The Lies That Bind

39: Someday

"You've lost your mind."

Cooper groaned. "You're not listening."

Vincent—who'd been staring blithely at Cooper for the last ten minutes while he passionately recounted his theory that Calla was not, in fact, dead—reached for his phone. "Um, yeah. I'm calling your mother."

Cooper slapped his hand on top of the phone. "You are not calling my mother."

"Oh yes, I am."

"Oh no, you're not."

Vincent's eyes narrowed. "Cooper, so help me God, I will pick you up like a little doll and lock you in your bedroom."

Cooper paused, knowing quite well Vincent was physically capable of doing exactly that. "Vincent," he tried, attempting to sound somewhat reasonable. "Just...hear me out."

"Here we go," Vincent groaned, throwing up his hands. "Dude, I heard you. I heard you loud and clear. You rifled around in Calla's shit and, shocker, you found her work schedule—"

"It wasn't her work schedule," Cooper corrected him, "it was a totally random obituary in the newspaper—"

"—which happened to be related to her fucking job," Vincent continued icily, "so you ran your happy ass across town and harassed some homeless guy about his Goodwill fit—"

"Not a Goodwill fit!" Cooper protested. "My. Halloween. Costume!"

"—and now," Vincent shouted over him, "you're going to spend the rest of your fucking life pining over someone who is definitely fucking dead—"

Cooper swore, turning on his heel. "You're hopeless, you know that?"

"No." Vincent caught up to him in two strides and grabbed Cooper by the shoulder. "You are hopeless, and it's really starting to scare me, Coop, because I don't know what to do at this point," he said, voice breaking.

That small weakness banked the flames of Cooper's fervor. He deflated, hating the distressed light in Vincent's eyes. "I just—" I want you to understand. But of course Vincent didn't understand. Cooper wasn't explaining any of it right. And, if he was being brutally honest, it wasn't like there was much to explain to begin with.

A newspaper clipping and a lipgloss stain on some homeless guy's jacket wasn't much to go on. No wonder Vincent was looking at him like he'd lost his everloving mind.

Cooper dragged his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"You don't have to be sorry. I just want you to try to move on, like you promised you would." Vincent released his grip on Cooper's arm. "Would it be the worst thing in the world to...I don't know, talk to somebody?"

"I'm talking to you."

"I mean a professional," Vincent said slowly, wincing at Cooper's sharp look. "It doesn't have to be a big deal. You've been through a lot of shit, man. It might not be a bad idea to let someone in. Someone who actually knows what they're doing, unlike me."

Cooper wanted to reject his proposal outright, but then he took a second to actually step away from the problem and view it from a distance, and he had to admit—a professional probably could help him. But how was he supposed to talk to a stranger about what he'd done? The terrible, awful choices he'd made? Wouldn't a therapist have some legal obligation to, like...report his crimes to the authorities, at the very least? Crimes like conspiracy, aiding and abetting, murder—the voluntary kind, no less.