Chapter 39
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
THEA
The public has been up in arms since the news started publishing their tabloids and word got out about Harrison Clark’s secret underbelly operation.
It’s gotten so bad that people have resorted to rioting and protesting in the streets outside the mayor’s office, demanding that every appointed official in the city be investigated.
I can’t really say that I blame them. If I found out that the highest ranking official in my city was a child molesting piece of shit, I wouldn’t exactly trust anyone else who works for him to be on the straight and narrow.
The families of the children that were rescued have been at the head of these protests.
It took several weeks to fully disassemble the entire operation Harrison was running due to a number of locations, all varying in sizes and difficulty.
But at least this time they sent teams that were larger than a group of four.
Nathan and Fletcher received commendations from the bureau, even being asked if they wanted to head a new department dedicated to human trafficking and assist in training others for similar jobs.
Fletcher’s answer didn’t change from when he previously told them he was done after rescuing Dylan, and Nathan surprised me by stepping down as well.
I didn’t doubt the years and the things he’d seen had begun to weigh on him, but for a man who had built his entire life around steady hands and split-second decisions, I didn’t expect him to just…
stop being a surgeon. But I guess some damage doesn’t show up clean and clinical.
Even if he wanted to continue in a normal practice at a normal hospital, there are things he can’t unsee.
‘I know how to fix a body,’ he told me when he made the decision.
‘But I don’t know how to fix…that.’ He didn’t need to explain much further.
Whether he meant the children and people he couldn’t save, or the cracks in his psyche, some wounds you couldn’t cut out.
Men like Harrison Clark made sure of that.
So he and Fletcher walked away together, for good.
Not because they didn’t care, but because they cared too much to keep pretending they were enough.
They weren’t ignorant. They knew things like this wouldn’t stop, that a different person with the same fucked up ideology would pop up and people would keep disappearing.
Children would keep disappearing. And as awful as that is, and even though the industry needs people like the two of them, there’s only so much one person can carry.
That didn’t mean their purpose had changed. In fact, they’re still helping people.
The city on the other hand, wasn’t ready to move on.
As more and more information continued to spill out, new names along with them, trust in the system completely shattered and no amount of reassurances from newly-appointed officials could glue it back together.
The protests eventually grew and they were no longer demanding justice, but accountability.
It had been just over three weeks and something else happened that surprised me.
Dylan’s name had started to come up more than once.
And Claire’s. It wasn’t loud or in public, but rather in quiet conversations between parents and children who recognized the same haunted looks in each other’s eyes.
They had started to attend meetings for those who were focused on healing; sharing their stories to let them know that they weren’t alone.
I had been to one or two myself, but stopped going when I overheard some people talking about how they were lucky.
Because not all of the people who were there had loved ones who made it home.
And I’m not saying it’s wrong for them to feel that way, but luck doesn’t begin to cover what it takes to survive something like that.
It doesn’t explain the nightmares. It doesn’t explain the way Claire won’t sleep unless she has a hallway light on and the door is cracked just enough to see out.
It doesn’t explain how much easier it might be for them to not have made it out because then they wouldn’t have had to try to adjust to a life they didn’t know anymore.
And while I can relate on some level, I’ll never understand just how deep those wounds go for them.
That doesn’t mean I’m not trying to heal, or dumb down what I went through…
I just feel guilty for trying to compare our experiences.
“Where did you go just now?” my therapist asks me, bringing me back to the present. “After you said they were still helping people.” My eyes snap to hers, and I open my mouth to respond before closing it. “Thea?” she prompts again.
The truth is, I’ve never been any good at talking about my problems to anyone but Dylan, but I let Nathan convince me to see someone because there was a lot more to unpack then those few hours I spent at the mercy of Harrison and his men.
It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. Part of me is grateful that I have someone who is willing to listen but the other part of me knows that she’s doing it for the paycheck and I’m not special.
Not that that matters to me necessarily, I just…
I want it to mean more for some reason. Maybe because the people in my corner have been…
limited, and while I know Nathan would, I’m a strong believer that the person you’re in love with shouldn’t be your therapist, either.
“Thea?” Damn, she’s persistent.
I drag in a breath, but it catches halfway down. “I didn’t go anywhere.” I lie automatically. I don’t want the lecture she will give me on not comparing my healing to others because what I went through was just as traumatic and deserves just as much recognition.
Her gaze doesn’t waver, though. She’s patient in a way that feels practiced, not personal. “You did,” she says gently. “Your body’s still here, but you checked out for a minute.”
“I just got distracted is all.” I don’t offer anything else but I know that won’t stop her until she gets what she wants out of me.
“By?”
“By…nothing.” I shrug, but it’s stiff and way too quick to be believable.
She doesn’t call me out right away, which somehow makes it worse. “You don’t have to protect me from your thoughts, Thea.”
I chuckle, but there is no humor in it. If anyone needs protecting from my thoughts, it’s me. “I’m not protecting you. I was just thinking about them. Dylan and Claire.”
“And?”
My jaw tightens, frustration building at her lack of…I don’t even know what I expect. “Does it even matter? It doesn’t change anything.”
She sighs, uncrossing her legs as she leans forward. “It matters if it’s something you’re avoiding.”
I shake my head. “See, that’s what I mean. Everything has to mean something in here.” I know I’m not being fair, that she’s just trying to help me, but I can’t help getting defensive.
“You don’t think it does?”
