Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
AUGUST
I feel outside of my body watching everything happening like I’m very, very far away.
It flashes by like panels in a comic book.
The badass female lead stands against evil with a fiery aura around her, having put a spell of protection around the August that’s been sapped of power like kryptonite does to Superman, disabled and frozen.
But when she’s around, no one can touch him. No one can take him away to the Phantom Zone.
It made the shell-August feel safe enough to open his mouth and answer the questions that were put to him.
But I still feel separate from the him that feels a thousand miles away on the screen in front of me.
Which is when I land on the name Dr. Delaney gave me for this sensation: dissociation.
Shit. Okay.
I have tools and steps to take when this happens.
I’ve named it, which is the first step.
Great. Now what?
Now I have to jump back in my body in the picture. Fuck, but how do I do that?
I close my eyes and focus on the steps Dr. Delaney and I have run through, time and time again.
I need to get back in my body by grounding myself in my five senses.
Sight. I open my eyes but still feel just as spacy. There are flashing lights.
Noise. Voices in cacophony. I can’t tell one from another and it’s all so disorienting.
And then a hand clasps mine and squeezes. Touch.
I squeeze back, like a lifeline tethering me back into my body.
It’s her hand. Lennon.
I breathe out in relief as one by one, more orienting senses start to wash in. The ground beneath my feet. The rough ridge of the seam at the side of my jeans. The feel of the cool February night breeze against my face.
Her scent. Floral and vanilla.
“C’mon,” she says softly. “Let’s get out of here.”
I inhale, and squeeze her hand back.
Me, in the present, back in this body. Her hand in my hand.
Here.
I suck in a big breath, letting my lungs fill and focusing on the sensation. I hold it for several seconds and then slowly exhale.
I nod. “Okay. That sounds good,” I say, focusing on the rumble in my chest as I speak. And the feel of the muscles in my thigh that flex as I take a step. The gentle impact of the ground as I step back down.
With the hand not holding Lennon’s, I keep rubbing at the seam of my denim jeans, focusing on the sensation of the little nubbin beneath my fingers.
Staying present.
“This is your RV, right?”
I look up and yeah, Lennon’s led me home.
I guess she saw me when I came out. I’ve been in such survival mode, it only occurs to me now to realize she just saw me having one of my… episodes.
Heat works its way up the back of my neck.
Fuck.
I feel so… exposed. Embarrassed doesn’t even begin to cover it.
People talk about dreams where they show up to an exam only to realize they’re completely naked. This is like that, because I just showed my entire ass.
The thing is, when you meet me, and maybe even if we hang out for a month or more if I’m lucky, everything can seem copacetic.
But hang around too long and the crazy will pop up its gnarly little head, Little Shop of Horrors style.
Everybody runs, eventually.
As they should.
It’s bad enough I’m cursed with this devil. Inviting anybody else in to share it is just… selfish.
I heave out a heavy sigh.
And let go of her hand. It feels like a little death.
“Thanks,” I mutter, staring at the ground. “I’m so sorry for how I was back there. Look, I totally get it if you don’t want to work with me anymore now that you’ve seen I can be…” I cast around uncomfortably for the right word and land on, “unstable.”
“Are you kidding?” Lennon exclaims. “None of that was your fault. Jake’s a bully. August. Look at me.”
I’m still shaking when Lennon takes my face between her hands.
“Don’t you see?” she says. “He did to you exactly what he’s been doing to me.”
I go completely still.
Wait, what?
“No one has ever believed me,” I say.
The words come out scraped raw because it’s true. No one believes me. The assume I’m manic, unstable, confused, or remembering it wrong.
But Lennon believes me because Jake taught her to doubt her own mind, too.
My brother made both of us feel crazy.
Maybe that’s why Lennon and I recognize each other so clearly.
We’re the only two people on earth who know the monster wears a reasonable face.
Which hits me, a second later, with absolute horror. She gets it so deep because she’s experienced it, too. Jake and Kathy—they’ve
I throw my arms around her.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Lennon,” I say. “I’m so sorry you ever had to go through that.”
She clings to me back, and then all of a sudden she lets out an explosive sob against my chest.
Okay, wow, I’m definitely fully back at home in my body now.
She’s warm against me, cheek pressed against my chest and I run my fingers through her soft, sweet-smelling hair.
My fingertips are calloused and rough, but she’s soft. So incredibly soft, it’s almost bewildering. Like she came from another planet and crash-landed in my life.
I want to hold her like this forever. Comfort her tears until they stop and then pull her into my bed to soothe and kiss and lick every part of her body until she feels the magic of healing pleasure flowing through every nerve-ending just like the first night, except deeper now, so much deeper now that we—
I squeeze my eyes shut even as my hand is drawn like a magnet to rub her back in circles.
What the fuck am I thinking?
I’m a cursed bastard and drawing her closer is only pulling her deeper into my darkness.
Let her go now, before it gets any more difficult. For either of you. She doesn’t know the dark thing they twisted you into.
She still has a chance to get out. So let her fucking go.
With incredible effort, I wrench my arms back slowly from holding her. Even more devastating because I know she needs the comfort. And fuck, I want to be the one to provide it to her.
I’m uniquely positioned to understand the pain she’s in.
But it can’t be me.
She pulls back, and I hate the way she immediately wraps her arms across her chest, like she’s embarrassed to have been so open.
God, that tears at me. Doesn’t she know all I want is to pull her back into my arms? I’m trying so damn hard to be strong for both our sakes.
I’m about to make some lame excuse about needing to get some sleep, when she swallows hard and asks, looking towards the little kitchenette, “Do you have anything to drink?”
Her request startles me a little; I’ve been so lost in my black, spiraling thoughts. “Oh. Of course. Shit. I should’ve offered when we came in. Do you want some water? Orange juice? Hot cocoa?”
The last suggestion makes her giggle. “Hot cocoa? Hell yeah I want cocoa.”