Thirty-eight
Ben
“You have been quiet the past couple sessions, Ben. You want to start with why that may be?” Dr. Davinah asks. The entire bus is empty. Sadie is out with Nick, and the guys went to walk around the city and sightsee.
“No.” I shrug, looking around the bus. I’m stationed at the kitchenette with the doc on a video call. I am highly aware that no one is here, and the silence is deafening.
“That isn’t going to help us much. I will allow space for you to stay silent if that’s what you think is best, but is it?” he presses. I hate that professionals can see right through us. Read our minds, our body language, and have the innate ability to know we are anything but fine.
“No,” I answer again.
“Why don’t we talk about what I have been asking you for some time now. Do you feel right now is a safe space?” he asks. My neck begins to tighten, my spine tingling in the worst way.
“What is it going to do? I hate him,” I spit out, gritting my teeth through my snarl.
“Yes, you do. That’s why I think that in order to process more of your trauma, Ben, we have to open the possibility of closure with him.” Darren. My donor.
“What will it do? How is that going to bring me any closure?”
“Who is to say it wouldn’t? What feelings are you having right now?” He gestures to his body, encouraging me to look inward. We do this often.
“Anger. My blood feels hot. My neck is tight. My nails are digging into my skin. I suddenly feel like I want to throw up.”
“Okay, why?”
I scoff. “Because we are talking about the man who killed my mother. The guy who beat me black and blue. My body. My spirit. My mind. He took everything. Am I supposed to feel warm and fuzzy inside, Doc?” I snarl again.
“No. In fact, your emotions now are very normal, but they come from a deep place of never finding a way to let go. You want to tell him these things. You need to shut the door to your past life so you can open the one that leads to the here and now.” I shake my head, running my hands through my hair.
My knee starts bouncing rapidly in sync with the speed of my heart.
“I burned that door. Took a fucking torch to it. I never want to open it again,” I tell him, my eyes staring him down on the other side of the screen. Some days, I look at him with dread and beg for him to end this suffering. Other days, days like this, I look at him like I want to see him crumble under my gaze.
“All you did was singe yourself when you burned it instead of closing it.” He shrugs, unfazed by my agitation. “Part of healing is really a simple concept that has been complicated over the years. In order to heal from trauma, you have to be uncomfortable for a short time. And I mean unbearably uncomfortable. Because you have to face it, relive it, recall the moments that you buried. But once you face them and sit in that uncomfortable space, you see it’s a temporary pain for a future of freedom.”
I look down, focusing on my hands clasped tightly in my lap. Tears fall slowly, leaking from my once-dry eyes.
“I have lived years with that torture—why hasn’t it healed like you said, then? If I’ve been living in that uncomfortable place since I was young, how come I am still fucking suffering?” I groan, my soul crushing under the weight of my own existence.
“Because the discomfort that you are living in is a lie. It’s a blanket that you placed over your head like children do when they are scared of the dark. The monster can’t get you, but after enough time covered in that blanket, it becomes suffocating. You need to pull the blanket down, look around, and face the fact that part of growing is realizing that demons can be faced, that they go away.” I think about his words. Is it true? I mask a lot of pain—hell, that’s why I am getting sober. That’s why I am sitting here. So why isn’t that enough? Fuck, maybe he is right.
“I used to dream, when my mom was still alive, about what our lives would be like if he were happy. If he didn’t hit us.” I pause, wiping under my nose and sniffling. The hardest part about therapy? The raw, vulnerable emotions that you never want anyone to see. “My mother would smile more. She would laugh. I even imagined what my father’s real laugh would sound like. I only ever heard his sinister one. But the one I made up in my head? It was so peaceful. It was like safety.” I sniffle again. “I could feel him holding me.” I wrap my arms around myself, keeping my head low. “Rocking me to sleep.” I start to rock myself in my own embrace. “He loved us in those dreams, and Mom was happy.”
“And you?” Dr. Davinah asks as I keep rocking myself.
“I was fucking whole. There wasn’t anything I was afraid of. I wasn’t broken and damaged. I was sheltered from the pain and darkness in the world. But then I woke up. Then I fucking woke up.” I wail, the sound so loud I can hear it. It vibrates off the wall and shudders in my chest. This sob rips through me like a tornado. “He took everything. He still takes everything.” My shoulders bounce up and down, and I don’t hold back anymore. I don’t care what I look like or how much I wanted to hide this part of me. These pieces of my pain. I bare it all, and I let it go. Years of suffering and torture and torment all come crashing down.
