Chapter 8 #2
The urge to vomit is so strong that I stumble to the sink and grasp the ledge to steady myself. There’s no breathing through it, and I jerk forward from the waist, ejecting the coffee I just drank in a hot, scalding mess.
Loreena shoots up from her seat as fast as I did. I see her cross the room out of the corner of my eye. I fumble with the faucet and rinse out the sink. Cupping my hand under the running faucet I rinse my mouth with water so cold it makes my teeth ache.
She hands me a bunch of paper towels and shuts off the tap then waits for me to wipe my mouth and face before she says anything. “I’m sorry that you’re upset.” Her hand slips away from my neck.
Why didn’t I think to ask her what happened? Right… I did. She said she didn’t want to talk about it. I can see why. She appears calm right now, but I can see the fear burning bright as a fever in her eyes.
Whoever hurt her is still out there. Is that the root of why she can’t go outside?
Is she afraid that this person will find her and finish what they started?
I can’t just ask her that. I can tell that she’d wall up and wouldn’t answer me, and I don’t want to undo whatever small progress we might have made.
Scythe stands up and faces us. “Would you agree to speak with the therapist the club uses, if I can get him to come here? Or by phone, although I feel like in person would be best.”
Loreena hesitates. Her eyes flick to me, but then she meets Scythe’s gaze again. “Yes. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I want this to be over.”
“It does seem like you do,” he corrects her, but not like an imperious asshole.
“All this time, you’ve been fighting to take the control back.
I don’t think it’s about you telling your brain one thing while it wants to do another.
You’re afraid of open spaces, of going outside, of all that emptiness pressing down on you and having nowhere safe to hide.
Outside, everything is out of your control, but when you’re at home you’re safe, because you control your environment. Does that sound about right?”
“I- sort of. A little. Yes. I know that all that’s out there isn’t just pain and fear and people who want to do terrible things.
The world can be ugly, but it can be beautiful too.
I know that. I just don’t know how to make my body heal.
I don’t know how to convince it to find peace in that space, goodness, and love, instead of panic, triggers, and distress. ”
The atmosphere in here is heavy and suffocating.
I need to say something or do something.
I’m so fucking helpless against this that the rage starts to grow and fill up my lungs.
Maybe that’s where part of Loreena’s panic comes from.
I’ve always had a dry sense of humor, and I try to fall back on it now.
“You seemed to be less afraid when I covered you with my body. We were outside in the dark, so maybe that meant something too.”
It’s not all that funny, but at least Loreena’s lips twitch. “You can’t just walk around holding onto me like a second skin all day.”
I would do that. With pleasure. Probably too much pleasure.
I want to be close to her. Close in ways that I can’t be.
I recognize that we’re both lonely, but that would be too much for her.
I don’t want to hurt her in any way, no matter how heat rushes through me, or how hard the breath kicks out of my lungs at thinking of even doing something so simple as carrying her, shielding her, or hugging her.
I can’t let my brain go down a path to anything else.
Even if she was ready, what would I have to offer her?
No job, no house, no way to support us. She deserves someone with their shit together. Someone who isn’t two shades above being a fucking class A loser.
“We could get you a hazmat suit.” It’s weak sauce, but all I have to offer is more of the same flatlined humor.
She snorts. “Why would I need one of those?”
“An astronaut suit, then. Or a fire suit. A vintage one with the bubble helmet. One of those super old school diving suits.”
“Why are we talking about space suits and diving?” Scythe asks. I don’t think he’s all that impressed at my attempts to try and lift the black mood I’m sure we all feel.
“So Loreena can go outside. She’ll be fully covered.”
“The night thing, I’m not sure about,” Loreena says, giving it real consideration.
“I’ve tried to leave the building when it was dark before and got pretty much the same results as I always do.
The only difference when you did it was that I was passed out when you took me outside.
I’d already primed myself and panicked, and when I came to you were shielding me, and then we were in the truck.
There was still panic, but I could handle it. I could reason it away.”
Black mood? How about a black look? Scythe shoots me one that if it was a weapon, would be sure to vaporize me on the spot. “You took her outside when she was passed out?”
I wish I could say it sounds worse than it was.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but I came to and I was the one who told him to give me the sleeping pills instead of asking him to take me back inside.
It was my decision,” Loreena stresses. “He asked me if he found something that could help, would I be willing to try it, and I said yes. I know what he did was wrong, but it was my decision to come in the end. I know Maverick. I’ve known him for years.
People might say that you can’t know anyone through letters, but I’d argue, you can’t know them any better through face to face contact, day after day either.
If someone chooses to hide, they’ll always hide. ”
Scythe’s frown only gets deeper, but he seems to be focused on some other tangent.
Something Loreena just said. “I think you’d like to see yourself as the person you were before, as ‘normal’, but maybe that’s not the right goal.
