Isaac #2
“Nah. I know he don’t get a lot of visitors, and it should be his family when they can…and you. He’s gonna wanna see you more than me,” Cade said with a shrug.
I frowned. “He’s your best friend.”
“I know. And when he can have more visitors, I’ll go. Well, I’ll call anyway. I dunno if he’ll come back to Arete, but I’m gonna in a few weeks.”
I eyed him. “And hopefully you’ll try this time.”
“Hey,” he said in annoyance. “I try.”
I chuckled. “No, you haven’t, but maybe this time, you can.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug that said he didn’t believe it.
I wasn’t pessimistic, though. I had seen how quiet and thoughtful he had become since Clay had left.
Maybe it was seeing Clay so broken that left him feeling lost. I hoped Cade might also see that Clay was finally taking his first steps to heal.
And if Clay, who had stubbornly avoided dealing with his past, could find it in himself to turn things around and stare his pain in the eye, Cade could do the same.
It wasn’t easy. Clay’s bad reaction showed that.
But I once heard someone say that nothing in this world worth having came easily.
“Just think about trying,” I told him, squeezing his arm and smiling. “If not for you, then for your family, your friends. For Clay. Maybe even for me, if you want.”
“Ya’ll are my friends,” he grumbled.
“Then it shouldn’t be that hard to keep us in mind when you consider trying.” I grinned.
“You’re kinda sneaky, ya know that?”
“I have my moments. But it’s for the greater good, I promise.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Promise.”
“Right, so, uh, you’ll tell Clay I said hi? And that he’d better get his shit together?”
“I will.”
“Thanks.”
His smile was warm, but it looked fragile.
I didn’t think it was necessary to call him out on it.
We both had plenty to think about, so we lapsed into silence.
I hoped he would spend the next few weeks thinking of ways to help himself.
Then my thoughts drifted to the job offer and how to spend the time I was going to have with Clay.
“Just sit where you want,” the woman who’d led me through the building said, gesturing at the chairs.
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting. Something more sterile, more nut house.
I definitely didn’t expect the visiting room to be comfortable.
There was a couch and a round table in the center with plush chairs, but not much else.
The chairs looked comfortable but…odd. Then I realized they were assembled in one piece, probably so they couldn’t be broken up.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile, taking a seat. I didn’t feel like sitting, but didn’t want to risk being ‘difficult,’ not when they were careful about who visited Clay. “And thanks for letting me visit.”
“Well, I don’t really make that decision,” she said, but smiled anyway. “Clay has talked about you often enough to anyone who’ll listen. I’d have been surprised if you weren’t allowed to visit.”
“After making sure during the phone interview that I wasn’t going to be a bad visitor,” I pointed out.
“Well, it happens. Those closest to our patients are often a trigger,” she said apologetically.
It seemed Clay hadn’t told them I had been the catalyst for his breakdowns. Or maybe he had, and they’d come to a different conclusion. I was good with people, but there was a big difference between being a skilled people reader and a trained psychologist.
“Now, I have to remind you that we are obligated to keep an eye on things,” she said, pointing at a camera in the corner, tiny but obvious. “But don’t worry about privacy, at least with conversation. There’s no audio, and no one is a lip reader.”
I smirked. “That you know of.”
“That I know of,” she conceded. “We’ve checked you for anything dangerous, and if there’s any reason to think you or Clay is in danger, there’s a button on the side of the table which will bring help.”
“A lovely thought,” I said. “Am I allowed to hug him?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “We take safety seriously, but Clay hasn’t been classified as high risk. At least, not to others.”
“Oh, God, has he tried hurting himself again?” I asked, my heart thumping at the thought.
“I can’t tell you what’s happened during his time here due to confidentiality, but Clay can tell you if he chooses to,” she said, glancing up when the door opened. “Speak of the devil.”
Anxiety and relief washed through me in a jumble of emotions as Clay shuffled into the room, his eyes searching before landing on me. The nervousness disappeared as soon as he saw me, and he smiled. “Wow, I must be doing well with the treatment if they brought me a high-class escort.”
“Ass,” I muttered as I got up, noticing the woman smiling as she left. I reached for Clay, hugging him close. He smelled clean, and I pulled back to look at him, running a hand down the back of his head a few times. “Look at you.”