“Let it have space, Ben.” He encourages me to fall apart. I have fallen apart in silence for so long that I can’t do it alone anymore. I suffered and made everyone suffer with me. Just like he did. But for the first time, I don’t blame myself. I accept that he made me this way. That what he did made me a lost, lonely, and frightened child who turned into a broken man. But I don’t want him to have that anymore. I want to let go. I need to let go. My heart can’t take it anymore. And in this most vulnerable moment, in my weakest hour, I have never felt prouder of myself as a man.
The only way out of this is to go through it. The past can’t be rewritten, but I can put ink in my pen to draw my future. My future with her. With Sadie. With our child.
“What about Sadie. How do I fix that? It’s too late. Saying goodbye to Darren and getting that closure won’t bring her back.” I push through the tears; this is one of those times I look at him and hope he can end the suffering.
“You can’t lean on her anymore. You need to get to a place where you can lean on yourself. Understand that you are not your trauma. You’re not your father. You are your own person with your own wants, regardless of what you thought you wanted because of him. Maybe then you can show her that you can lean on one another. It’s a give and take, Ben, in any relationship.” He jots something down before looking back up and continuing. “Now, I’m your therapist, and I’m always in favor of your growth and healing. You don’t see it, but you have healed many things. You’ve come a long way, and you will continue to improve, and I don’t want to see you discredit yourself. Yes, we have work to do, and there is a lot of self-reflection that will take place, but you have done very well, Ben. Maybe you should extend yourself some grace too.” Grace. My mother’s name. I’m not a believer in signs—you wouldn’t catch me looking at a dragonfly and thinking it’s anything more than an insect—but right now, I feel warmth surrounding me, and it feels so much like the warmth I used to find in my mother’s arms.
Grant me grace, Mother. Grant me grace, Sadie , I think to myself.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I will go see him.” I look up at the good doctor again, this time with my head high and my shoulders squared. There isn’t a life I want to live without Sadie or our child. There isn’t a world I want to live in where they aren’t there. I see that now. I crave it, and I will fucking crawl on my bloody hands and knees if it means that my past can be the past and they will be my future.
“All right, let’s plan it. When?”
We talk about it for the rest of my session and decide that I’ll see him my last day of this tour. We’ll be playing the city where he’s in prison. How poetic. The end of a tour and the end of generational curses.
And for Sadie? Well, with only seven days left, I have to prove to her that I’m ready, not just say it. I need to give life to my words for the first time and make her fall in love with me again. I made her love me in three days the first time; let’s hope I can do it in seven after all the damage I caused.
* * *
After therapy, I go for a walk, clearing my head and decompressing. For the first time, it feels like I’m not gasping for breath but actually filling my lungs. A heaviness has left me, and I can physically feel it. I think about the next couple of days and all I need to do. Dr. Davinah gave me a list of things to mentally prepare myself for before visiting my father. We even went over some of the questions I think I may ask, but at the end of the day, I really don’t know what I’ll say when I’m face to face with him. When I head back to the bus after dinner with the guys, it’s dark out.
Opening the bus door, I step in and find Nick sitting up at the end of the couch with his head rolled back, asleep. Sadie’s laid out beside him with her feet in his lap; the tiny blanket covering her body looks like it’s doing nothing to keep her warm, but her pouty lips are puckered and she’s breathing deeply, fast asleep. I grip my chest at the sight.
I get down on my haunches and flip my hat backward so I can get closer to Sadie. My leather jacket tightens around my back as I touch her delicate face.
“Angel, you gotta wake up.” I run my thumb across her cheek, and she stirs. Blue eyes flutter open and adjust to my face. For a moment, she shares a smile, happy to see me, but it passes like a bolt of lightning.
“Hey, sorry, we fell asleep watching a movie,” she whispers, sitting up, careful to not wake Nick.
“You’re good, let’s get you to bed.” Helping her up, I walk behind her, my hands on her hips. She tiredly says good night to the boys as we pass them, swaying back and forth in a haze. She hasn’t pushed my hands away, and I absorb this touch. It’s been too long since I’ve touched my wife. Once in the back room, I close our door to give us some privacy.
I help her strip out of her jeans. “What did you guys have to eat?” She yawns, shimmying her hips to help me remove her skinny jeans. I groan inwardly when I lower to my haunches to grab her pants. Her beautiful skin is so smooth, and her pussy smells sweet, so potent I can smell it from inches away.
“Tacos. That seems to be the baby’s favorite.” She giggles lightheartedly, relaxed and deep in a food coma.
