Chapter 26 #2
“You’re already with me.” Olivia gives a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m a doctor.”
My confused mind can’t work out why that’s wrong.
But it is.
Olivia pats my knee. “Now, let’s talk. You shouldn’t have tried to leave for another doctor. That was rude, when I’ve been trying to help you. Fix you.”
Fix me?
“I’m not b-b-roken.”
“But you are.” Olivia’s lip curls with contempt. “I already fixed your brother. You should have seen the mess that he was when he first came to me. Young, from a broken home, and filled with guilt that he shouldn’t have been feeling. He couldn’t trust or love. I helped him to learn how to do both.”
Bruno…?
Horrified, I stare at her.
She knows Bruno…? She was his therapist…more than that?
I attempt to stand to escape the room, but Olivia snatches me by the shoulders, keeping me in the chair.
I struggle, but my muscles are too weak.
“No more avoidance,” Olivia says, firmly. “You need to face your past.”
“What about yours?” I grit out. “How m-m-many ethical b-b-boundaries did you cross?”
“All of them,” Olivia casually replies. “Bruno and I fell in love. I was quietly sacked for serious professional misconduct for my inappropriate relationship with a patient, who is now my husband.”
My stomach lurches.
She’s Bruno’s wife.
Is that why Bruno was actually in Freedom?
He must know that Olivia is working here.
Does Bruno know that Olivia is my therapist?
Nausea sweeps over me.
I twist my head to the side and vomit.
Heaving, I gag.
Terror claws at my insides.
I am shaking with sickness. Has she poisoned me?
Olivia pulls my hair out of my face with a maternal tenderness that makes my skin crawl.
“Now look what you’ve done. What a mess.
But you are a mess. Reading your notes made me realize what a disaster you are.
Bruno could have ended up like you, if he hadn’t met me.
You should have been grateful for my help, but I see now that you’re not worth it.
You had your chance but you don’t deserve it.
” Olivia is looking at me with a disgust that turns my stomach because I recognize it.
It’s how Bruno looked at me. “I saw you kissing that other player in the corridor, before you kissed the coach’s daughter. ”
I’ve heard this all before, but this is…a therapist…my psychiatrist…my brother’s fucking wife.
“D-d-does he…?” I can’t say Bruno’s name. “D-does he know you’re…?”
I must know whether my own brother is aware that his wife is here, hurting me.
Is she attempting to kill me?
My breath stutters.
Am I dying?
Olivia chuckles, shaking her head. “Bruno is weak, unlike me. He doesn’t take what he needs, even when he should.
He needs me to do it for him. He talks and talks and fucking talks about how much he wants to beat the shit out of you.
But it’s because he loves you and is haunted by guilt.
I doubt he could admit that or that he misses having a younger brother.
He has a special box that he keeps in the attic, which he doesn’t know I’ve discovered.
It’s filled with everything that he could keep of your childhood shit, when you were sent away.
Your parents threw the rest into the trash, but Bruno secretly saved a bunch.
I am intending to make him burn it as a final test. Do you think he will? ”
“I think,” I whisper, “that you’re sick.” My chest is tight at the thought of Bruno sneaking into my room to save what he could for me, while it hurts that my parents instantly threw out the rest. “I could just shout and someone will hear.”
Olivia gestures at the gray walls. “Soundproofed to make this a safe space, remember?”
“Safe, right. And your name…” I fight to pull together my scattered thoughts, while sweat trails down my back and my muscles tremble. “How did you…?”
“I go by my maiden name. Anderson recommended me for the job.”
Of course he did.
Olivia leans closer. “When Bruno was my patient, I was initially hooked when he spoke about his brother who was a famous — infamous — NHL player. This player had ruined Bruno’s life.
Do you even know or care about that? You were the devil who corrupted your family.
After that one moment where you pulled down everything he knew — his loving and happy family life — when he came home and found you kissing a boy, nothing was the same for him.
His mom was distant and withdrawn. His dad was angry.
The rest of the family shamed them. He became suspicious and unable to trust. He developed PTSD from that night.
You destroyed his family, took away the younger brother who he thought the world of, and gave him nightmares. ”
Tears trail down my cheeks. I can’t stop them.
My hands lie on my lap, clutching the phone. I don’t have the energy to raise them to wipe off my cheeks.
It wasn’t my fault, I want to say.
