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She holds up her pen as though she’s ready to start taking notes. “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

As if she doesn’t already know. Why must she keep up this pretense that she doesn’t know mundane details about me already?

“No, I’m an only child. When I say family, I include the Brennans. They’re like my extended family. When my mother died, my father’s best friend and his wife jumped in to help raise me. They’re like my surrogate parents. My best friend, Charlotte, is their daughter. I practically lived at their house growing up.” Dr. Clawson looks at me, perplexed. “Are they causing trouble with the wedding plans?”

“No, they’re supportive. I’d be lost without them. Well, almost all of them.”

She cocks her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”

“Charlie has a twin brother, Chase. We have a cantankerous relationship. It isn’t important. He’s not worth the breath it takes to talk about him.” Just the thought of him tightens the knots forming in my back.

“Hmmm. How are things with your fiancé?” she asks.

I avoid her uncomfortable stare by focusing on my nails. I really need a manicure. “Henrik? Henrik and I are great.”

She makes notes on that blasted pad. “That’s good,” she says, not looking up. “Do you feel you have a strong relationship?”

“Haven’t you seen Sports Illustrated? We’re the greatest sports couple since my parents. I think I saw it in your waiting room if you want to read up on us.”

She looks up from her pad and smirks. “But do you feel you have a strong relationship? Communication? Support? Trust?”

I smooth an invisible wrinkle on my skirt. “Henrik and I are a strong match.”

“Hmmm,” she says, scribbling away.

Would it be inappropriate to stab her with that pen? “What does ‘hmmm’ mean?”

She finally puts down the legal pad. “Where do you feel your stress is coming from?”

“Life is stressful,” I quip.

“Arianna, I’m not the enemy. I’m not here to gather gossip, and I’m not going to judge you. Your fiancé said that you’re not eating or sleeping well. He said this is very uncharacteristic of you. Whatever you say in this room stays here. You can either make the most of your time with me and open up, or we can listen to the clock. The choice is entirely yours.”

While listening to the clock is tempting, if I’m going to pay five hundred dollars an hour, I might as well participate. I cross my legs and try to release the tension in my body. “I recently returned home after being abroad for two years. Coming back has stirred up a lot of issues that I thought were resolved. I’m confident they’ll settle down and everything will get back on track.”

“What sort of issues?”

I take a long sip of water. “As I’m sure you know, I’ve had some major life changes during the last two years. I thought my life had evolved and I’d left behind unsavory aspects of my past, but since I returned home, I’ve started thinking I haven’t really moved on at all.”

She looks at her watch. “Being obtuse only eats up the clock. It’s your dime.”

I roll my eyes and tap my fingers on the sofa. “I’m in love, and I despise it. Just thinking about it makes me physically ill. He’s obnoxious, arrogant, and self-absorbed. Thinking of him makes my blood boil. We can’t be in the same room without wanting to kill each other. Despite all this, I love him. He’s like a parasite I can’t seem to eradicate.”

She furiously takes notes again. “Your personalities are not compatible?”

“We’re too much alike is the problem,” I answer.

“Being too much alike doesn’t have to be a negative. If you work on your communication, you and Henrik can have a strong marriage.”

I squint my eyes at her. “Henrik?” I ask. “This has nothing to do with Henrik.”

She puts down her pad and furrows her brow. “I’m sorry. I’m confused.”

“Chase. I’m talking about Chase Brennan. I’ve tried everything I can think of to expel him from my life, but I’m still in love with him.” I look at the clock. “Time’s up. Thanks for stirring all this up. I can’t say I’m feeling better.”

She places her pad and pen on the end table. “It often takes more than one visit for patients to see improvement. Since we’ve identified the source of your stress, we can really start to make progress.” She looks at the MacBook on the table next to her. “You have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow. We can pick up then.”

