There was no doubt that I was nervous, and having to wait in the shrink’s office by myself wasn’t helping. There was a large bay window that overlooked the parking lot and a sad, dwarf plum tree. There was a pile of books on a bookshelf that looked like most of the self-help section of Barnes and Noble, a couple of wingback chairs, and a couch.
Of course there was a couch.
The whole set up was obviously intended to make a patient feel calm, which made me really nervous. Frankly, I thought Yolanda might be right—ten years was a long time. What could yakking about this shit really do for me now?
Maybe she’d get me some good drugs.
No, she probably wouldn’t—recovering addict and all.
So what could she really do for me? Was I supposed to talk enough to cause a panic attack? If I talked enough and panicked enough, would I eventually run out of attacks? Could it kill me if I had too many?
What the fuck was a panic attack, anyway? And post-traumatic stress—what the fuck did any of that shit mean? I thought that was just for guys who served in wars overseas.
I looked out the window at the little tree and wondered if I could climb down it and get the fuck away before either the doctor or Damon figured out what I had done. I probably didn’t have time, but the window did look like it would open easily enough.
I touched the cool glass and then moved down to the brass handle.
“Nice ink,” a female voice said from behind me.
I turned around and looked into the pale blue eyes of Erin, the woman I met in the laundromat. It was the same chick who had—before I hooked up with Tria—followed me to Feet First. We had drinks. I dragged her back to the locker room for a quick fuck, but things didn’t exactly work out.
“Well, this is going to be a little awkward,” Erin said as she tossed her long, straight blonde hair over her shoulder.
“You have to be fucking kidding me,” I mumbled.
“I should have recognized your name,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I could have avoided this.”
“What do you mean, avoided it?”
“I can’t do this, Liam,” she said. “I can’t treat you. Though it wasn’t much, we do have a little…history. It wouldn’t be appropriate. I’ll have to call around and find someone else who can work with you.”
No. Shit no! I couldn’t let that happen. I’d barely made it this far.
Just getting to this office had been painful enough. If I had to start all over again—make another appointment, get to the building, go into the office—I’d never make it. It would delay everything, too. I had to get better as quickly as possible for Tria and…and the baby.
I couldn’t let her just brush me off, not for such a stupid fucking reason.
“If we’d fucked, I could see your point,” I said, “but we didn’t. As I recall, my dick didn’t work for you, so let’s just forget it and get going with this.”
“We can’t, Liam.”
“Why not?”
“I’m attracted to you,” she said bluntly.
“Well, I’m taken,” I replied. “So it doesn’t fucking matter.”
Erin sighed and leaned back in her chair. She shook her head slowly as she reached for the phone, but I wouldn’t let her blow me off that easily. I moved forward and placed my hand over the keypad of her desk phone before she could start dialing.
“Please?” I said. “The most wonderful woman in the world is pregnant. I’m a fucked-up junkie who can’t even think about her being that way without having a panic attack, and I don’t even know what the fuck a panic attack is. I need help. Please.”
Her lips tightened at the corners as she looked at me for a long moment.
“All right,” she said through her tight lips. “Three sessions. Let’s see how it works. If there is anything remotely awkward or unprofessional, you will transfer to another therapist. In the meantime, I will have Dr. Baynor locate one who fits your needs and is taking new patients, just in case.”
“Works for me,” I said.
“Then let’s begin.”
Shit. Now that she had agreed, I had no idea what to do. I kept my eyes on her as I walked over to the couch and timidly sat on the edge. I reached up and scratched the back of my head while I struggled to think of something to say. I finally just went with blunt.
“When I was in high school, my girlfriend died because of a miscarriage.”
I was never one to open up, but I knew I had to start somewhere.
Chapter 11—Ask the Question
It took a while—a long while—but I got it all out.
I only puked once.
Erin actually rescheduled the rest of her afternoon to let me stay there and go on for as long as I needed. After a fair amount of shaking and generally freaking out, I calmed myself down enough to keep her from insisting on hospitalization. With a bottle of water and a fresh trashcan at my feet, I sat on the couch and tried to keep my breathing steady.
“Tell me what’s happening in your head right now,” Erin said softly.
My insides were so torn up, I didn’t know what I was thinking or feeling. The desire to push the memories away was great, but I knew if I did that, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this shit. Being numb was a lot more comfortable—just like Pink Floyd said.
“I just…I…I don’t know.”
“Are you still remembering that day?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because it hurts too much.”
“It’s terrifying to see someone you love like that,” Erin said. “You realize this is a perfectly normal reaction to what happened, don’t you?”
“Ten years later?” I let out a single sharp guffaw.
“You’ve never dealt with it,” she said. “It might as well have happened yesterday.”