They made those choices. They ruined their own lives.
They fucking ruined me.
Olivia is a manipulative, gaslighting victim blamer. An abusive psychiatrist who used her position over my brother when he was vulnerable to worm into his mind and then his pants.
Unfortunately, also his heart.
She should be in jail.
Except, I can’t speak.
My mind is too confused. Only waves of sadness are dragging me into a nightmarish place between waking and sleeping.
I’m trapped.
I whine, trying to escape Olivia, but she grabs me by the hair and jerks me closer.
“What do you think it’s been like living with someone who is haunted by their past?
” She demands. “Bruno isn’t present. I tell him that you’re no longer his family.
You’re dead to your parents. Bruno pretends that you’re dead to him, but you’re not.
If you’re truly gone, then he can move on.
I’m healing him. He can mourn, and I and the kids can have him fully in our lives. ”
Gone...? Mourn?
Terror gives me the strength to wrench out of Olivia’s hold and roll off the chair. I wince, as she rips strands of hair out, and at the crack as I hit the hard floor.
I keep hold of the phone underneath me, masking that I am punching in an SOS emoji to Robyn.
Then I crawl toward the door.
My muscles ache, but determined, I blink at the blurred door and head toward it.
I let out an oomph, as Olivia stamps her boot into the back of my head, pressing my face into the carpet. She pins me in place.
I gasp for breath. My heart is beating too rapidly.
“Are you the snake now in Eden?” She rubs my face more aggressively into the carpet. “Just relax. You look like you’re going to have a seizure. I haven’t done anything.”
What?
I kick my legs.
“You are smarter than I was expecting,” Olivia admits.
“You were right about the meds. Your notes made it clear that you don’t get on well with this one’s side effects.
It was deemed too high risk. It’s why I put you on them.
I hoped that it would wreck your chances on the ice.
I thought that ruining your dream would be punishment enough for what you’d done to Bruno.
Having read all your notes and met you, however, I’ve realized how dangerous you are.
I increased your dosage. The seizure probably won’t kill you. Won’t it be fun to find out?”
My jaw clenches.
I am shaking, unable to move.
My mind is clouded, but despite the fear, all I can think about is Robyn and Shay.
My girlfriend and boyfriend, subs, and the two people I love more than anyone in the world.
The only people I will ever love.
I have just promised that it will be forever and not a day less.
I can’t leave them. It would destroy them to be abandoned.
I regret many things in my life. If I die, the only thing I truly fear is leaving them alone.
Fear shoots through me that I’m not married to them.
Panic floods me.
How could I have acted like I had endless time to work things out? If I die now, then they would be thrown out of the home that I created just for them. They wouldn’t inherit anything like they were nothing to me.
It’s wrong.
I can’t die.
I can’t leave my real family.
“No,” I mouth.
“Your issue is the need for control.” Olivia grinds her boot harder against my head. “Now, it’s been stripped from you. This is simply an experimental therapy. Sometimes, I needed to tear your brother down as well in order to build him back up again. If you survive, you’ll thank me.”
I gasp, clawing against the floor.
Suddenly, the office door crashes open.
“Get away from my husband.” Robyn sounds like a vengeful Valkyrie.
Relief washes over me.
I can’t raise my head. I can’t even see. But Robyn is here.
She’s fucking here.
A scuffle above me, followed by a screech of pain from Olivia as her boot is lifted from my head. Then the sound of furniture being knocked over.
“You are lucky that my brother called the cops.” Eden’s voice is deadly. “Or I would have made sure that you never preyed on anyone again.”
“Get this psychopath away from me.”
“Is that an official diagnosis?”
Finally, a gentle hand is stroking through my hair.
“I’m here, darlin’.” Shay’s worried voice is close to my ear. “Can you talk to me? Code has called an ambulance. I’m with you, yeah? We’re all with you.”
“Forever,” I whisper.
But then, I gasp.
A buzzing sensation zaps through me, as if electric bugs are crawling underneath my skin. My heart is hammering so hard against my ribs that I can’t breathe. My muscles are jerking against my will.
“Jude,” Shay cries in alarm. “Jude…”
I can’t reply. Move. Speak.
I have lost all control.
My back arches. My arms and legs lock.
I choke.
My body is no longer mine.
I’m convulsing, trapped inside.
Helpless.
Then everything goes black.