Page 37 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes
My adrenaline was stuck in fight-or-flight, but mostly fight. Every day inconveniences were sending me through the roof, to where I was legitimately considering injuring someone. This slightly concerned me. It wasn’t as if I lacked the resources to cover up a murder, but I tried to limit my body count to those who truly deserved it.
But being around Butch is making me want to be less of a homicidal maniac…
Snapping my eyes open again, I decidedthiswould be my reframe, in honor of today’s session. Schooling my face into a mask of calm, I opened the door to my therapist’s office and slipped inside.
“Ah, Xander! Wonderful to see you.” Dr. Ownit beamed from across the cramped waiting room where he was watering the lone, dying Ficus. “Please, make yourself comfortable. I’ll be in shortly.”
As usual, I did my best to ignore the disarray of his office as I sat on the stiff vinyl couch. Besides the decor being a bit too 1970s wood-paneled basement for my taste, Ownit also employed the ‘organized piles’ filing system that made my eye twitch.
He hustled inside a minute later, clutching his signature‘I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent’mug full of peppermint tea. Ownit rarely sipped on it during our sessions, which made me wonder if he was simply attempting a budget version of aromatherapy. I couldn’t say if it worked one way or the other, but at the moment, the pungent odor was grating on my nerves.
Good luck with me today, doc.
What I liked most about my therapist—besides his Freud-like Austrian accent—was that he missed nothing. It was in such sharp contrast to the mess he surrounded himself with, but I appreciated how it essentially forced me to cut the shit when I was in his space.
Knowing him, enduring the mess may be a test.
“Thank you for waiting,” he brusquely said, setting the mug on the wooden coffee table and picking up my file before taking the seat opposite me.
I couldn’t help fixating on the fact he’d placed his mug one inch away from the coaster. The ceramic was wet—as if it had recently been washed—and the moisture was going to leave a mark on the wood. Just as I debated moving the mug for him, my gaze flickered up to Ownit’s face to find him watching me shrewdly.
Fuck.
Definitely a test.
“I met someone!” I blurted out, desperate to focus on Butch and his sunshiny-ness instead of my doom and gloom. The last thing I needed was to fly off the handle and unalive my therapist—partly because I begrudgingly respected the man.
But mostly because I don’t need the headache of finding a replacement.
Ownit’s bushy eyebrows practically took flight. “Oh! Well, that’s…”—he shuffled through my file—“newfor you, isn’t it?”
I laughed and slung an arm over the back of the couch, smugly delighted I’d thrown him off his game. “Most definitely. We only just met this week—on a dating app of all things—but I’ve already given up my lifelong commitment to being unattached by asking him to be exclusive with me.”
“Fascinating,” Ownit murmured, probably already composing the research paper he’d write on me in his head. “And what is it about this man, this ah…”
“Butch,” I supplied, noticing the tension I’d been tamping down roil beneath the surface again at the mention of his name. “He’s…”
I considered what itwasabout him I found so attractive, besides looking like a lifetime supply of snacks. We hadn’t known each other long—despite me feeling like I’d known him forever—but I’d already realized there was so much more to Butch than what he displayed on the surface. He possessed core characteristics I’d never given much thought to before, but now felt like I couldn’t live without.
Sharply inhaling, I immediately realized my mistake in bringing this up in the unforgiving setting of my therapist’s office. “He’s everything that I’m not.”
Because he was merciless, Ownit just straight-up called out the elephant in the room. “What is he that youthinkyou’re not, Xander?”
I blew out a slow breath as my focus started to dangerously tunnel on the man sitting across from me. “He’s kind, and open, and has a natural sweetness that I don’t think anyone could corrupt.”
Not even me.
“His smile just lights up the room,” I gritted out, feeling my fingers start to weirdly tingleagain. “And he wants to experience things—experiencelife—in this full-body, wholehearted way that I could never…” I choked on my words, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
Ownit was leaning so far forward he’d practically crossed the table and joined me on the couch. “What makes you think you’re not capable of those things as well?”
Because I’m a villain.
“I’m just not,” I croaked. “And I never will be.” My heart was pounding, adrenaline coursing through my system as my vision started to go red.
How are things ever going to work between us?
Completely oblivious to the imminent danger he was in, my therapist calmly sat back to write a few notes in my file. “That’s simply your core beliefs causing a cognitive distortion. Did he agree?”