“The baby gets that from me. You know that’s my favorite.” I smile up at her, taking advantage of the moment. Sadie doesn’t let me in anymore. This is rare, and I’ve craved it so much.
“Don’t do that.” Suddenly she is fully alert, and she steps away from me.
“Do what, Sadie?” I stand, looking down at her petite frame.
“Talk about the baby and your similarities like the past few weeks have been bliss. You didn’t want this, remember?” she bites out, and it stings, but she’s right.
“I deserve that,” I admit.
“Ben, you deserve for me to walk out right now. You pushed us away like we were trash.”
“I did. I’ve done a lot of shit, Sadie. I have pushed and pushed all while pulling you in and taking everything from you.”
She snorts, looking at me incredulously. “You did. The worst part about all of this, Ben, wasn’t your IED or your drug use or the alcohol. I understood that you needed help, and I was willing to lie down like a fucking doormat! But you pushed me away and kept me at arm’s length, taking the parts of me you knew you could use, and you abused that. You pushed me and my child.”
“Our child,” I interject.
“It’s my child! You made it clear that this is my child and you don’t want them. You made it clear that you don’t want this!” she screams, tears ricocheting down her cheeks and onto her chest. My heart breaks. I want to pull her in, but pulling her in is what I always do. I bring her in when she is ready to leave, and I touch her and ruin her more. I have to prove it , I remind myself.
“I fucked up. I see it. I feel it. But am I allowed to redeem myself?” I ask, dropping to my knees.
“Ben . . .” She cries harder. “A million times. I gave you so many chances! You’ve done enough to destroy me. Don’t make it worse.”
“Destroy you?” I choke, swallowing my emotions.
“Yes. You destroyed who I was. You broke me so far past healing, and all I ask is that you have mercy on my heart and let me go,” she cries, sitting on her side of the bed.
“Please don’t say I destroyed you. I didn’t, angel, come on,” I beg, hoping she will take back those words. I move closer to her, gripping her arms in my hands. I shake her slightly as she cries.
“You did, Ben. I can’t even look at you anymore because all I see is the end of who I was.”
“No! No, baby. Come on, we can work through this, okay? Don’t fucking say that, please.” I grip her hips and drop my head in her lap, broken because I had a plan. I spent all day going over it in my head, convinced I had a chance to save us. Seven days will never fix this; they can’t even scratch the fucking surface.
“Give me seven days, please. Seven days of you and me. Nothing else. Give me seven more days with you to fix us,” I beg, kissing her legs and moving my shirt so I can kiss her little belly. “If not for me, do it for our child.”
“You don’t want us, Ben.” She tries to push my lips away from her, but I don’t let her. I kiss harder, sucking and crying over the skin of her belly—leaving my marks of ownership over her and our child. They are mine, my life.
“Ben! Please!” She cries harder, pushing me away.
“No, please, Sadie, please, please, please.” I lay us back as she bangs on my chest, screaming and fighting under me. “Please,” I plead, kissing her chest, her neck, her cheek, her lips. I remove her shirt, bra, and panties as she cries, and she slowly starts to fold into me. We need each other.
We have officially shattered, and there is nothing more we can do but heal.
I remove my jacket and shirt—I want her skin on mine, for her to feel that this is home. We are each other’s home.
“Ben . . .” she cries.
“Take it out on me, Sadie. I deserve it. Take it all out on me. Hurt me so I can heal us, angel.” I pull her naked chest to mine, and I cradle her as she cries. I need this moment, her skin on mine, our heartbeats thundering against each other as I attempt to undo the worst of the damage. She wraps her arms around me and punches my back—hard—screaming against my chest.
I whisper in her ear, “Shh, baby, please.” There’s a knock on the door, and Nick’s voice comes through the thin wood.
“Ben, what’s going on in there?”
“Leave us alone, Nick! I got this!” I yell. I turn to Sadie and soften my voice. “Breathe, baby, relax. I’m sorry.” Finally, her punches get weaker and fewer in between her sobs. I hear Nick outside the door, and I swear I’ll lose it if he comes in here.
Sadie cries over and over while I beg for this last week, her eyes going dull and her body becoming stone under my touch.
“One week, baby. Just one. I promise I’ll fix what I’ve done to you, then you can leave me, and I will never bother you again.” That’s a lie, because I’ll never let her leave. She shakes her head repeatedly, telling me the damage is done. I rub her back until her body gives out and she shuts down. I have to convince her to stay—I have to.