upset Kel would be at the end of it.
She hadn’t told her therapist she was doing this. It’d be blindsiding both her and Kel, but Mal had tried everything else.
She knew the odds if she couldn’t get her shit together.
Maybe it’d be better this way.
He can always find someone else if I’m not strong enough.
She spent the morning gathering her things, packing everything in her room, because she wanted to be ready to check out as soon as possible after the appointment. Either Kel would be taking her home or she’d be calling a cab or…something. Or Niall, Doyle, or Doug would come get her, but she wanted to beoutof here.
The idea had hit her at the Halloween party three weeks ago while she watched their friends playing. The next afternoon, after Kel returned her to the facility in Tampa and she was alone in her room once more, she’d called Doyle. Him, because he’d worked with her early on, not long after her miscarriage and it became clear she was having deeper problems. He’d also been the one to tell her and Kel she needed more help than he was able to give her once it was apparent she was hitting a downward spiral.
Doyle wasn’t able to talk to her right then, because he’d been about to catch a plane with his husband, but he gave her Niall’s number. Niall was willing to hear her out and consider her request. After a couple of days of thinking about it and talking it over with Doyle and Doug, Niall had agreed they’d take her on as a client—all three of them working together. They all worked out of the same clinic in Sarasota.
Somethinghadto change, and it could only happen within her. She knew a plateau when she felt one—having been through several already.
This time was different.
This would be herlastplateau, one way or another.
She’d spent most of the past three weeks since the party planning and in daily phone sessions with Niall, Doyle, and, even briefly, with Doug, who she hadn’t met in person yet but already liked a lot from her conversations with him. Doug had even jokingly dubbed the three of them her “therapy fairy godfathers.”
She also hadn’t told her main therapist, or her medical team, about her plans. The men weren’t thrilled with that option, but they didn’t disagree with her logic, that her current medical team would try to talk her out of it and probably even try to use Kel to pressure her into staying.
Mal made sure she was waiting for Kel downstairs when he arrived, because she didn’t want him up in her room and seeing she was packed. He’d immediately know something was up, and she didn’t want him to have time to formulate a plan to talk her into changing her mind.
Which was something he had the ability to do, even though she knew it came from a place of complete love and worry.
Even the way he hugged her when he arrived, as if afraid to touch her, broke her heart.
I did this to us.
The way he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead and paused, inhaling, as if desperately glad to have her in his arms but terrified to break her.
It all shattered her heart. She couldn’t live like this anymore and knew the path to her recovery wasn’t here. She’d done all she could here, with the tools these people provided for her.
It was time to try something outside the box.
Once they were in Dr. Susan Abrahms’ office, Mal sat through the therapist’s summary to Kel of how the week had gone, Mal’s stats. When Kel learned Mal hadn’t gained any weight in the past week, only maintained her current weight, Mal could barely stand to see the disappointment flash across Kel’s face, just for him to school his features almost immediately.
Afraid to show Mal his true emotions.
Once Susan finished that part of the appointment, Mal took her opportunity before she could chicken out.
“I think I need some time alone,” she quietly said.
Kel and Susan exchanged a confused glance. “Right now?” Susan asked.
Mal shook her head, unable to look at Kel and instead focusing on her hands in her lap. “I mean completely.”
“What are you saying?” Susan asked.