You want to function in the outside world and that could be the end goal, but what about smaller benchmarks? ”
Loreena’s nose crinkles. “I need to think about that. I—oh my god!”
Scythe and I both freeze, ready for a catastrophe or some kind of impending doom, but there’s nothing.
“Sylvie!” Loreena says, wringing her hands.
“I need to call her. She’ll be coming to do my nails tomorrow and she’ll think that something terrible happened to me if I don’t buzz her in.
She doesn’t have a key. Shit. What am I supposed to tell her?
That my fresh out of jail ex-con pen pal kidnapped me and took me over an hour out of the city because he thought he could miraculously cure me? ”
“Yes,” I deadpan. “That exactly. Although, maybe don’t use the word kidnapping. Maybe just say extreme experiment that you were enticed to go through with.”
“She’ll be worried but elated that I’m not in the apartment. Maybe the circumstances won’t even matter. She’ll just be so glad that I made an escape. She might want to come here. Can she?” she asks Scythe, since this is his house.
“Of course. You’re not being held captive here.”
“Not by you, at any rate,” she mumbles under her breath. “Just by my own stupid head.”
“You can’t expect something like this to cure itself overnight. Realistically, it’s probably gonna take time, there could be setbacks. Just because that might happen, doesn’t mean you should give up.”
I wish Scythe would shut it for a moment and just give Loreena this small victory rather than talk about stuff like setbacks.
“I hadn’t given up,” Loreena insists softly. Her elation from a moment ago has faded and she just looks… sad. Lost.
It takes everything I have not to sweep her up in my arms and cover her with my body all over again.
“I know. I’m just saying,” Scythe says. “I just want to run one more thing past you. Is that alright?”
Loreena blinks. It’s probably not. She’s putting a brave face on being entirely overwhelmed. “Sure.”
“The club is a brotherhood, but lots of the guys have old ladies and wives. Good women who have their own friendships. They’re a vital part of the club. I know the second I mention you, they’re gonna want to meet you. Would you be open to that?”
“All at once? How many are there?” Loreena shrinks into herself.
“Not all at once,” I warn Scythe. “That would be too much.”
“That’s fair. I could ask if they’ll come in pairs, or maybe even one at a time?”
Loreena ducks her head, a curtain of hair shimmering across her face. My hands itch to sweep it aside, but I ram them into my pockets instead. My body isn’t going to get the memo that my brain is trying to send. I’m here to help Loreena, and that’s the extent of this. Nothing more.
“Sure,” she agrees. “It can never hurt to have more friends, right? Maybe it will… I don’t know. Help somehow? But if not, it would be nice to have more people to talk to and who get me. Although, maybe they won’t. Not if they feel obligated to come.”
“No one’s gonna feel obligated,” Scythe says.
I hope he’s right. If anyone hurts Loreena in the slightest, I’d be having hot words about it. That wouldn’t end well, seeing as I’ve already done my fair share of hurting her just by trying to help.
“Anyway,” Scythe says. “I just want you to keep hoping.”
“Just not for a miracle.”
“I’m sure that it’ll take time.”
“Time that I’ll be here? In your house,” Loreena muses. “You can tell me to leave. I can go back to my apartment. I’ll just have Maverick do a reverse kidnapping exactly the same way.”
It’s her choice, but I feel thunderous just thinking about her being trapped there. I must look a little too roughly at Scythe because he blinks at me before offering Loreena a kind smile.
“No one is chasing you out of here. You’re welcome to the basement for as long as you like, or a room up here on the main floor. Maverick can sleep wherever you’re not. We’ll make sure everything is comfortable.”
I haven’t even thought about sleeping arrangements. I didn’t get any sleep last night. Taking the couch across from the bed downstairs might creep Loreena out. It might feel like an intrusion into her space.
It just shows how little I’ve actually thought this out.
And how generous Scythe is. He didn’t let me fall through the cracks when I got out of prison and now, even after I’ve done the worst thing I could have, at least probably in his mind, he’s not going to let anything happen to either of us.
He’s family and he’s here for me.
He’s made it clear the club would be there for me too, if I wanted them to be, even though I’m not patched in and don’t want to be.
Loreena doesn’t have much of a family of her own. Will she let us be there for her the way Scythe and the club have been there for me? Found family? Chosen family? People who refuse to let her go, or fall?
I hope she can read the offer right off my face.
“Thank you,” she whispers to Scythe before she clasps her hands in front of her. “I should really go call Sylvie though.”
She doesn’t need me to walk her down to the basement. She needs privacy. I’ve fucked up enough and I can’t give her much, but I can offer her that, at least.
Besides, I can tell that Scythe isn’t done with me yet. If I escape this kitchen with anything less than a new asshole ripped, I figure that I’ll count myself lucky.