46. Skye
SKYE
I sat in my papa’s office, Dr. Freud right across from me. It was January and rare flurries fluttered outside the window as we watched each other. Despite coming all the way to Trieste to give me sessions, which seemed extravagant, she appeared fresh and ready for another long day.
Honestly, the whole therapy thing seemed silly and unnecessary.
But my papa had set some New Year’s resolutions, one of them being to make his family happy, and he thought this was part of it. I played along because I knew how much it’d hurt him to learn about that short, dark period of my life.
Dr. Freud was the kind of woman that we all strived to be: smart, intelligent, and took no shit from anyone.
And I really meant anyone. When Papa suggested he should be my ASL translator, she flat-out refused him.
It might have something to do with the fact that she’d treated criminals for most of her career and was married to one.
Either way, Papa couldn’t bully her into getting what he wanted.
Her intelligent gaze met mine, and she smiled reassuringly. “You find this pointless, don’t you?”
I shrugged, then leaned over my pad of paper and wrote,
Honestly, yes. A dumped woman hardly calls for a therapy session. It’s an everyday occurrence.
Dr. Freud didn’t know ASL, which made these sessions even longer, much to my dismay.
Once she read my scribbles, she lifted her head and stated, “I think these sessions are more to keep Dante’s sanity. He blames himself.”
I let out a frustrated breath, then got to writing again.
That incident was a mere passing dark moment in my life. Hardly something that could shatter a person. I forgot about it once I found a family with the Nikolaevs and my parents.
“Sometimes those dark moments linger in the shadows, waiting to strike.” My mind instantly flitted back to my panic attack when I snooped around Nikola’s dorm. “Ah, you remembered something.”
I waved my hand, then wrote,
It’s nothing.
“Let me be the judge of that,” she stated firmly.
My cheeks heated before I squared my shoulders proudly. I had nothing to be ashamed of. I focused on the words as I wrote them on the pad.
I got accidentally handcuffed, and instead of turning kinky, I panicked.
She read the words, but her expression remained unchanged.
“I’m not surprised,” she said, her words spoken slowly.
“Sometimes it’s useful to replace those bad memories with the good ones, but the process has to happen gradually and with someone you trust explicitly.
” Nikola immediately came to mind, if only he’d look past the physical and focus on what we had.
“Also, if you find that person, you want to be honest with them so as you get… kinky, they can look after you. Take care of you.”
Okay, maybe Dr. Freud was as good as my papa claimed.
I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.
She read my note and flashed me a kind smile.
Did you help my papa with his own memories of torture?
She glanced at my question before answering. “I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is that your papa’s only concern is you, and he’ll gladly ignore all his demons to ensure your happiness.”
I didn’t need her to tell me that because I already knew it. I saw it every day.
Maybe you should have sessions with him, not me.
She chuckled after reading it. “He’s just worried about you and wants to make sure you’re alright.”
I am fine, or I will be once I come up with a plan.
She read my sentence and her eyebrow rose in surprise.
“Plan?” I nodded and she questioned, “To get your man back?” I nodded my answer, causing her to chuckle. “You’re your father’s daughter, that’s for sure.”
I started writing again.
Thank you…?
She smiled. “It’s definitely a compliment.”
I always wondered how my papa knew Dr. Freud. When I questioned him about it, he just said she helped him once, and since she was married into another mob family now, she could be trusted not to yap to the authorities.
“I think it’s good you’re not giving up,” Dr. Freud continued. “Although, I would caution you not to project your emotions and feelings onto the man.”
Anger flared inside my chest and I wrote my next words with a harsher press of the pen.
He loves me too.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” she said slowly, and my eyes turned into slits.
Love is enough,
I wrote, underlining “ is ” multiple times.
Nikola thinks he isn’t good enough now that he can’t run, but that’s bullshit. It’s like me saying I’m not enough because I can’t hear.
She scanned the words and tilted her head pensively. “Yes, I see your point.”
But did she really? Or was this just another one of those vague therapist comments that led you to come to your own conclusion?
NIKOLA
It was a new year, but my legs were still just as useless, and so was my mind sometimes.
I’d been bound to a wheelchair for two months now, the lowest point in more ways than one. I continued seeing the therapist that my mother had insisted on and it was my own personal hell these days, although I wasn’t sure that I didn’t deserve it.
“The best thing one can do when handicapped is to know our limits.” Dr. MaryAnn’s words were slowly but surely killing me. “And don’t put others in a position where they have to do something out of pity for you.”
As we sat in her office in downtown New Orleans, her expression was a mixture of pity, disgust, and… was it shame? Either way, it was working like the worst kind of poison.
“I see,” I gritted out with so much pent-up energy rolling off my Brioni three-piece suit, I was surprised I didn’t perish right then and there. Over the holidays, my uncle’s words had kept playing on repeat in my mind and I’d started to consider them, but now… yeah, fuck that.
I didn’t want anyone’s pity, least of all Skye’s.
My therapist’s black eyes zeroed in on me, almost as if waiting for the moment to strike. But I wouldn’t let her.
“Do you have any useful suggestions?” I drawled. “Or are you done for the day?”
“All the wrongdoings have a way of getting their payback,” she stated.
Triumph oozed from her dead eyes while chaos reigned in my own.
Irritation flared through every fiber of me, rising higher and higher until it was suffocating me.
Yet I couldn’t help but wonder whether the woman was right.
The consequences of my actions had caught up to me after years of stupid shenanigans and reckless behavior.
It was time I cut that shit out. Maybe this was payback to teach me some fucked-up humility. Though I didn’t see much sense in it.
“So therapists believe in karma, huh?” I retorted wryly.
Her eyes locked on my wheelchair in answer. Fuck this bitch.
“Bad men are selfish and think only of themselves,” she continued in a taunting voice. “Are you a bad man, Mr. Nikolaev?”
“I sure fucking am,” I stated matter-of-factly, meeting her gaze head-on with cold indifference while my insides shredded to pieces.
But I’d be damned if I let her—or anyone—see that.