Chapter 37
Caitlyn
The knock at the door startles the shit out of me.
I know what I experienced. I know what happened to me yesterday, but sitting up in an unfamiliar bed still confuses me for a second, as if I'm having some sort of out-of-body experience rather than being in the middle of it myself.
I sit up just as the door opens, and I can't hide my reaction to it being Rhonda Moore, my therapist, rather than Roman.
"Rhonda?" I say, patting my hair as if she even cares what a mess I might be after the ordeal I went through yesterday.
"How are you feeling?" she asks as she steps inside the room, closing the door softly behind her.
"Exhausted," I confess as she crosses the room.
"Do you mind if I open the curtains?" she asks, not waiting for me to answer before pulling the first one back.
Thankfully, the blustery weather outside includes cloud cover, and the room doesn't automatically fill with bright sunshine.
She pulls the second curtain back, standing in place to look out over the property rather than face me directly.
She knows as a therapist that sometimes people need a moment to gear up for discussing traumas, and I feel like I need a lifetime of preparation especially since she just woke me from a dead sleep.
"Exhausted? That's totally understandable. Did you have nightmares?"
"No," I manage before having to clear my throat. "My mind was surprisingly blank."
"Blank as in you're in shock and having a hard time imagining that what happened is real?"
"I don't think so," I say, feeling grateful that she's speaking to me more like a colleague than a patient. This type of therapy has always worked better for me. It reminds me that I have the knowledge base and traditional education in order to face my issues on my own. It pushes me to think outside of my own experiences. "I'm fully aware of what happened."
"He murdered his two children," she says, not pulling any punches.
"I got the feeling he did," I say, a new threat of tears burning the backs of my eyes.
"He was going through all the motions with therapy with the newest therapist," she says. "Dr. Spring had no idea they were struggling so much at home."
I know I feel guilt for my role in what has happened, but I can only imagine what she must be feeling like, having had so much recent contact with all of them.
"I think the anniversary of his wife's suicide was the catalyst for everything coming to a head yesterday."
"Has it been a year already?" I ask, running my hand over the top of my head.
"It has. The children were doing better in school. Other than the shrine he had for you in his bedroom, everything seemed normal. "
"He had a shrine?"
Rhonda turns to face me now, a sad expression on her face.
"He did. He had pictures. There were candles and even trash he'd collected from your bins."
"Jesus," I mutter. "He spoke about wanting to move out west. The children were already dead?"
"Peyton had been gone for days. Braden died right before he came to your house."
"Shot?" I ask, assuming the answer.
"Yes."
"I was planning on moving," I mutter, staring down at my hand and wishing she hadn't opened the curtains. I'm really wishing for the shadows right now.
"I don't know that it would've changed the outcome," she replies. "What were you running from?"
I glance up at her, and although there is a challenge in her eyes, it's not there to anger me, only to get me to think through everything.
"I wanted to get away from whoever was stalking me," I answer, already knowing she's going to argue.
"Well, now you have no reason to run."
"I wasn't running," I argue.
"Yes, you were, and we both know it."
Silence swims between us, and I do my best not to be the one to fold and break it, but I fail after only a few beats.
"What I want doesn't matter."
"What you want is all that matters because changin—"
"Changing my goals for others doesn't serve anyone," I mutter, having heard the same sentence way too many times since I've been seeing her. "What if my goals don't align with other's goals? "
She ponders this for a second before speaking. "I think you might find that certain events are triggering enough to help some make different decisions than they originally thought they wanted."
"Have you spoken with him?" I ask, my pulse kicking up.
"Who?" she asks, her face giving nothing away.
I snap my mouth closed. I'm in no mood to play games, so I'm not going to feed into her little hints.
"Might I suggest that you suspend your therapy appointments for a few weeks so you can work through some stuff?"
I scoff. "I've been working through some stuff for the better part of two decades."
"You witnessed a tragedy yesterday, and that trauma is also connected to the tragic end of two children you counseled."
"I know," I mutter, my hands instantly becoming a lot more interesting. I don't want to think about those lost children, but I also know how unhealthy it is to wait and unpack certain things until after they build up with even more issues. "I feel like a failure."
"You will for a long time, but eventually, you'll get a little distance from what happened, and you'll be able to see that there was nothing you did or didn't do that triggered yesterday's events. Your feelings are valid. Please know that. I'm going to leave you to your day, but please consider taking a break, if only for a week. You'll be a better therapist if you give yourself the grace to handle your own issues."
"I'll take it under advisement," I say, looking up and giving her a weak smile.
She stops by the bed, reaching down and clasping my hands in hers. "I'm only a phone call away if you need to talk. Chat soon, Caitlyn. "
Damn her if she doesn't leave the bedroom door open just an inch because she knows I won't be able to curl back under the blankets and hide from the world with it open.
Before I can fully get out of bed, the door opens again.
I stretch down the hem of the t-shirt Jersey put me in last night just as he enters the room.
"Hey," he says, looking a little startled to see me standing at the edge of the bed.
"Hi," I whisper, feeling so very awkward, which is weird considering all that we've done together in recent weeks, including the confessions of what I want and what he's incapable of giving to me.
"Did you sleep okay?"
"Better than I probably should have. When I'm awake, it plays over and over in my head, but I don't think I dreamed about it last night," I answer, making sure not to flash him as I sit back down on the bed. "I didn't mean for you to have to be shoved out of your room. Sorry about that."
I knew we were in his room when he ran soapy hands over my body last night in the shower and my skin bloomed with the same scent I recalled from his.
"You didn't displace me, Caitlyn," he says as he points to the bed. "I slept right there behind you. Held you all night. I wouldn't have even gotten out of bed, but we had to debrief this morning."
"You h-held me?" I stammer, unsure if I should read anything more into that than him just trying to comfort me since I went through something traumatizing
"I hope that was okay," he says, his throat bobbing under a swallow.
"It's fine," I say, but I don't have the ability or the wherewithal to actually think about what it could mean.
"What do you do for a living? "
He tilts his head to the side a little before walking toward the same window Rhonda was looking out of. This window has a great view of the mountain. It's gorgeous looking out there. The other window looks out over the parking lot.
"Like for work," I explain. "You use words like debrief, and it makes me wonder what you do specifically."
"Jericho hasn't explained what Cerberus is? What we do?"
"I signed an NDA to work with Eli, but he hasn't given me specifics about the work that is done here. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine."
He looks back at me over his shoulder.
"I can't tell you everything."
"I'm not asking for specifics," I clarify. "A broad explanation would work."
"Cerberus as a whole rescues trafficked men, women, and children."
"Sex trafficked people?" I say, needing to sit on the side of the bed as my knees are growing weaker.
"A lot of them are sex trafficked, but there's also forced labor. A guy in the new Vegas chapter got involved with a mail-order bride sort of thing recently," he explains as he turns around and takes a seat in the armchair on the far side of the room.
It seems like he's trying to keep as much distance between the two of us as possible despite admitting just moments ago that he held me all night. Maybe he does that often as part of his job.
"I'm so sorry for causing you and your guys so much trouble. To think my situation has been pulling you from very important work."
He shakes his head as he lowers his face into his palms .
"I went to Catalyst or whatever name it had before they got shut down and reopened as Catalyst to make sure they weren't doing anything illegal. That's why I was there the night I first saw you."
Heat washes over my face even though my time on the cross seems like a lifetime ago.
"I hated that the second I saw you, I felt like I couldn't just walk away. It pissed me off, made me angry, but even more than that, it made me... curious."