Read Online Shhh...Mack's Side by Jettie Woodruff - Free Book Online

with me.”
    “You asked someone to stay with you while you went off your medication to be more creative?”
    “Yes.”
    “What, you just have the guy on speed dial? Hey, I’m going off my meds for a few days, wanna watch me work? I’ll make it worth your while? How do you ask someone something like that?”
    “Why are you being so sarcastic about it? I’m fine, the job’s done and it all worked out.”
    I jumped when her hands came down hard on her desk in front of me. I hadn’t even seen her stand up.
    “Because you’re flirting with all kinds of bad things, McKenzie. You could have jumped off the top of a building, believing you could fly.”
    “I did do that. Colton stopped me. I had it under control.”
    Lila shook her head, exasperated with me. I got what she was saying, but she was worried about something that never happened. Why be mad about it after the fact?
    “You have to promise me not to do that again. You can never just stop taking your medicine cold turkey like that again. Promise me you won’t.”
    “Okay,” I said, making the empty promise. I couldn’t promise that.
    “Tell me about the hours you were high.”
    “How do you know what it feels like?” I asked the silly question. She was a shrink. It was her job to know that.
    “Is that what it is? You feel high?”
    “Yes, like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Well, maybe you have,” I joked. “You were probably into all sorts of things back in the sixties, huh?”
    “I’ve done my share of experimenting.”
    “I needed to do it. I needed to feel the high in order to come down.”
    “What does that mean, McKenzie? What did you need to come down from?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know how to get you to understand.”
    “Tell me about Colton.”
    “What about him.”
    “Do you like him?”
    I shrugged both shoulders and snarled my lips. “I don’t know. I don’t want a relationship with him if that’s what you mean. I don’t need to be in a relationship to define who I am,” I assured her smartly, spinning an ink pin around and around on her shiny desktop.
    “I never said you did. You’re very defensive today.”
    “No I’m not. I’m not paying you to talk about Colton. There’s nothing to talk about. There’s nothing going on with Colton and me.”
    “Oh that’s right, McKenzie. I forgot. You’re here to talk about your childhood again. How many times have you told this story?” Lila asked, standing with a bit of a struggle. What the hell?
    I didn’t respond. That’s not what I did, was it? Lila wasn’t expecting a response. She continued with her synopsis on the last twelve years of my life. “Why don’t we start where you left off last week? Tell me why you went to counseling the first time. You were twelve, right?
    I swallowed, contemplating what she was doing.
    “Right?”
    “Yes. I was twelve.”
    “Go on. Why? Why would you be in counseling at twelve?”
    “I wanted to go.”
    “You wanted to go? Why?”
    “I thought something was wron g with me. I couldn’t sleep. I would go days on very few hours of sleep. I still had to keep up my good-girl routine for Kyle.”
    “Kyle? We graduated from Gia’s dad to Kyle?”
    I ignored her with a dirty look. “I had to keep my grades up and study. Gia made me run with her every single day. Five miles, seven days a week. When I wasn’t working on some dance routine with Gia, I was working hard to keep my grades up.”
    “So you just went to your parents and asked them to take you to counseling?”
    “Yes, but they didn’t let me at first.”
    I rested my chin on my fist and continued to spin the pen in circles, feeling the rejection as if it was right in front of me.
    “I had just gotten home from practice. I had an English exam the following morning. Gia wanted to go over the new routine one more time. I didn’t want to do the routine again. I wanted to sleep. I just wanted to sleep.”
     
    “Mom,” I quietly said, seeing her in the kitchen.