Chapter 11 #2
“No, that’s okay. My parents and sister would say that it does define me.
” Again, the words are bitter, but I want to be honest, even if it hurts.
That’s the point of all of this. “It makes me the daughter that can’t do anything with them.
It makes me frustrating and difficult to be around.
It makes me inconvenient and hard to plan for.
I don’t think all of that’s true, but some of it is.
It doesn’t make me a bad person. It doesn’t make me unkind.
I’ve tried very hard to work on myself, because of the fears I have, because of the condition, but also because I don’t want to be shriveled up.
” Pumpkin raises his head at the change in my voice.
He’s always so sensitive. I blink against the sting of tears.
Sprite shifts in my arms, triggered by Pumpkin’s movement.
I kiss her head, let her stretch, and then she rearranges herself in my lap.
“I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to be the person that can’t get over asking herself why me, or why that night, or what if it was all different. ”
“I don’t think that what happened to you was really any different than a major physical injury like a broken neck or a stroke.”
I can see how he’s cycling back around to his theory about physical wounds, but I’d still like him to explain. “How do you mean?”
“You had to relearn what it felt like to be in your body again as a virtual stranger. Taking those first few steps into the outside world, and then having to protect yourself—it was like learning any other skill. How to walk, speak, or feed yourself again. After a physical injury, you usually get months and months of physical rehab, but you didn’t get any of that for your brain.
You had to deal with all of this virtually on your own. ”
The first thought that comes from hearing that is one that I feel way down in the pit of my stomach.
I want to believe what Maverick said about there being an unlimited number of chances last night, and about life not being measured in a finite amount of anything, but it’s hard. It’s so, so damn difficult.
“Sometimes people never get better.”
“Sure, but in most cases, there is always room for improvement, even if it’s small.”
It’s not hard for me to follow Lockwood’s logic.
I’ve talked to enough therapists and done more than enough work on my own reading books and being in those online groups to understand.
“So I’ll have to retrain my brain to retrain my nervous system, my muscles, my flight and fear and fight responses. ”
“That’s probably true but retraining your brain doesn’t always mean rationalizing your way out of something.
I’m sorry that your support system all but abandoned you.
That’s another set of feelings entirely that we should talk about, and we can, but I do want to tell you that you have an incredible amount of support from the club.
I’ve seen men who thought they were beyond hope find the brotherhood and life they didn’t know they needed.
Even one person who truly cares can make a big difference. ”
“My family tried to support me, but they got tired and just couldn’t do it anymore.
They couldn’t enable me to throw my life away.
They tried to give me a hard dose of reality after they felt that they’d coddled me for so long.
I have a good friend who would never abandon me, but I’ve never once asked her to take that burden on.
I certainly don’t expect her to.” Maybe I never really had a proper support system.
I’d have to define what proper even means and that’s like trying to define normal. It’s a constantly shifting benchmark.
“I’d like to know how you see the future.”
“What?” The question startles me, it’s such an abrupt subject change.
It doesn’t startle me nearly as much as the thing that suddenly blasts into the window.
There’s a loud conk and a flash of a brown hairy body at the glass.
I duck and gasp like whatever that was trying to break through the window and get me.
Both cats jump to their feet. They don’t launch themselves at the window or go careening off the walls, or destroy the room like some of those cats that go airborne and wreck the place.
Thank freaking goodness.
The blur comes racing back, and this time, it doesn’t hit the glass. It just looks in. It’s a squirrel. A massive squirrel. It’s so big that people must be feeding it around here. Its tiny little face bobs in the window comically and then it turns, flicks its tail, and races away.
“Sorry.” I laugh as I try to coax Sprite back into curling up.
She’s not having it. She might not be swinging from the window ledge way up on the wall, but she does leave. She walks over to the bed, jumps up, and starts chasing her own tail, tumbling all over the place.
“Sorry,” I sigh again. “What did you just ask me? Wait. How did I see the future? Not playing out like this, that’s for sure.