Slamming the door to Dr. Clawson’s office behind me, I storm down the hallway. Taking my stress out on the elevator button, I push it over and over, trying to will the doors to open. Cursing the elevator allows me to ignore what just transpired, but once the car arrives, memories from the appointment overtake my thoughts. I just admitted, out loud, that I’m still in love with Chase. It’s no longer an errant thought floating around in my mind. I’ve admitted it. To a perfect stranger.

Once the words passed my lips, it made my feelings real. It’ll be hard to rationalize continuing my engagement to Henrik now. For months I’ve told myself our engagement is a good thing. On paper, we’re the perfect match. We complement each other… We’re good together; we understand each other. Few people in the world could relate to the lives we lead. But I’m not in love with him.

I’ve never told Henrik that I love him, and that fact hasn’t really seemed to bother him. Shouldn’t that say something? He tells me he loves me all the time, but he throws the word love around as if it’s going out of style. He loves everything and everyone—that’s just his personality. Nothing about his feelings for me make me feel as though I’m on a higher plane than his best friend, his dog, or the guy who cuts his hair. He loves us all, until something shiny catches his eye. Then he loves that too.

Distracted by my thoughts, I walk to the wrong car in the parking lot. Red convertibles are a dime a dozen in California. After getting a dirty look from bitchy bimbo who acted as though I was casing her car, I pull out my key fob and keep pushing it until I see my car’s lights flash. That’s how frazzled I am—I confused a beat-up Miata for my Spyder.

Perhaps I’m not fit for rush hour just yet. The last thing I need is to get into another accident because I couldn’t stop thinking about Chase. That would just make me hate him more. If only hating him absolved me from loving him.

I put the top down and bask in the sun, searching for relief from a flood of Vitamin D. After twenty minutes, my mind is still racing, the humidity is making my curly hair frizzy, and I’m antsy. Sitting in this parking lot is just making me worse.

Instead of driving home, I end up in Charlie’s driveway. This is one of the few times I’m thankful she knows about Chase and me. Loving your best friend’s brother makes things complicated, to say the least. That’s why Chase and I kept our relationship a secret from everyone. Our lives are so intertwined that we feared if things went sour, we’d lose more than each other. It’s a good thing we had that foresight, because the way we ended would have torn everyone apart.

I never intended to tell anyone—it was going to be my deep dark burden to bear. But one drunk and embarrassing evening, Charlie and her new husband, Spencer, pulled me out of a bar, and I let it all come out. I blame it all on Johnny Walker and Kenny Rogers. And Chase, of course. Somehow, all the wrongs in the world manage to be his fault. I’m excellent at playing six degrees of how Chase is to blame.

Before I knock on the red door of her white Colonial in Pacific Heights, I soak in her exceptional view of the Golden Gate. While coming back to San Francisco after a two-year hiatus has clearly stirred up drama, I sure missed its beauty. There’s no place like home.

She opens the door while I’m staring at the pink hues of the sunset and says, “Stop gawking. You look like a tourist. It’s just a bridge.” I turn around, and she pulls me into a hug. “How was the shrink?”

I drop my purse and jacket on the table in the foyer and make my way to the living room. “I feel shrunk. Actually, I feel like my brain is on the spin cycle.”

I make myself comfortable on the sofa while Charlie goes to the kitchen. She returns with a bottle of water for me and a glass of wine for her. I adore her and Spencer’s house. It’s full of light, clean lines, and vibrant art. Charlie has impeccable taste.

“Did she make you lie down on a couch and talk about your childhood?” she asks.

“The couch was incredibly uncomfortable and red, which struck me as odd. I would have expected calming colors. Anyway, I laid down the law on that subject. My therapy will not be a fishing expedition about my childhood. She respected that. More or less.” I open my bottle and take a sip. “Henrik actually called her and told her how worried he is.”

She winks. “That’s Henrik, for you. He’s quite the catch, you know. Or so he tells me every time I see him.”

Charlie’s never loved Henrik. She likes him well enough, just not with me. I suspect she hopes Chase and I will get back together, but she’s never said that.

