Chapter Fifty-One Tyler #2
“I need a bathroom,” I manage before she jumps into action, gripping my bicep and ushering me a few doors down.
Stumbling in just after the light is clicked on, back to the stone wall, I close my eyes and wait for the door to close.
I will myself to hold, but a second after the telltale sound, I palm my mouth, bursting where I stand.
Barely able to muffle my cries, I sink to the stone floor as I utterly lose my shit.
Guilt and shame fueling every second as I collapse inside them, allowing them to take what they’re demanding of me.
Hosting every second of the bloodletting as visions start to swarm me.
Examining each one, allowing it to hurt, and then to pass.
White-hot pain scorching my insides as I raw myself out to the torrent of emotions.
It’s when I sense a presence that my eyes pop open and I whip my head to see Larissa sitting next to me, eyes full of unshed tears.
“G-go!” I order, spittle from my cries dripping from my lips as I gape at her. “Larissa—f-fuck—leave—g-go!” I force out as she shakes her head, her eyes spilling over.
“No,” she states firmly, her own tears falling freely.
“So stop asking,” she digs in, eyes lowering to shield me from the pity I know she feels.
Pity she shouldn’t be capable of having for me.
Panicking as another tidal wave hits, I jerk a towel off a nearby rack before burying my face in it.
The thick cloth barely concealing the grunts pouring from me as her palm hits my back.
The whole time, she continues to run a soothing palm up and down, which only fuels more cries.
Time passes in a blur as I come apart beneath her touch until the worst of it finally starts to abate, then mercifully stops altogether.
Humiliation kicks in just after as I run the towel over my face and slowly stand.
Eyes lowered, towel in hand, I walk over to the sink.
Running the cold water, I cup it over my splotched face until my breaths further even out.
As I pat it dry, I catch her red-rimmed eyes in her reflection as she stands a few feet away.
“Does that happen a lot?”
“It was a panic attack,” I explain.
“I know what it was,” she whispers. “But this is what you go through?”
Palming both sides of the sink, I nod, leaving out the laundry list of other shit I wade through daily. “I thought I was through the worst of them before I got here. I’m sorry I scared you, again, fuck.” I drop my eyes. “I don’t want the babies subjected to this. Maybe I should go.”
“No,” she replies instantly. “No. I trust you.”
I gape at her reflection. “You trust me? Still?”
“Yes,” she insists. “Enough to know whether or not you’re well enough to be around the babies.”
“Well, I didn’t know this one was coming.
” It takes me several long seconds to speak.
“My whole career, and over half my life, my greatest fear has always been becoming the vet that people feared or were afraid to be around, because of what my father put my mother and me through,” I expel, gutted that it’s the truth of it and my new reality. “And now I’m him.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” she proffers vehemently.
“What if I have one when I’m with them?”
“Then their father has a panic attack, and they’ll help anchor him.”
I shake my head in disbelief at what she’s saying. “Larissa—”
“You think I haven’t had one or a hundred of them growing up in that house?
Jesus, I feared the fucking dark until, well, until you,” she admits easily.
“Life isn’t perfect, and neither are people.
So while we’ll do what we can to protect them from the evils of the world, at the very least, we need to make them aware of them.
Because what did not knowing do to help us? ”
“You can’t feel safe with me—”
“I always have. It’s why I came to you. I trust you with them,” she maintains adamantly. “Or I wouldn’t have invited you back. What started it?”
“They sneak up sometimes, and—” My words die as I hear my mother asking a similar question weeks ago.
“When did it start?”
“Not sure, a while ago.”
As I stare at the woman in the reflection, that answer rings clear. “Jesus Christ.”
“You’re still hiding.”
My mother’s words slam into me with the weight of a sledgehammer as I stare into the red-rimmed eyes of the miracle who’s seen me at every stage of my dive to rock bottom.
And still stands next to me, steadfast, with belief for me in her eyes.
Steadily clearing more of the infinite fog caused by my personal war.
Pinpointing the simple explanation why my soldier abandoned me.
Ceasing his march altogether after realizing I was no longer solely loyal to his creator.
But only after helping me self-sabotage.
“What?” she coaxes lightly in confusion. “Do you feel any better?”
“Yes and no.” I blow out a stuttered breath as I gaze back at her reflection, one that’s acted as my own personal mirror. “Mentally, I’m the weakest I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m fucking embarrassed you saw that, but I can’t yell at you for it because I want to fucking kiss you more.”
Stalking over to her, I palm her cheeks, thankful when she doesn’t flinch or shy away from the contact. When her hands cover mine, her eyes widen. “Jesus, you’re shaking so badly.”
I shake my head slowly in astonishment as I give her some deserved truth.
“Even before joining, I taught myself how to dissociate and compartmentalize to avoid this very thing. To shelve it all and deal with it after every storm, so this never became an issue. So I never became anyone’s issue.
And it worked. Year after year, it worked.
I’ve been in more life-or-death situations than most. Survived hundreds of gunfights and gone head-to-head with some of the vilest men …
and if shit hit the fan right now, even with the state I’m in, I promise you my hands wouldn’t shake as I did what I had to …
Then there’s you,” I croak, mystified and rawer than I’ve ever been as I brush my thumb along her lips.
“Jesus, baby, you still don’t look real. ”
“So you’ve said,” she utters, aware of the first time I spoke the words to her.
Minutes after we met, knowing the truth even then.
A truth I denied for so long that I’ve made and kept myself sick.
A certainty currently hammering its way into my heart, cocooning me now in a space and state I never thought I would reach again—safety.
“You weren’t supposed to exist, but you do,” I murmur, “God, do you ever.”
“I don’t understand,” she utters, her beautiful features etched in confusion as my heart thunders, racing in an effort to fully catch up to hers.
“I finally do,” I murmur softly, “and as soon as I’m able, I’m going to make sure you do too.”
Blowing out a stuttered breath, I dip, pressing a slow kiss to her forehead, each of her eyes, her cheeks, and her nose, hovering an inch from her lips, which part on a gasp just as a knock sounds on the door.