Chapter 11
Addie glanced down at her phone. He hadn’t messaged all morning. Granted, it was only nine, but she’d woken at three a.m. to Noah’s nightmare and hadn’t gone back to sleep, so it felt later.
She was tired. And frustrated. And it felt like there was this band around her chest, tightening with each breath.
Yes, she’d felt a flicker of fear when Noah had grabbed her. But he hadn’t hurt her.
Mrs. Gerald set a mug on her table. “Here you are, dear.”
“Thank you.” She wrapped her fingers around the hot mug, letting the warmth slip into the cool crevices inside her.
Before the older woman walked away, she frowned. “Are you okay?”
“It hasn’t been a great morning.” Understatement of the century.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“You’ve already done it by making me this steaming-hot cup of cocoa. Thank you. And thank you for checking in.”
“Let me know if you need pie too.”
Despite everything, her lips twitched. “I just might.” Heck, she might need two pieces of pie.
When the other woman walked away, Addie lifted her mug, but even the sweetness of the drink didn’t help.
“Oh my, it must be bad if the hot chocolate isn’t making you smile.”
Addie looked up to see Jules slide into the booth opposite her, a piece of pie in her hand.
“Jules, hey.”
“You should be smiling. It’s Monday, the park’s closed, we all have the day off, and the sun’s shining.”
“After the twenty-four hours I’ve had, smiling is not high on my to-do list today.”
Jules’s brows flickered. “Is this about Noah?”
“Noah?”
“Addie, I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. Has something happened?”
Cass had said something similar. Was it that obvious to everyone? “It’s complicated.”
Jules seemed to consider that for a moment. “Well, if there’s anything I’ve learned in my fifty-five years on this earth, it’s that there’s no problem that cannot be solved with pie.” She pushed her slice across the table.
“Oh, no, it’s yours.”
“You look like you need it more than me.” Julie tilted her head. “Want to talk about it?”
Ha. If she told this woman about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, heck in the last month, her eyes would probably fall out of their sockets. “Trust me, you do not want me to spill all my problems on you.”
“I’ve had my share of problems, and talking has always helped. In fact, my therapist is possibly my best friend.”
Addie chuckled. “You seem far too happy to need therapy.”
Something flickered over the other woman’s face. It came and went so quickly, Addie wasn’t sure what to make of it. Was it sadness? Maybe a bit of regret?
“Trust me,” Jules said slowly, “my life has not been all sunshine and roses.”
Addie frowned. “Are you okay now?”
“Actually, I’m in the best place I’ve been my entire life.”
“That’s good.”
“It’s amazing. I’m glad I saw the job at the park advertised and it brought me to Amber Ridge. It’s a beautiful town. You’re new here too, right?”
“I am. I only lived an hour away though. My parents are still in Bozeman.”
“You said you were close with your parents?”
“They’re my best friends. But then, I’m an only child, so I had no choice.”
Jules’s smile softened. “I’m glad. Do they work?”
“My mother’s a teacher who will probably work until the day she dies because she loves those kids more than anything else. And my father’s a retired Marine, although I think he’s regretting the retired part because he doesn’t know what to do with all his spare time.”
“Wow, a teacher and a Marine. They must have given you a very safe upbringing.”
“The safest and the best. I’m very lucky.”
The café doors opened, and Addie almost rolled her eyes at the sight of Rhett stepping into The Tea House, closely followed by Buck.
Buck wasn’t so bad. Maybe slightly vacant and hard to talk to, but Rhett was just annoying.
Although, he was flirting with her less, which maybe had something to do with all the time he was spending with Cass, since apparently Rhett was done avoiding her.
“Great,” Addie muttered under her breath. Just what her morning needed.
Jules glanced over her shoulder before looking back to Addie. “Not a fan of the guys?”
“Not a fan of Rhett.”
Right on cue, Rhett stopped at their table. “Hey, hey, it’s like a team meeting.”
Addie offered a small smile. “Hi, Rhett. Hey, Buck.”
“Mind if we join you?” Rhett asked.
Oh, hell no. She opened her mouth to say just that, but Jules got in first. “Actually, we’re talking woman things.”
Rhett grinned. “Well, it’s your lucky day, because I’m an expert on all things women.”
Oh, brother.
Jules straightened. “Great, you might be helpful then. I was just telling Addie about my ovarian cysts.”
Rhett blinked, and Buck made a face that could only be described as horror.
“They’re large,” Jules continued, “and one’s kind of twisted. I actually have a photo from my doctor that I was about to show Addie, so now I can show you guys too.” She pulled out her phone and unlocked it. “To me it looks like a dismembered fish, but—”
“You know what?” Rhett stepped back, hands raised. “We, uh, were… We’re going now.”
The guys left. Well, basically ran from the table.