” How can I say that like it’s a terrible thing?
That’s the equivalent of a parent saying they regret choices that led to their children or someone saying they wish they’d done everything in their life differently, but they’re working their dream job.
“How did that night change the plans you had for yourself?”
“It changed everything about who I was. I left the hospital, and I had my first panic attack as soon as I stepped outside.” I start to fiddle with the hem of my sweater.
I know it’s a nervous habit. I’m half expecting Lockwood to mention something about it, but he just waits and lets me gather my thoughts.
“Whatever plans I had were over. I couldn’t have a normal life.
The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with me past bruises.
They said I was lucky. They had no idea. ”
“You stopped planning for the future.”
“I had to, at least temporarily.”
“You started hiding.”
“I guess so. In a way.”
“You found a safe place, and you’ve been there ever since.”
“It doesn’t feel all that safe, and I don’t want to be there.” I dig my fingernails into my kneecap to ground myself. “I think I see that I need to shock myself out of it.”
“How do you think you could do that?”
“It’s not going to be by sticking a knife into an electrical socket.
It’s not that kind of shock.” At least Lockwood humors me with a wry laugh.
It gives me the courage to try and sort through the rest of my complicated thoughts.
“I thought that I’d die if I went too far from the apartment.
I was so sure that I’d pass out and just stop breathing.
Or that I’d pass out and be unguarded and that anyone could come and do anything they’d want to me. ”
“If you found yourself surrounded by people who are strong enough to see you through every state of panic, including the aftermath, do you think you could do it?”
“That’s not a cure. That might only hurt me worse than I’ve already been hurt. It’s masochistic.”
“You might find yourself surprised, though. You’ve made it this far, and you didn’t think that you could. It might not be a cure, but it might be a very big step towards trending in the right direction.”
There’s something funny about hearing Lockwood say the word trending. I have no idea why.
“Maverick,” I breathe, thinking about our conversation from last night.
A shiver rips through my body at the memory of what it felt like to be curled entirely around his big frame.
I haven’t been beside someone that way in almost as long as I can remember.
The way he held me after, just sitting quietly with me in the echo of his concern, his anger, and his promise…
that wasn’t like anything I’ve ever known.
It was the most intimate experience of my life. It was an honor.
“I can’t put this on him.”
“What if he’d like you to lean on him? What if he honestly wants to be there for you and doesn’t see that as burdensome or troublesome?
You can’t do this alone. I think that’s the one constant that’s been a factor for all these years.
You haven’t had the support you’ve needed.
If you were to take yourself so far from shelter that you had no choice but to endure it, even for just ten minutes to start, what do you think would happen? ”
“I’d shut down. I’d implode. I’d throw up. Hyperventilate. Pass out.”
“And if there was a protective circle of people around you to ensure you’d be okay through it and after it?”
“Do you think that would work?”
Duh. He just said that it might trend in the right direction.
“It could. You wouldn’t just wing it. Scythe is trained in first aid, as are many of the other men in the club.”
“He’s such a fearsome looking man, but so kind.” My face gets hot when I realize that I said that out loud.
“If you have fearsome men on your side, who do you have to fear?”
“That seems like an odd thing for a therapist to say.”
“I’m not a regular therapist.” Lockwood smiles kindly at me.
“I can’t guarantee this would work, but it might be a start.
At the very least, you’d be sure to break and shake some of those old patterns, and when they’re not your safe place anymore, you’ll have to find somewhere else to shelter you, and maybe that shelter is right out there in the open, under the sun. ”
“I gave up hope for anything resembling a normal life, and that included having a partner. I became a lawyer so I could help people, and that’s filled up my days.
I guess I’ve used it like a crutch, but I told myself that it wouldn’t be fair to anyone to ask them to share my life with me.
Share would have been such a joke of a word.
But if this works, or if I can just start to get better…
hoping is sometimes so bittersweet. It can be so cruel. ”