“I look like shit, I know,” he muttered, leaning into my touch and closing his eyes.
In truth, he looked a bit rough. His eyes were slightly sunken, and he was paler than before. But he was very much Clay, even down to his tasteless joke upon seeing me. He was obviously worn down and exhausted, but he wasn’t lost, which was what I’d feared most.
“You look as though you’re fighting like hell,” I told him softly, curling my fingers in his hair so my fingernails gently scraped his scalp. “And I’m proud of you for that.”
“God, don’t,” he whispered desperately. “I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but crying lately, and you’re going to start me off again.”
“I didn’t know if anyone had said it to you, so I figured I would,” I told him with a smile.
“You know what they’ve been telling me? That I’m safe. I keep hearing that,” he muttered, glancing at the camera.
“They can’t hear us.”
“Yeah, well. All I was going to say was that they can cram their ‘safe’ up their asses and let it rot. I’ve said worse to them,” he grumbled.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “You’re such a drama queen, you know?”
“Enough that I freaked out so bad I tried to kill myself because I put off mourning my dead wife and son?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I think it’s too early for me to hear jokes like that.”
“They tell me humor is a coping mechanism,” he said with a sigh. “Except they say I tend to overdo it.”
“I’d be hard pressed to disagree,” I admitted as he pressed back into my hand. “You’re like a cat, you know that?”
“We’re not allowed to touch people here, not that I want to,” he said with a grimace.
As if the thought of touching anyone here, even by accident, was like sifting through sewage.
“I didn’t know how much I’d miss having someone touch me until I got here.
Before you, Cade hung all over me, and he wasn’t a bad cuddler. How’s he doing?”
“Missing you and worrying about you,” I told him honestly as I sat in a chair, dragging him into the one next to me. I wouldn’t need the button. “But he’s Cade.”
“Is he going back next season?” he asked, looking like he didn’t know where to put his hands.
“Yes,” I said, taking one of his hands and squeezing it. “Should I ask how you’re doing, or is that pointless?”
“I’m…” he said with a heavy sigh. “I don’t fucking know what I am.
Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my fucking mind.
Other times, I feel I’m going to be normal again.
I can’t sleep, but that’s all I want to do.
They’ve got me on meds, but I swear I can’t tell if they’re helping or not.
And the therapy? Shit, I know it’s supposed to help, but it feels like someone’s rooting around in my skull with a hand mixer. ”
“So, much like what you figured you’d feel like then,” I said, running the tip of my finger over a small scar just below his knuckle. “What do the doctors say?”
“They say it’s an expected part of the process.
I suppressed my grief and guilt and everything else wrong with me, so it’s all boiling to the surface.
That what I’m going through is like going into a room full of the poison and garbage I sealed off years ago.
Painful, grueling, and disgusting at times, but the only way to give my mental home a clean is to go in and…
clean it. That’s going to be tough, but with time, meds, therapy, and a support system, I’ll be able to do it. ”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
His shoulders slumped. “Sometimes I am. Mostly, I’m just sticking with it even though it sucks ass.
Because there’s nothing else I can do. I unsealed that room at Arete, and it won’t be resealed.
So my only choice is to keep trying. Maybe I’ll fuck it up or, quote-unquote, die in that room.
Maybe I’ll get through. I’ll try until I can’t try anymore. ”
My chest tightened, but I kept smiling. “I can’t claim to know much about this sort of thing, but…I think it’s a safe bet to trust the professionals.”
“That’s what Mom said,” he said with a snort. “I felt bad when she came to see me. She was trying so hard not to cry, but Iris was here too, and she kept telling me to keep trying.”
“Iris?”
“My mother-in-law…ex mother-in-law.”
It was still painful to touch even that close to his wife and son. “She came too?”
“Yeah. She’s been pushing for me to get better.
That’s why she was willing to pay for Arete.
” He sighed heavily, and his face screwed up.
“She never blamed me, not once. Not ever. Even when she knew I’d…
fucked up. She’s been there for my mom, who struggled with me and how I was dealing with things. But you know what?”
“What?” I asked softly.
“When I told her and Iris about you, it was the first time she gave me a real smile.”
“What?”