Chapter Five
CHAPTER FIVE
DRAVEN
I attribute the visceral reaction I had when I touched the doc in her kitchen to the adrenaline surge I had from rushing to her side to keep her from toppling over.
The ache that cut into my wounds from the spill I took on my bike last night traveled from my chest out to the tips of my fingers and from my knees down to my toes. The tingling in my hands that began the moment I touched her faded away by the time she sat in the chair across from me.
Thankfully.
I don’t need one more insecurity taunting me while I’m sitting in the middle of a psychologist’s office I don’t want to be in. Not on top of the utter exhaustion I’m battling. All I want to do is go home and crawl into my bed. Though the moment I show my face at the compound, I have a feeling I won’t be getting much sleep. Not before Royce gets his chance to lay into me.
“Let me guess,” I speak before the doc is able to elaborate on the reason I’m here. “Royce is pissed at me, and he’s asked you to play a role in my punishment.”
Puckering her lips, she appears thoughtful before responding.
“Royce is worried about you, and?—”
“Listen, Doc. I know Royce like a brother, and there’s no way he didn’t put me here out of anger. While I’ve never done the therapy thing before, I know how it works. I talk, you advise. But I’m begging you, for both of our sakes… Cut the bullshit.”
Her head jerks back, and her lips part briefly. She looks a little bit like I slapped her. Quickly, the emotion on her face fades, and she begins speaking again.
“Okay, then. As I stated, I received a call from Royce and Delilah earlier this morning. While they did express concern over your recent behavior, yes, Royce is less than happy with how you’ve been acting recently.”
“See, that wasn’t hard.” I smirk at her, but she remains stone-faced.
My cock aches as she gathers her silky, brown waves in one hand and flips them over her shoulder. For a fleeting moment, I wish things were different. That I could run my fingers through what look like soft locks. That she would want me to.
That I was worthy enough to.
“I don’t pretend to know the relationship you guys have with our local sheriff, but apparently, he and Royce worked out a deal to keep this incident off the judge’s docket. Part of that deal is you completing ninety days of therapy.”
“Can’t wait.”
I highly doubt Royce knows how I feel about the doc, but if he did, I wouldn’t put it past him sending me here to have to admit my shortcomings to her as some kind of sick, sadistic punishment.
Ignoring me, she continues. “So unless you have any questions for me, we’ll get started.”
Her deep chocolate eyes draw me in as I take a sip of my coffee. The warm liquid feels like it breathes new life into me after the night I had. I shake my head slowly, letting her know I don’t have any questions.
“Okay, well, let me know if you think of any. I want this to be a safe space for you, Draven.”
My only response is silence.
“So…” My mouth goes dry as she uncrosses then recrosses her long legs. “Why don’t we begin with what happened last night?”
I kick my foot off the table and rest my ankle over my opposite knee, wincing in pain as my jeans scrape against the cuts on my kneecap.
I want no part in this. Shit, even if I did, I wouldn’t know where the hell to begin.
How can I tell a story that I don’t understand myself?
I do nothing to stifle a yawn as I finger the rim of my coffee mug. I try to force words out … Anything. Even words that tell her I’m not going to indulge in this experimental punishment Royce has concocted, but I’m unsuccessful. I can’t make them come. Maybe if I decline to participate, they’ll all give up on this bullshit.
You should know better than to think Royce would give up on you.
The voice of my conscience changes. When I’m being hard on myself and sinking into self-deprecation, it’s Lillian’s voice that taunts me. When I need guidance, it’s my father’s voice that haunts me.
Now it’s my own mother throwing truth-bombs my way.
“I should add, the ninety days of therapy has to be constructive and a good use of time. I’m required to report it if you’re uncooperative.”
“I’m not trying to be,” I bark at her. Scrubbing my hand down my face, I sigh deeply. “I just don’t know what to say. I don’t really know or understand what happened last night.”
I’m already losing the battle to protest. I must be more tired than I thought.
“That’s okay. Can you tell me the last thing you remember? Or just tell me the first thing that pops into your head, and we can try to work it out from there.”
My eyes connect with hers again, and I find my lips moving of their own accord.
“I’m angry!” The words come out in a roar. Like they needed to be heard. Like no matter how hard I fought to keep my lips closed, my words won the battle. As if they have a mind of their own, and they’ve joined Royce in the fight to fix me.
