11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Roxie
I’ve been in Bluebell Falls for exactly a week. And I fucking love it.
Ivy started back at school this week, and she’s thriving with the smaller class sizes. She’s already made “a new best friend” named Owen, and I couldn’t be happier with how well she’s doing. It’s freed up time for me to work with my other clients again, creating a natural schedule for us both.
The townspeople have quickly integrated Ivy and me as locals, inviting us to things like bingo tournaments and coffee every time we run into someone.
Things with Lennox have been … functional. I wouldn’t say they’re great, but they also aren’t terrible. He’s putting in effort, and that’s all I can really ask for. He is still refusing meds, and while I understand his reservations, these aren’t narcotics, so he doesn’t have much to worry about. It’s not a fight I want to jump into, though. I got him to ice his knee religiously, so I’ll take my one win.
Living with him has been fairly easy as well. We mostly stick to our own spaces, but the main living area is where we’ve ended up every evening for dinner. We don’t eat together, exactly, but we’re in the same room, so I’m counting it.
I’m waiting in the pickup line for Ivy and thinking about exercises to start incorporating in Lennox’s PT tomorrow while I wait for the bell.
His injury is more challenging than I anticipated. He not only had a severe tear, but he also has a ton of scar tissue surrounding the worst of the scars from his time with Tennison. I’m trying to massage them in an attempt to break them up, but it’s slow-going. The scar tissue made him more susceptible to the tear, so now the goal is prevention as well as mobility.
What I didn’t factor in when I decided to add more work onto my plate with Lennox was that running my hands all over his legs would have me so worked up every single day. I need a break after every session so I can cool down and remember who I am and why thoughts like that are a bad idea.
But I’ll admit to taking the edge off once or twice.
“Hi, Mommy!” Ivy chirps, pulling me out of my thoughts as she jumps into the back seat.
“Hey, Bug, how was school today?” I reach back to help her, but she pushes my hand away.
“It was fine. Can we pway games when we get home?” Her innocent question stabs a knife through my heart.
Home.
It’s not our home. It’s Lennox’s, and we’re only staying there. Ivy deserves a home, not just a roof over her head. I need to find a way to keep my aunt and uncle far away from us for good because creating a home for us won’t happen if I don’t. Their threats of taking away Ivy scared me to the core at first, but I ran, and then I grew. Rationally, I know they can’t take her away without real evidence, but it doesn’t stop them from hunting us down and coming up with new ways to disrupt our life every few months.
“We definitely can,” I tell her instead of letting her see how much her words affect me.
The drive back to Lennox’s house is a quiet one. When we make it back to the house, I find him right where I left him, with ice on his knee. At least we’re now stockpiled with ice packs, thanks to Ledger and me.
Ivy bounds to her room, dropping off her backpack and exchanging it for her newest obsession: Candy Land.
“We can play two rounds before I need to start making dinner, okay?” I tell her as she sits on the floor and starts getting things out of the box.
Lennox watches us with a keen eye but doesn’t make a move to join us. I sit on the floor as Ivy doles out all the pieces.
“Today, Owen was pwaying catch with me, and he pushed me,” she says with zero inflection.
“What did you tell Owen when that happened?” I ask.
“I told him I didn’t like it, but that we could still pway if he didn’t push me again. He said okay and then played with Sandy.” She shrugs, and I chuckle at how dramatic kindergarten has turned out to be.
“And then we were in P.E., and Teacher made us do a obti … obticle course, and I didn’t want to do it.”
“Obstacle course,” I correct her.
“Obstacle course. I didn’t want to do it.” She sighs.
“Why didn’t you want to do it?”
“It was hard, and I wasn’t good at it. Evewyone else was doing it really easy, and I couldn’t get it right.”
“Did that make you sad? Or frustrated?” I like that she’s figuring out that not everything will come easy, although it’s a hard lesson to learn .
“Both, I think. Do you ever feel sad, Lennox?” She shocks the hell out of me by bringing Lennox into the conversation.
“All the time,” he answers her without a second thought.
“Really? What makes you sad? Do your friends push you too?”