My chest rose and fell as I lost control of my breathing.
“Count with me,” Erin said.
“What?”
“Count with me,” she repeated. “Out loud. When we say the numbers, I want you to think about taking a pencil and writing the number down on a blue piece of paper each time. See it in your head as we go. Got it?”
“Um…okay.”
Not knowing what else to do when confronted with such a ridiculous request, I followed her lead. We counted slowly in unison until we reached fifty.
“Better?” she asked.
“A little,” I admitted.
“That’s your quick and easy way to get yourself under control,” she said. “Visualize the numbers as you count. Your symptoms seem to increase as your mind fixates on the horror of the memory. Thinking of something mundane and making yourself focus on it can snap your mind out of that mode.”
I nodded, not really sure if I believed her or not, but I couldn’t deny that I had calmed down. Maybe she was right. Shit, maybe they all were.
“So, was Baynor right?” I asked.
“Right about what?” Erin scratched on a legal pad with a pen.
“He said I had PTSD.”
“I think that is quite obvious, Liam.”
“Well, what the fuck does that mean?”
“It means,” she said, “that you have suffered through a very intense and tragic event. When memories of that event surface now, your adrenaline system overreacts and makes you extremely sensitive to the memories that frighten you.”
“I didn’t graduate high school, you know.” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“You aren’t stupid, Liam,” Erin said. “You are also clearly educated even if you don’t have a degree. Don’t bullshit me.”
I glanced away from her and stared out the window at the little tree.
“PTSD explains why you have extreme reactions to emotions,” she said. “Anything that causes you to remember what happened almost ten years ago sets off a set of responses in your brain—responses you haven’t been able to control. Do you have nightmares?”
I looked back at her.
“Not
really.”
“Did you use to?”
“Before getting doped up, yeah.”
“How did using heroin help?”
“It made me forget,” I said with a shrug. “Made me numb. It was better than thinking about it.”
“And what did you do after you stopped using?”
“I made myself not think about it.” I shrugged. “It took a bit of effort, especially in the beginning, but I just…didn’t. As long as I was punching something, I didn’t have to think about it.”
“So you’ve spent all this time not thinking about it and not dealing with it.”
“If I don’t think, why do I have to deal?” I challenged.
“You tell me,” she responded. “Do you really think how it has worked in the past is going to continue to work? You are here for a reason.”
“Tria.”
“And the child you are going to have together.”
I tensed a little before nodding.
“So…can you cure me?”
“Cure you?” she responded. “No, you’re going to have to do that yourself.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It means we’re going to start you on some pretty intensive therapy,” Erin said. “I want you to do a little research on a new drug being used to treat post-traumatic stress. There’s been a lot of research on specific neurotransmitters helping to inhibit some of the symptoms of PTSD. There are a couple that are too similar to the way heroin acts on the brain, and I don’t want to use those, considering your history, but there are other options. I’ll give you some websites to research, and we’ll decide together what drug therapy will work best for you.”
She rifled through her desk for a moment before handing me a couple of brochures.
“That will be the easy part.”
I glanced through the literature.
“Looks pretty fucking complicated to me.”
“The hard part will be what we do in this room,” she told me. “You have a lot of things wrapped up in that head of yours that need to come out. I have the feeling you also have a lot of misconceptions about what happened during that time, both because you were obviously traumatized by what happened to you and also because of your addiction. We’re going to try a little eye movement desensitization and reprocessing treatment as well.”
“Are you going to start speaking English at some point?”
“You are going to have to confront your family,” she said. “I would prefer we do it one at a time and as part of your sessions with me.”
“Why the fuck would I want to do that?”
“Because it’s going to be critical to understanding what you did and why,” Erin said. “Don’t worry about it for now—I just want you to understand what is coming up in the future.”
“This is bullshit,” I muttered.
Erin gave me a small smile as she leaned back in her chair.
“May I ask you something?” she finally said.
“Is there an option?”
“You said all of this began when your father threw you out of the house.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, what do you think the main theme of that conversation was?”
I narrowed my eyes and considered for a moment before answering.
“I said I wanted to man up and be a father, and he told me to get rid of it.”
Erin nodded her head.
“What did you say to Tria when she first told you she was pregnant?”
I scowled at her, not liking where this was going at all.
“That was different,” I said. “I know now—from some pretty horrific experience—how dangerous pregnancy can be. Tria’s younger, and she hasn’t been through any of this shit before. I was just trying to protect her.”
More nods from my therapist. It was starting to piss me off.
“So tell me this,” Erin said. “How do you think your father would justify his actions?”
My body stilled a little as some of the words he said to me all those years ago started bouncing around in my mental eardrums.