“So what’s gotcha all rattled?” she says. “Riky and I don’t often agree, but you’ve definitely not been you since you’ve come back.”

I take a deep breath and prepare myself. The words explode out of me in one long purge. “I’m still in love with Chase. I don’t want to love him. I hate him. I hate him more because I love him. I hate myself for how I feel, but I can’t help it. I love him.” I smother myself with a raw silk accent pillow. “I’m a damn U2 song!”

She fetches a coaster and puts her wine on the glass coffee table before scooting closer to me on the sofa. “You never talk about him or ask about him. I never asked because I figured that chapter of your life was closed. Have you two even been in the same room since my wedding?”

As comfortable as her sofa is, I still can’t seem to get comfortable. I shift around but cannot settle. Perhaps it’s the subject matter. I hold the pillow in my lap and trace the seam with my finger. “No. I’ve been conveniently unavailable for every holiday and birthday since then. I’ve kept him as far from my mind as possible and dodged any places that remind me of him.”

“Honey,” she says, “that’s not moving on. That’s avoiding.”

I let my head fall back against the suede sofa. “Call it what you will. It kept him from the forefront of my mind. But now that I’m home, I feel like he’s everywhere. We have too much history here. Every time I turn around, I’m hit with a memory. Gah! I wish I could just have him surgically removed from my mind!” I raise my index finger. “Maybe I should try hypnosis. I don’t really buy into that crap, but at this point, anything is better than living with him invading my brain.”

She picks up her glass of wine and swirls it. “Do you think you just miss the memory of him?”

“I wish I could say that I’m just being nostalgic, but it’s more than that. I miss him. Our connection, while dysfunctional at times, was powerful, and I’m not sure it ever could be replicated. With everything going on with Daddy, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve wished I could pick up the phone and call Chase. Even if I did, the second I heard his voice, I know all that would come out would be the anger I’ve been holding on to.”

“So what are you going to do about Henrik?”

I shrug. “What can I do? While I may not be in love with Henrik, we have a lot of fun together. We’re compatible. I don’t get the urge to gouge his eyes out with a melon scooper, unlike your brother.”

She fans herself with the pillow from my lap. “Please stop! Your relationship is far too steamy for my delicate sensibilities. Compatible is the new erotic.” She drops the pillow, and her face turns deadpan. “Oh, wait. No, it’s not. Compatible is the new boring and destined for infidelity and divorce.”

“We don’t fight. Ever. Even when we disagree, we work it out calmly. That must count for something.”

She holds up two fingers. “One, you live on different continents. When you two were actually in the same hemisphere, you were bored senseless. It wasn’t as peachy as you’re making it sound. If you recall, you texted me constantly about how miserable you were. And two, you and Henrik have no passion. No chemistry. No heat. Take it from your married friend who has sex every night—you need heat!”

As I nod, I peel the label from my bottle of water.

“See,” she says, pointing at me. “That’s a sign you’re sexually frustrated.”

I put the bottle down. “You shouldn’t buy bottled water, anyway. It’s bad for the environment.”

She sticks her tongue out at me. “Enough about my beverage selection. What are you going to do about your feelings for my brother?”

I wince. “That is a pointless conversation. I may still be in love with him, but we’re toxic for each other. I don’t think I can forgive him for all that he has done. We’d never get past all the damage. Plus there’s the little issue that is us both marrying other people. Getting back together isn’t even a possibility, so get it out of your head.”

She pats my back. “It’s not my head I’m worried about, my lovely.” She lets her comment sink in for a few moments. “I’ll say this. I won’t let you marry someone you don’t love just because you’re a good match on paper. I know you have your reasons for continuing this sham of a relationship, but if you think I’m going to let my best friend make the biggest mistake of her life just because it’s an appropriate next step, you’ve got another thing coming. I will take that wedding down in a heartbeat.” She points at me. “You know I will.”

I have no response, so I lay my head back and close my eyes, trying to block out the cyclone of thoughts running through my head.