Page 103 of Heartbeat

“She apologized,” I told her.

Perhaps confoundment?

“For what?”

“Not paying attention.”

Dr. Foster looked a bit flummoxed. That wasn’t difficult to decipher.

“That’s…that’s good, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “It’s great.”

“Why say it like that?”

“I have a problem with convenience.”

“You think she didn’t mean it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do you think she shouldn’t have said it?”

“I’m saying it changes nothing.”

“What would it change?”

I refused to repeat myself. Instead, I let my eyes wander the room until finding a lithograph of Virgil addressing the centaurs. Dr. Foster had a thing for Dante, and although she had several lithographs from the Divine Comedy, this was one that always struck me as being particularly beautiful. Not to mention it was kind of interesting for a psychiatrist to have more lithographs of Inferno than Purgatory and Paradise combined.

“Thomas.”

“What?” I asked, annoyed.

“Why are you mad?”

“I’m not mad,” I lied.

“Who’s playing dumb now?”

“Ah, so you admit it?”

She smiled, raising both eyebrows.

“I can’t hurt him,” I confessed.

“What makes you think you will?”

I took a deep breath. “I always do.”

“Isn’t he different?”

“Yes,” I was quick to say.

“Maybe, so are you.”

“Three years…” I mumbled, slightly shaking my head. To myself, more than to her.

“It’s a long time.”

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