“You don’t know what you are saying, Liam! You’re young and you think the world is just going to fall into place for you, but I’m telling you it doesn’t work that way. You don’t have the benefit of years like I do, son. I’m only trying to keep you from making a horrible mistake that may haunt you the rest of your life…”
“Fuck you.” I stood up, walked across the room, and slammed the door as I walked out of her office. Damon stood up as soon as I entered the room. “I need to go home.”
Damon didn’t say a word as he drove me back to Michael’s house, and I wasn’t much in the mood for conversation, either. He drove around the circular driveway and halted the car at the bottom of the front steps. I paused in the back seat until he came around to open the door for me.
It struck me as odd how quickly I got used to that again. Ten years of not even owning a damn car, and after just a few days, I was already used to someone driving me around again. It felt weird and perfectly normal all at the same time.
I shook my head, marched up the steps, and dropped myself down on the living room couch. The lower level of the house was quiet, but I could hear voices coming from upstairs. Soon they grew louder, and Tria descended the steps with Michael and Chelsea.
“I thought I heard Damon pull up,” Michael said as he turned the corner and saw me on the couch. “How did it go?”
“It was total fucking bullshit,” I said immediately, “and I’m not going back.”
Michael cleared his throat and glanced from me to Tria to Chelsea. Tria narrowed her eyes a little and squished her lips together as she looked at me.
“I think I’ll let you handle this one,” Michael said. He took Chelsea’s hand and headed toward the door. “We have an engagement at the club this evening. Ben is here to cook until eight if you want him to make anything for you.”
They moved quickly out of the house as Tria came over and sat beside me. Before she could start into me, I leaned over and wrapped myself around her.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“Okay,” Tria replied. “We won’t.”
With my head tucked between Tria’s shoulder and neck, I tightened my arms around her and tried to push all the thoughts from my head. I didn’t want them there, but they seemed perfectly happy to march around in my brain and smash all the pretty flowers denial had planted.
Tria said nothing. She just trailed her fingers through my hair as I coiled against her. It was only a minute or two before the silence became too much.
“I hate that bitch.” I growled into Tria’s skin. I increased my grip and tried to push myself inside of her. It didn’t work, but it was warm.
“She can’t have been that bad,” Tria said. “You’re just overwhelmed. It’s okay. Today had to be the hardest part, right? I mean, the first day would be difficult—you don’t know each other, and you’re starting from scratch.”
“It’s the only part,” I replied. “I’m not going back.”
“Liam…”
“No,” I said. “I just want to stay here…with you…just like this.”
I closed my eyes and took a long, deep breath. Enveloped in her scent, I felt myself finally relax for the first time since I left the house with Damon. At least I wasn’t shaking anymore.
Tria placed her hand on the side of my face, and I turned slightly to press my lips into her palm. When I looked up, her eyes were sad. I reached up and ran a finger over her cheek.
“Don’t look like that,” I said quietly. “It just…it didn’t work out. I’ll try something else.”
“You have to try it more than once,” Tria said.
I growled in response.
“You need it,” she insisted. “You have to give her a couple of chances before you decide she isn’t going to work out. If you give it a real try, and you still hate her, we’ll find someone else.”
“You’d hate her
,” I said.
“I don’t think I would hate her.”
“She’s really pretty.” I knew I was probably treading on dangerously thin ice, but there were very few things in the world I wanted less at that moment than to go back into that woman’s office again. “Long, blonde hair and all sexy and shit.”
Tria shoved me back a bit, stood, and walked partway across the room.
“You’re trying to do what now? Make me jealous of your therapist? Seriously?”
“As far as I’m concerned, she’s my ex-therapist!”
“Liam, just cut it out, okay?” Tria crossed her arms as she looked at me. “You agreed to do this—to really try. You can’t back out just because the very first time sucked. It’s going to suck—you knew that already. It has to happen.”
She turned away from me, and I knew there wasn’t much of anything I could say to make her change her mind.
Or was there?
“I almost fucked her, you know.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, but I couldn’t take them back. I looked out the patio door to the large brick-lined area right behind the house. The intricate pattern looked like a star whose northern ray pointed to a large grill and a stone bar. I kept my focus outside as I watched Tria in my peripheral vision.
“Are you just saying that to piss me off?” Tria eventually responded.
“Pretty much,” I replied with a shrug. I decided it wasn’t such a bad thing to bring up, all things considered. I mean, Tria ought to know, right?
I tried to convince myself it was in the spirit of disclosure, but I really just wanted a good reason not to go back to that fucking office ever again, and Tria telling me I couldn’t was as good an option as any. I was willing to try something a lot more drastic if needed.
“It’s working.” She let out a long sigh before dropping down onto the couch next to me. “I don’t think it would be very professional for a therapist to treat you after…after that.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Liam,” Tria sighed again.