“I think sometimes a thought is just a thought. Not some deep or hidden issue you can label and fix,” I say, crossing my arms.
“And sometimes it’s not,” she argues gently. I hesitate too long and she notices.
“Fine,” I continue. “I was thinking about how people say Dylan and Claire are lucky. And I keep wondering that if they’re lucky, then what does that make me?”
“What do you think it makes you?”
I swallow hard, but there’s no hesitancy when I speak this time. “Irrelevant.”
“Irrelevant to who?”
“Everyone,” I say. “The story. The…aftermath of it all.”
“Because you don’t fit the version people understand?” she asks.
My fingers tighten together in my lap as I watch her prepare to write down whatever answer I give her.
“Because I don’t look like them. Not physically, I just don’t carry it the same way they do.
It’s obvious with them, you know? When you look at them, you can see it.
People treat them carefully, like they might break. ”
“And no one treats you that way,” she concludes.
“No.” I let out a quiet breath. “They don’t.”
“How do they treat you?” she asks as she scribbles something down.
I pause, because I don’t know how to say it without sounding ungrateful. Or worse—selfish. “Normal,” I finally say.
She doesn’t respond right away, and I hate how much I need her to right now.
“Normal feels wrong?” she asks.
My laugh is soft, once again with no humor in it. “Normal feels like pretending. I hear them talk about Dylan and Claire; about how strong they are. How brave. How they’re healing…and no one says that about me.”
“What would it mean if they did?”
I shake my head immediately. “It’s not about that.”
“It sounds like it might be,” she pushes back.
I look down at my hands, watching my thumb drag over the edge of my nail.
“If they said that about me, it would mean they knew that I didn’t walk away from it the same way I walked in.
They look at me and think I’m fine because I can sit here and talk about it or because I’m not falling apart in public. But the truth is, I’m not fine.”
She stops writing and leans forward once more. “You want to know what I think, Thea? I think that you’ve learned how to survive in a way that doesn’t get recognized in the same way theirs does.”
I scoff. “That sounds like a nice way of saying it doesn’t count.”
“It counts, it’s just quieter.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Quiet doesn’t get help.
And I keep thinking about Dylan and Claire and everyone else who went through it and how…
” I drift off for a moment before continuing.
“I don’t understand what they went through.
Not really. I’ll never understand, and I feel guilty for even trying to compare it to mine. ”
Her eyebrow quirks up and I know she’s encouraging me to continue without asking. “Their pain is so much bigger. And mine doesn’t feel like it measures up. I survived, sure,
I went through some awful things all the same, and I know I should feel grateful for the fact it wasn’t worse. But all I feel is guilty because I’ll never know the nightmares they live with or the ways it’s changed them inside.”
She smiles and I find it to be an odd but somewhat calming response, like maybe she actually doesn’t have a script she’s following as we talk through the mess that is my life. “Thea, you’re not them. You don’t have to be. And nobody is expecting you to be besides you. You only have to be you.”
I return her smile, but it isn’t for the reason she thinks it is. “I know. But it doesn’t stop me from feeling like a fraud for even trying to heal or talk about it or even exist as someone who survived and isn’t broken in the same way.”
“Healing doesn’t need to be the same for everyone. Yours is valid, Thea. Even if it looks different.”
“How did it go?” Nathan asks me as he opens the passenger side door for when he picks me up from my appointment.
I wait for him to get in the driver’s seat before I respond. “It went fine,” I say. Not a lie, I’m just already exhausted from having to talk about myself, but I already know what his next question will be.
“Want to talk about it?”
“I really don’t,” I say abruptly. “But I appreciate you asking,” I add on to lessen the blow.
Our relationship has improved a lot over the last couple of weeks, especially after watching the man who killed Miles get arrested and publicly blasted for all of his crimes.
I still don’t know how it was pulled off, but the news specifically focused on the accident and as painful as that was to watch, it brought us a level of closure we’d been waiting for.
It was cathartic to see justice come out on top and when I finally built up the courage to call my family and explain everything, it was like the missing piece of our heart returned.
Like Miles was there letting us know that we could finally breathe, finally move on, and actually start to heal.
He nods, his hand grabbing my thigh as he runs his thumb up and down my skin. “Yeah, I can imagine. It’s a lot to process.” I know that isn’t what he wanted to say, but I’m glad he let it go.
“How was work?” I change the subject, but I’m actually excited to hear about it instead of just deflecting.
He had initially opened his own practice not long after he and Fletcher rescued Dylan.
But now he’s made further changes in the way it operates, converting it to a family based one.
While there are still some details in its preliminary stages, seeing as he needed a larger space and more employees, I’ve noticed that the weight on his shoulders is lighter.
“It’s good. We just got the approval to start building, and we already have over a dozen applications.”
“That’s amazing, Nathan. A dozen applications already? People really want to work with you.” I smile at him, feeling the tensions of the appointment slowly start to lift.
He nods, a small, proud smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah, apparently a lot of people heard about the work I did before and I guess it’s giving our practice a reputation before we even open.”
I squeeze his hand where it rests on my thigh. “That’s incredible. You’re going to have your pick of candidates, and it’s well deserved.”
He leans back in his seat as he accelerates. “I didn’t expect it. It’s humbling, actually. Knowing that people care about the kind of work we want to do. What we’re specializing in. Makes me feel like this is the right path.”
I smile softly. “It is. You’ve earned it. All of it. And with Claire at your side, it’s bound to be great.”