Clay #3
“Fault?” he asked with such genuine confusion that it almost made me laugh.
“There’s no fault here, Clay. Your feelings for Isaac are because you’ve grown to care for him, first as a friend, and then as something more.
This was going to conflict with your feelings for your late wife and the fact that you have been unable to move on from losing her and your son.
You wouldn’t be the first person who felt like they were replacing those they lost with someone else and felt a great deal of guilt.
And right now? Nothing I or anyone else says is going to help you; it’s something you have to figure out on your own. ..with help.”
“Help you can’t give,” I croaked, resisting the urge to rub my throat.
“I might... Truthfully? No,” he said with a sigh and a sad smile.
“I had a dream...before I woke up in here,” I said, feeling my face warm. “It’s kind of stupid. You know, being worked up over a dream. Well, no, dreams feel real in the moment, so of course they fuck with you. But it feels stupid to make them seem important afterward.”
“Hmm, I’m not a believer in interpreting dreams,” he admitted slowly.
“But I believe the things we take from those dreams, what stands out the most, can tell us a lot more about a person’s mental state than any dream dictionary.
A dream of falling isn’t because of a loss of control; you’re just falling because the unconscious brain is sorting through everything it has and spitting out what it can.
But if someone feels that it resonates with their lack of control over their own life? Now that’s important.”
“I was...back in the house,” I said, liking his view on things enough to speak.
“I was trapped in the house while it was burning. It’s happened before, but this was different.
I knew they were burning, and I had to find them, but the house kept changing, like everything I knew was suddenly being changed on me.
And then when I found them, I realized it wasn’t just Gina and Mikael burning. ..but Isaac too.”
Ramirez nodded as he listened, tilting his head. “Well, referring back to what I thought about dreams, what did that tell you?”
“That...he’s important to me, but that my life is going to hurt him, that I’m going to hurt him. Not on purpose, and even though I try not to...I will,” I said, closing my eyes. “I already did, and that was nothing compared to what could happen. I can’t do that to him.”
“Then what would you prefer to do?”
“Does dying count?”
“It’s certainly a choice,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “But if that was the case, why would you be sharing it with me?”
“Because I want to live,” I said, keeping my eyes closed as I remembered saying, well, shouting those words at Isaac once. “But I don’t know how, and this… It’s not working, is it?”
“I don’t think it is,” he said, and the relief that he was agreeing with me was so huge it nearly took my breath away.
I opened my eyes. “Okay, so what do I do?”
“I have a few options, but while I explain them, I need you to give your voice a rest. I suspect you’re going to need it after we’re done,” he said, moving closer and resting his arms on the bed next to me. “Can you do that?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but at a pointed look from him, closed my lips and lay there while he told me the options he thought would work best. It only took him ten minutes to lay it all out, but I had already made up my mind by the time he was finished.
There was no need to mull it over or agonize over my fear and wounded pride.
My life had been a shambles for over three years, and now it was finally at the point where my self-destruction was starting to hurt everyone around me.
That couldn’t continue.
“You’re sure?” he said when I told him my answer, and when I nodded, he got up. “Then I’ll make a few calls. Are you ready to talk to Cade and Isaac? I can have them wait or order something to help you sleep so you can avoid it while you think.”
“I’ve been doing enough thinking,” I said softly. “And they deserve to know.”
“Then I’ll get them,” he said and opened the door, leaving me alone for a few seconds to get my thoughts together and prepare for the conversation.
Isaac appeared in the doorway, looking warier than when I’d been losing my mind with him as the sole witness.
Cade looked grim as well, quietly closing the door and moving to the end of my bed as Isaac slid forward.
It took me a moment to realize what was odd about his movements until I realized he hadn’t made a single sound.
“Take a breath,” I said to Cade, knowing I needed to talk to Isaac, too, but the fact that Cade was slipping into routine and habit from his days in the forces was especially alarming.
“I’m not signing up to be shipped to Canada to be offed, and I’m not going back home where I can feed myself a bullet. ”
“That ain’t funny,” Cade said, but I saw some of the tension leave his shoulders.
“It wasn’t supposed to be,” I said grimly, clearing my throat. I immediately regretted that and took a breath. “I know what I need to do. And I need you to listen without interrupting. It’s hard enough as it is.”
“We can wait,” Isaac said, but it came across as half-hearted, like he knew I wasn’t going to listen, or he too wanted me to say whatever was on my mind.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s gotta be said before—”
“Before you leave,” Isaac finished with a weary sigh, taking the chair Ramirez had vacated and scooting close to the bed so he could take my hand and rest his other on my knee.
“Inpatient care,” I said softly with a nod.
“The nut house?” Cade grunted.
“I said not to interrupt,” I said with a glare, and he ducked his head sheepishly.
“But yes, the nut house. At least at first, but the one the doc wants to send me to, or, no, he gave me options. I-I chose this one. Because once Arete lets me go, there’s another facility that can take me in long-term.
They’re...this place can’t help me. Not like it can help other people. My head is too fucked up.”
“You ain’t fucked up,” Cade grunted.
I looked at him, smiling sadly. “Cade, are you saying that because you believe it or because if you admit I’m fucked up in the head, then you have to admit you are too?”
He went pale, and while I wished I hadn’t been so hard on him, I knew it needed to be said.
For all the demons I had locked in my head, there were untold numbers locked in his.
Not that he would need the same kind of help I clearly did, but if he didn’t start getting a handle on things, then he might be in the same boat as me one day.
Or, and this was my greatest fear for him, he would need something even more drastic. ..if he could be helped at all.
“Fuck you,” he muttered, looking away.
“And you,” I said, turning to Isaac. “You need to stay here, this place has been good for you, and I think you’re ready, or will be by the time your.
