I broke eye contact with him. I was awkward at parties. In truth, I felt more alone in social gatherings than I did when I was actually alone. Besides, I’d never gone to a party without my two wingmen.

“Think about it. No pressure.” His voice had taken on a different tone now. One that seemed to convey meaning, as if he knew what I was thinking.

“Party! Party! Party!” I whipped my head around when I heard the chant. Two other water polo guys were running up to me. Why were they coming toward me?

“Dude, nice catch! See you at the party!” the one guy almost shouted in my face and then they both rushed over, tackled Jake, and hoisted him onto their shoulders.

Jake turned to me as he was being carried away and shot me a smile followed by a small shrug. I didn’t quite know how to interpret that.

“I got invited to a party tonight,” I said, sinking my spade into the soil. We’d uprooted all the succulents and were now putting them back into the soil in a swirling pattern. Dr. Stride, who insisted I call her Vicki now, looked up at me, soil smeared across her rounded face. “Are you going?”

“Nah, don’t think so.” I tried to make it sound like I was somewhat irritated that I’d been invited to the party. Somewhat put out. I was too cool for stupid water polo parties. My artistic sensibilities were beyond all that.

Vicki stopped what she was doing and looked straight at me. She didn’t believe me. I could see it in her intense gaze. I’d done enough therapy in my life to understand that look. The look they give when they know there’s more to a story than meets the eye. I put my hand on my hip defiantly, ready to challenge her. But when she looked down at my hand, I released it, giving up my show of bravado.

“Okay, okay. I know what you’re thinking,” I blurted.

“What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking that despite my nonchalant act here, that actually, when it comes down to it, I do want to go to the party in some way. Deep down inside.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“Parties intimidate me. I feel panicky and nervous at them, but at the same time, I want to go to them, even though I say I don’t. I don’t know, it’s like I want the things I tell myself I don’t want because I’m afraid of getting them, or not getting them, or something.”

“That was profound.” She smiled.

I shrugged.

“The best therapist in the world is the one right inside you.” She pointed at me.

“You know that sounded totally cheesy, right?”

“Sometimes we therapists can be cheesy.”

“Yeah, with your succulent analogies and strange labia art hanging on the wall.”

“Labia art?”