“Nah, I just push them back if they do.” He chuckles as I shoot him daggers. “I mean…” he backpedals. “They don’t push me, and it’s not good to push back if they did.” He cringes.
“So why are you sad?” Ivy asks as she moves her piece five spaces.
I try not to draw attention to Lennox because, if he’s genuinely thinking about what makes him sad, I have a feeling it’s not a fun topic to think about. But if an innocent question from Ivy is making him think about what he’s been through, then maybe that’s not such a bad thing for him.
“I get sad when I think about the past. Things were a lot different back then, and I miss it.” A simple statement if you know nothing about Lennox’s past, but if you do? It’s heartbreaking. Everything I’ve learned about this man leads me to believe he hasn’t talked much about his time with Tennison with anybody. The fact that he’s even alluding to it with his answer feels massive.
“Like when you was a kid, like me?” Ivy asks as she takes her turn, completely oblivious to the emotion pouring from Lennox’s face.
He clears his throat, and I see his Adam’s apple bob through his scruffy beard. “Sometimes.”
“Maybe you could pway with us, and it would make you less sad.”
“Ives, let Mr. Hutton relax,” I gently tell her.
“I’m just saying, he could pway games with us, and it probably wouldn’t make him sad. Unless he loses. I’m always sad when I lose,” she muses .
Lennox starts rubbing his leg, where one of the worst of his old cuts is, and the pain in his eyes fills the entire room. I know Ivy didn’t mean anything by her words, but I’m suddenly freaking out that she’s triggered him in some way and he doesn’t know how to cope. Hell, I don’t even blame him for struggling. But it’s not something I need Ivy to be witness to either.
“Okay. I think we should call it a night on the games, Bug.” I start gathering all of the pieces together and putting them into the box.
“But, Mommy!” she whines.
“It’s dinnertime, and you need to work on your homework.” I’m giving Lennox space; I’m not running. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Because if I think about my reaction too much, I’ll have to analyze why my first instinct is to run in the first place.
Lennox turns his head, looking out the back window at the woods behind his cabin as we clean up. Shuffling a confused Ivy back to her room, I get her set up and do my best to explain that, sometimes, our words cause a reaction we aren’t expecting. And sometimes, it’s best to give the person space. She begrudgingly agrees, and I brace myself to head back out and start dinner.
Walking down the hallway, I’m not sure how I’ll find Lennox. But when I make it to the living room and see it empty, I sag in relief. It’s not that I don’t want to help him; I just don’t think he’s receptive to it all yet. That’s made very clear by the fact that he scurried off to his room instead of staying out here to talk.
It’s better this way , I tell myself. I’m only supposed to be working on his leg, and I’m already going above and beyond for that. I don’t need to dig into his head and attempt to help him there as well. Even if this is exactly why I got into the medical field. Helping people mentally work through their injuries while treating the physical is always my goal.
I make a quick dinner of fajitas, making sure to save a plate for Lennox. I may be conflicted about how to help him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let him starve. It’s been the same song and dance all week, but, somehow, I don’t think he’ll simply mosey into the kitchen to get food today.
After getting Ivy set up with dinner, I grab his plate and walk to his side of the cabin. I hesitate outside of his door before saying fuck it and knocking. When I dropped off his brace one of those first days, I didn’t really pay attention to his room. I noticed it wasn’t as upkept as the rest of the house, but I didn’t stick around to analyze it at all.
“I brought you a plate.” I try to keep my voice upbeat and not let on how much his simple words impacted me.
“Just leave it in front of the door, please,” he calls out. I can’t tell his mood through the door.
I don’t even think. I quietly open the door. “I’ll just bring it to you, so you don’t—”
“GET OUT!” Lennox yells louder than I’ve ever heard. It startles me so much I almost drop his food, but I manage to keep my grip, setting it inside the door and slamming it shut before booking it back to the kitchen.
“Is he okay?” Ivy asks, concerned.
“He’ll be okay, Bug,” I say softly, but all I can think about is the larger glimpse of his room that I managed to see. The rest of his house may fool everyone into thinking he’s doing okay, but his bedroom shows what’s really going on.
What keeps running through my head the rest of the night is, How can I help him more?