..well, when your time is up. I think all you needed was time to find yourself, not some big intervention.
You know yourself better than you think, and you’re a damn good person.
So don’t keep punishing yourself when you haven’t done anything wrong; trust me, you don’t want to go down that road. ”
Isaac frowned, and I braced for the protest, the fight, for him to tell me there wasn’t anything wrong with me. “You’re right.”
I opened my mouth, realized what he’d said, and stopped to stare at him. “I-I’m what?”
“Right,” he said with a small smile, clearly realizing I was confused and why. “But you don’t get to talk to me like this is your final talk with me, and then you move on.”
“Isaac,” I began in protest, but he bowled right on through, not caring what I had to say on the subject.
“No,” he said firmly. “You don’t get to determine how I feel about things, you got it? You can break things off with me, you can put as much distance between us as you think is necessary, but you don’t get to tell me what I feel, or what I think, alright? Don’t be a hypocrite.”
I smiled at that. “Don’t tell you to be your own person and then turn around and be upset when you’re your own person in a way I don’t like?”
“Exactly,” he said with a wavering smile. “You can learn.”
“It can be taught,” I said solemnly.
“And if you need time and space, you’ve got it.
But even if we’re not...whatever we are right now, and there’s no hope, well, guess what?
I don’t care. You still matter to me, you’re still important to me, and I’m going to be there for you.
When I get out of here, I want to know where you are so I can visit.
And when you get out? I want to see you still.
Even if it’s just as friends,” he said with a quiet intensity that was so much fiercer than my yelling and throwing things could have ever been.
“I don’t,” I began, but shook my head. “You and...Gina, and Mikael, and...Cade, and I don’t know.”
“It’s all jumbled up,” he said softly, stroking my face gently.
“I thought it might be happening, but I was too scared to ask. Me, them, us, it’s all bouncing around in that thick skull of yours, and you don’t know what to do with it.
So you have to go somewhere to get it sorted out, with people who know how to help you do just that. I get it. I understand.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I don’t have to stay and hang around like some stray dog begging for scraps?” he asked coldly before taking a breath and squeezing my hand. “I’m not, and you’d better not see me as some pitiful thing that needs your help or guidance.”
“I don’t,” I said in horror.
“Good, then stop acting like it,” he said roughly before smiling again. “Because I get to decide who is worth keeping in my life, not anyone else.”
“Good God, Cade is right, you are scary,” I said, eyes wide and staring at him, amazed at the sheer tenacity and strength that radiated off him.
It at least proved I was right because I didn’t think anyone who wasn’t sure about who they were, or what they were about, could have come off that genuinely confident. ..and terrifying.
“Keep that in mind then,” he said with a gentle smile, turning to Cade. “Are you going to say something or sulk because he called you out on the thing I called you out on weeks ago when you asked me to try to be his friend?”
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked as Cade’s head snapped up, mouth falling open in shock and horror.
“Traitor,” he hissed at Isaac.
Isaac, however, was completely unfazed and smiled.
“Cade loves you to pieces, but he’s as bad about talking about feelings as you can be.
He wanted me to be friends with you because he thought I would be good at it.
Turns out, he didn’t need to ask, because coming to like you as a person and. ..other things, came easily to me.”
I glared at Cade, unable to decide if I wanted to throttle him for his interference or horrify him by trying to give him a kiss for understanding just what kind of person Isaac was and trying to guide him toward me.
“When I no longer want to off myself, you and I are going to have a long conversation about how much you’re getting in my business. ”
“Ya weren’t supposed to know,” he grumbled, glaring at Isaac, who continued to look angelic in his calmness.
“You saw the way things were going between him and me,” Isaac said calmly.
“You had to know the truth would come out eventually. And in any case, does it matter? I grew closer to him because of who I am and who he is. If anything, you just nudged me on that path a little sooner than it might have happened otherwise.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He smiled that little private, secret smile. “I was intrigued about you from the start, Clay. And everything that followed was just...I don’t know, natural, organic, fated? Fuck if I know what it means. I don’t really care about all that, though, what I care about is you, and us.”
“What about you?”
“I care a great deal about me. Which means I know you have been pivotal for me to understand myself more than I might have without your help. So listen to me before you start coming up with a whole set of bullshit excuses as to why I’m better off forgetting you,” he said, and despite wanting to protest, I found myself locked onto his eyes and waiting for what he had to say.
“You helped me in ways that one day I’ll be able to explain better, but can’t now.
And it’s not just because you’re good in bed, or that you make me laugh.
You made me feel important and vital, and you made me realize you are important and vital.
Even in the state you’re in, confused, lost, hurting so deeply it breaks my heart, you were still enough to help me realize how to find myself again. ”
“Isaac,” I croaked out.
“No,” he said softly, holding his hand to my face.
“You helped me, and I’ve helped you. And if I have my way, we’re going to keep helping each other every chance we can, alright?
So, you do what you need to do, because I know you need to do it.
But I’m not going to be turned away because you’re not who you want to be; who you are.
You let me be me, so now I’m going to do the same. And so is Cade, isn’t that right?”
“You’re goddamn right,” Cade said and stepped to the other side of my bed, taking my other hand.
“Guys,” I weakly said, knowing there was no protest, no fight that would cover the overwhelming hope and fear that filled me in that moment.
What if, in the end, it wasn’t enough?
What if I was still too broken?
“We ain’t leavin’ you,” Cade said gruffly.
“We’re here, now and later,” Isaac said softly, laying his head so it rested on my stomach, and I wished I didn’t have the restraints so I could push my hands through his hair.
“Okay,” I said, giving in completely. “Okay.”
We’d see. God, please, let me do this right.