Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

I asked, sitting up. “I mean, what’s the appropriate thing to do here? Okay, maybe I’m jumping the gun, but I’ve never dealt with this kind of thing before.”
    “Sophie, you’re not dying,” she said, her tone rather curt and uncharacteristically impatient.
    “This thing could rupture tonight while I sleep,” I said with a huff, brushing my hair from my eyes. “Let’s just agree to disagree on the whole dying thing.”
    She scribbled more notes.
    “So do I tell this guy about me, or what?” I asked, praying she’d give me the perfect answer.
    “I can’t tell you what to do,” she said, tugging her thick glasses off and setting them aside. She uncrossed and crossed her long legs. “I can only help you work through things and figure out the answers on your own.”
    Sounded like a bullshit answer to me. Why was I coming here? “Oh.”
    “So, let’s figure this out,” she said, sensing my disappointment. “You like him, but have you gone on a date yet?”
    “No.”
    “Sounds like a crush. An innocent crush.”
    “So I shouldn’t drop the bomb yet.”
    She smiled. “You said you didn’t know his last name, right? No need to go delving into your medical history with him. He’s not a doctor, is he?”
    I scrunched my nose. “I have no idea what he does for a living. Okay. You’re right. I’m getting way ahead of myself. I won’t worry about it.”
    She offered a gentle smile, studying me. Analyzing me. “How have you been feeling, Sophie? Physically?”
    “I’ve had some headaches this last week, but my vision’s okay. Nothing I can’t tolerate.”
    “Are you taking the medications Dr. Bledsoe prescribed?”
    “I am. I forgot once, but I haven’t forgotten since.”
    “Good, good. How have you been feeling emotionally since your diagnosis?”
    “Trying to keep a positive attitude,” I said, eyebrows lifted.
    “What do your parents think about all of this?”
    My parents had no clue. They were still shell-shocked from The Incident. Nori and Rossi had died two year ago, and I wasn’t about to tell them I might be next. My parents were ghosts of their former selves, and I did the only thing I thought might help them by giving them plenty of space.
    “They don’t know,” I answered, voice low. “I can’t tell them yet.”
    “Why do you feel you can’t tell them?” she asked, flipping to the next page in her legal pad.
    “It would be too much for them,” I said.
    “Why don’t we put yourself in their shoes for a moment, shall we? Imagine you have a daughter who’s been given a very serious diagnosis. She’s about to have surgeries and procedures. Wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you want to be there for your daughter?”
    I swallowed the lump that had formed in my dry throat as the walls began to close in around me. It was my fault Nori and Rossi were killed. My parents never came out and said it, but we all knew. I saw it in their eyes. I couldn’t go home without feeling weighed down by a thousand pounds of shame. I couldn’t brag about accomplishments. I couldn’t tell them what I was up to.
    Words unspoken consumed the silence between what remained of the Salinger family. If I said I got a new job or sold some art, we’d have all thought, “Rossi and Nori would’ve graduated from college by now.” If I said I’d been commissioned to do a painting, we’d have all thought, “Rossi would’ve landed a contract with a ballet company by now.”
    It’d been two years, and my parents were still stuck reliving that awful night over and over again, refusing to let go. They carried burdens of sadness and longing, disappointed in themselves for raising good daughters who made bad choices. In their eyes, they had failed us. My father drowned his sorrows in a fifth of whiskey every night while my mother hid hers under the fifty pounds she’d gained in the last two years. My burdens were far heavier than any of theirs: never-ending guilt, shame, remorse, and anger.