“At what? I get you don’t want to be here, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”
She’s right. My anger has little to do with being here.
“At … life? I don’t know!” I pause for a moment as several reasons why I’m upset flash through my head. I speak as though I’m enraged with the doc, when really I just feel like screaming to give my wrath a place to go. “At the fact that I just watched my mother die slowly over the past three years. The fact that I couldn’t do anything to stop it. The fact that I don’t have anyone to take it out on or to hurt in retribution.”
She doesn’t appear fazed by my desire to cause harm to someone, but she does write something down on her pad of paper before speaking again.
“So you’re grieving.”
“I don’t fucking know. Maybe? I guess.” The end of my sentence is cut off by another yawn.
Fuck, despite this coffee’s best efforts to wake me the fuck up, my eyes are getting heavy.
“I take it you and your mother were close?”
“Yeah.” Nodding, I stare at the floor in a daze.
“What about your dad?”
I groan internally. I don’t know why I thought we’d only be tapping into what is going on in my life currently. This is a deep dive I’m not prepared for. Pinching the bridge of my nose slightly, I take another deep breath, followed by a gulp of coffee.
“We used to be close.” If she wants details, she’ll have to work for them. To pull them out of me because I don’t open up to anyone. I’ve never needed to before. I’ve always dealt with my shit on my own.
Yeah, and look what happened to Lillian.
Therapy wasn’t a huge thing growing up. My parents believed any problems we had could be resolved through prayer. But imagine if I would have had a professional to talk to after dad died? What that could have meant for her .
Fuck.
My mom pops back into my head trying to help find a resolution between the warring feelings and emotions in my mind.
I don’t want to be here.
But it could be good for you.
I don’t want to let this doc in, allowing myself to feel raw and exposed to her.
But it could help to heal decades of hurt you’re holding on to.
I don’t want to let her see me . I’m afraid she isn’t going to like what she finds.
“Used to be?”The doc pulls me from my internal battle.
“What?”
“You said you and your father used to be close…”
Oh.
“He died when I was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She makes another scribble on her notepad as she speaks. “What happened?”
A flash of my father’s pale, cold, lifeless corpse lying on the table in the morgue as I stood by my mother’s side, her hand closed tightly around mine as she identified his body, absolutely defeats me. It feels like there is a clamp around my lungs, growing tighter every second that passes, threatening to let up only if I spill my guts to her.
“He was murdered.”
She freezes, her pen still pressed to the paper as her eyes flick to mine again.
Blinking, I try to wet my dry eyes as I wait for her to ask for details. To pull more information surrounding his death from me.
“How did you cope with that at the time?”
I ruined Lillian’s life.
“I didn’t.” Apparently, I still can’t utter the truth about what really happened. “I threw my energy into my schoolwork and helping my mom keep our farm running.”
I don’t miss the slight narrowing of the doc’s eyes before she looks back at her paper and starts writing again.
What the fuck is she thinking?
Why does it bother me?
“What are you writing?” I didn’t want to ask… I don’t want to come off sounding curious or weak. But I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of me.
“Just making some notes so I don’t forget what we talk about.” She doesn’t take her attention from the paper as she finishes writing.
“Do I get to read your notes?”
This time she looks at me.
“My case notes are private, but I assure you, there’s nothing in them that we won’t discuss during our time together.”
“Got it.” I nod my head, but all she’s done is increase my curiosity. I guess I’ll have to find another way to read them.
“Tell me more about your family. Are you an only child?”
“No.”
She looks at me, waiting for me to continue, but I don’t. She sets down the pen and notepad, folding her hands in her lap.
“Draven, I know we have ninety days to work through whatever it is you’re dealing with, but it will be a lot easier and wildly more successful if you don’t force me to drag every last bit of information from you.”
I laugh inwardly at her irritation. The way she cocks her eyebrow as she allows attitude to seep into her words. Commanding participation from me.
It’s kind of cute, and I feel the corner of my lips twitch slightly.
It’s the only time I’ve ever been this remotely interested in a woman’s reaction. In her mannerisms. A fact that unnerves me and one that sends a phantom tingle to my hands.
“Technically, I have a brother.” Before she gets a chance to ask a follow up question, I restate my answer more clearly. “I have a brother who I recently disowned.”
“See, that wasn’t hard.” With another cock of her brow, she throws my taunt from earlier right back at me.