Addie burst out laughing. “Okay, that definitely made my terrible morning feel just a bit better.”
“Men act tough but most will run the second you throw out any words concerning a woman’s anatomy.”
“I feel like I could learn a lot from you.”
“Honey, stick around, and I’ll give you fifty-five years of wisdom.”
The couch was hard. Noah didn’t care—he’d sat in worse places. But for some reason, he’d expected a therapist’s office to have a comfortable couch. His last therapist’s couch had been so soft you could have slept on it.
And not only that, the walls were bare. Weren’t there supposed to be framed degrees or certificates or something?
Lucky he’d looked the guy up on the internet to confirm his credentials, because otherwise he might question if the guy was a real therapist.
The door to the office opened and Toby stepped in. “Sorry to make you wait. There are fires left, right, and center today.” He lowered to the armchair across from Noah.
“You don’t need a laptop or notebook?” Noah asked. His therapist in North Carolina had looked at that damn notebook more than he’d looked at him.
Toby shook his head. “No, I like to be present with my clients. Besides, I have a good memory. I write my notes up after.”
Notes… Noah had been offered a copy of his notes from his last therapist. He’d declined. What the hell was he supposed to do with them? Read about the therapy that hadn’t done shit for him?
“I noticed on your form,” Toby said, “that you spoke to someone before returning to Amber Ridge.”
“It didn’t help. Probably why he signed off on a medical discharge. Pretty sure he saw me as a lost cause.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“It was expected.” Didn’t really answer Toby’s question and, of course, he would know that.
Toby’s smile gentled. “Well, I’m glad you’re giving me a chance. We don’t have to start with anything heavy. We can talk about the weather or the park.”
Noah bit back a scoff. “I don’t want to talk about the weather.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
“How to unchain myself from what happened to me.” The words felt heavy, like rocks in his gut.
Toby nodded, a neutral expression now on his face. “Would you like to tell me what happened?”
The first time someone had asked Noah that, he’d barely gotten the words out. Now?
“My team was on the Syrian and Iraqi border region. Our job was to conduct surveillance on a suspected insurgent smuggling route. We got bad intel though. The town was supposed to be abandoned. It wasn’t. It was actively used as a militia transit hub. We were ambushed.”
Toby nodded, his brows tugging together. He didn’t say anything, just waited for Noah to continue.
“They started shooting from rooftops. Some of the guys got away. But Jay was killed. And Boone and I were taken. I woke up in a concrete-walled room. I wasn’t given any food or water, and they tried to beat information from me. When that didn’t work, they used Boone against me.”
“What happened next?” Toby asked quietly, when Noah paused.
This was the part Noah hated. His heart started to race like it always did and sweat beaded his forehead. “They beat him. Shot him. And I watched him die.”
There was so much missing from that story. The hours of agony. The utter devastation that he was about to lose his second teammate. The feeling of hopelessness.
He swallowed but it did nothing to wet his dry throat. “An hour after he died, the rescue team breached the compound and saved me.”
Another small nod from Toby. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry you went through that.”
“I didn’t just go through it. I’m still going through it. I relive it every day. I see Boone dying every fucking time I close my eyes. I feel the chains around my wrists. The rage and hopelessness live inside me all the time. I’m tired of reliving that day.”
“Only when you close your eyes?”
“Sometimes when I’m awake. I hate it. All of it. I want to sleep. I want to have a relationship and be healthy and happy.”
Long beats of quiet passed. Toby didn’t fill the space with empty reassurances. There was just the sharp tick of the clock on the wall. A car engine outside.
Finally, Toby leaned forward. “First of all, what you’re experiencing is normal.
The nightmares. The feeling of being connected to a moment in your life that changed you.
It’s your brain’s way of telling you that it was hurt.
Your brain isn’t weak or broken though. It’s just communicating with you. ”
“It feels pretty fucking weak sometimes.”
“If your arm broke, no one would question you when you couldn’t lift something. If your leg was shattered, no one would expect you to walk like it was fine. It’s the same with your mind. It was wounded, and now it needs to heal.”
“Can it heal?”
“Yes. Trauma is like any weight. At first it’s so heavy it’s impossible to move because it’s weighing you down. But you put in the work. You get stronger. And eventually, it’s not so hard to carry. But it won’t be exactly the way it was before the injury.”
Noah scrubbed his hands over his face. “I need to be good enough that I’m not a danger to others.”
“Do you think you’d hurt someone?”
His jaw tightened. “When I have flashbacks, I don’t feel in control of my actions. They make me feel…dangerous.”
“It’s good that you can recognize that. To begin, you need to understand your triggers, then we can work out how to ensure you stay in control. I believe that once we get further into these sessions, once we really put in the work, you’ll feel more in control.”
Fuck, he hoped so. He was depending on this working.