She raises her other eyebrow now, silently imploring me to continue.
Still feeling beaten down and no longer possessing the energy to put up a fight, I grip the back of my neck and give in.
“Mitchell and I used to be really close. He was one of my best friends up until we lost our father. It caused a bit of a rift in our relationship. It was small at first, but it grew over time. Being the older brother, I stepped in to the role of man of the house, and in his eyes, we were no longer equals.”
“He didn’t like you parenting him.”
“He didn’t, no. And I didn’t either, but all I was trying to do was keep everything running as smoothly as it did when Dad ran the ship.”
“Did you guys argue a lot because of it?”
“No. Actually, it was the complete opposite.” I can already feel the knot growing in my throat as I recall the moment my relationship with my brother changed. “We rarely spoke at all after a while. We each did what we needed to do, in school and at home. We were both good students. That’s not something that faltered in the wake of Dad’s murder. But the family dynamic couldn’t be saved. He graduated from high school two years after I did. He made no mention of going away to college until a week before he left for Cal State.”
I yawn again before taking another sip of my coffee while she recommences her note scribbling.
“Apparently, he’d been awarded several academic scholarships. Those and the federal aid he was granted helped him pay for all four years. He rarely came home. It tore Mom apart. And it tore me apart to witness the pain his absence caused her.”
At the mention of my mother, my chest begins to ache. I place a hand over my sternum and press into it, hoping to relieve some of the pressure.
I realize the more I tell the doc, the more she seems genuinely curious and not judgmental, so I continue. “Once Mom started getting sick, he stopped coming home at all. He would call her occasionally, but the calls were few and far between. He didn’t come to see her before she died two weeks ago. But he did show up to the luncheon following her funeral. Toward the end. I lost it…”
My gaze drops and becomes unfocused as I think back to that day. To the fury I felt when I saw him. The anger I still hold that’s currently gripping me like a vice.
“When you say you lost it…” Doc brings my attention back to her.
“I snapped. I attacked him in the middle of the bar. I unleashed two decades’ worth of rage and resentment on him.”
I pause, taking another sip of my coffee as I realize I was angry before seeing him. But the moment my punch landed on his jaw was the beginning of my most recent decline.
“I guess you could say that’s where it started—my behavior the past two weeks. That was the tipping point of my grief, and I’ve been in a spiral ever since. One that ended with me in jail last night.”
Uncrossing my leg, I plant both of my feet on the ground before sitting up in my chair and placing the mug on the table in front of me. Resting my elbows on my knees, I lower my head to my hands and rub my eyes.
Fuck.
“Tell me what happened after the fight with your brother.”
I take a moment, not ready to resume the conversation just yet. My chest feels tight again. Inhaling slowly, I hold it for a few seconds before letting it out, trying to make the feeling go away.
“Nothing really. We all just went home. I switched from beer to bourbon and didn’t put the bottle down for two weeks.”
Sitting back again, I rest my body against the cushion behind me.
“Do you drink often under normal circumstances?”
“No, here and there.”
“Why do you think you chose that path, then?”
Before I’m able to tell her I have no fucking idea, her cell phone starts ringing.
She pulls the phone from her pocket and looks at the screen. I don’t miss the annoyance that flashes in her eyes for a split second before she silences the call and places the phone on the arm of her chair.
“Sorry about that. I don’t usually have my phone on me during sessions, but I forgot to leave it in the other room before coming in here.”
“It’s okay. I don’t know how…” I was going to tell her I didn’t know how to answer her question anyway, but her phone starts ringing again, cutting me off.
“I’m so sorry.” She huffs as she stares at the phone screen. When she looks back at me, there is worry wrinkling the corners of her eyes. She rises from the chair. “Let me go deal with this for a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I nod, letting her know it’s fine. She was smart and took her notepad with her. Damn it. I was hoping this would be my chance to read it. I don’t know why I care, but I have to know what she’s writing about me on there. Has she already diagnosed me with something? Does she think I’m a terrible person?
Letting my mind wander, I avoid trying to come up with an answer to her last question. I allow my head to rest on the back of the sofa for a minute as lethargy steadily overwhelms my mind.
Shifting positions again, I lay my body across the expanse of the sofa. I’ll just rest until she gets back. Closing my eyes, I give in to the weight of my fatigue and let the sleep I’ve been craving overtake me.