Chapter 3
After the suicide attempt, I went to a residential treatment center.
It was an exclusive establishment with the best doctors, psychiatrists, and counselors, and it was housed in a luxurious facility on a gorgeous piece of land about an hour outside the city.
My dad called up a few people, and they all recommended the same place.
It was like a resort hotel with round-the-clock support and therapy.
I tried to get better.
A lot of the time, I was fighting off the demons—reliving horrific memories that I couldn’t always keep pushed into a tight little compartment of my mind.
But when the demons weren’t filling my mind, I knew I didn’t want to be the kind of person to give up, to give in, to let something like this defeat me.
If there was some way to heal myself, then I would try.
But even at the center, with multiple sessions every day with psychiatrists, counselors, or support groups, I felt like I was playing a part. I was learning the things to say that would keep the people around me from worrying. Often I said them because I wanted them to be true.
I slept in a luxurious suite, ate delicious food, had peaceful yoga sessions at sunrise, afternoon swims, and jewelry-making sessions in the afternoon. I tried to talk through what happened and express feelings that were supposed to be honest.
I wasn’t numb anymore, but I didn’t want it to hurt with every breath, and I didn’t want to try to kill myself again. But it didn’t get better the way I thought it should. It didn’t start to fade the way I was expecting with such intensive treatment. And I still woke up with nightmares every night.
But it was better than before. It felt like I was living in a bubble, disconnected from the rest of the world.
It was easier and it was safer because, anytime I felt the demons rise up, there was someone nice I could talk to or to show me how to properly breathe through the downward-facing-dog pose.
My dad was paying, and they kept telling him I wasn’t progressing the way they’d like to see, so I stayed on, week after week.
On the Friday of the first week, I was doing a second yoga session in the evening since I liked how the breathing and stretches helped to empty my mind of painful thoughts. I was wrapping up when I saw Cali, one of the assistants, waving at me to come over to her.
She was a kind woman in her fifties who still had an almost youthful spirit of fun. I liked her as well as I could like anyone at that point.
“You have a visitor,” she said, looking excited. “He’s waiting in the lobby.”
There were certain times during the week when visitors were allowed, and Friday evening was one of those times. But I frowned since I’d neither expected nor wanted to visit with anyone today. “My dad?”
My dad called fairly regularly, but I’d thought he was traveling again for work.
“No. It’s a young man. A very fine-looking young man.”
I had no idea who it was. Absolutely no clue. I had a few male friends, but no one who would show up here without calling. My only guess was that maybe one of my old boyfriends was stupid enough to show up here to comfort me.
There was nothing to do but go see who it was. If I didn’t want to talk to him, then I would just send him away. There was plenty of security around to make sure he left.
I wiped my face with a towel and grabbed my hoodie as I walked with Cali through the main building toward the lobby. I wore a stretchy T-shirt and yoga pants and was plenty warm already, but I put on the hoodie as I walked so I wouldn’t feel so exposed.
I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I walked and almost didn’t recognize myself.
I have blond hair that falls all the way down my back.
I used to go to a salon every few weeks for highlights, manicure, brow shaping, and whatever else I decided I needed to look beautiful.
But I hadn’t gone for almost three months, so my hair wasn’t as light as it used to be.
I also used to blow-dry it very straight, but I hadn’t bothered lately, so it fell in slightly frizzy waves that I’d pulled back into a loose ponytail.
I hadn’t put on any makeup since I’d come to the center, since it didn’t seem worth the effort, so my face was slightly damp with perspiration, and my eyes—which are plain old brown—looked smaller than usual without any mascara.
I was never a beauty queen, but everyone who knew me would always say that I invariably looked nice. I was as far from that as possible now.
I didn’t mind. I didn’t feel like the same person, so it seemed right that I wouldn’t look like her.
I jerked to a halt as I stepped into the lobby and saw who was waiting for me.
Gideon was leaning against a wall, checking his smartphone. He wore a dark suit with his tie loosened slightly. It looked like he might have had a long day, but he still somehow appeared both masculine and powerful—just from the aura he exuded.
I stared, swallowing hard, strangely terrified for some reason. For no good reason.
“Is it all right?” Cali asked, looking at my face questioningly. “He seemed so nice, and he showed his credentials. But I’ll send him away immediately if you don’t want to talk to him.”
He looked over then and saw me. He straightened up and smiled. There was a question in the smile, in his eyes, and he didn’t walk over toward me.
And I had no idea—absolutely no idea—why this strong, handsome, good-hearted man was making such an effort to see me. Why he would even want to.
“Diana?” Cali asked. “Is it all right?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing over the hesitance. My anger at Gideon for keeping me from dying had been fleeting, temporary. I knew it was a good thing he’d done. He deserved nothing but my gratitude, and I wasn’t going to return his efforts with rudeness. “It’s fine. I can talk to him.”
“Invite him to stay for dinner if he has the time,” Cali said before I started toward Gideon.
“Hi,” I said as I approached, feeling awkward and confused and a little bit sick. I felt vaguely mortified about the last time I’d seen him—at how low a state he’d found me in—and he still made me remember that other night more than I could safely allow.
“Hi.” He glanced down at me in the kind of instinctive once-over that men always give women. “Did I interrupt something?”
“No. I was just doing yoga. It was almost over.” I shifted from foot to foot. “What are you doing here?”
His blue eyes were searching my face, and I had no idea what he would see there—except it might be more than I wanted him to see. “They said visitors were allowed on Friday evenings, so I thought I’d stop by to see you.”
“It’s a long drive just to stop by.”
He gave a half shrug. “I wasn’t doing anything else.”
I stared up at him, wishing things were different, wishing I could respond to this man in any sort of normal way. If we’d met six months ago, I might have been crazy about him.
He cleared his throat. “It’s all right if you’d rather I just leave. I thought about calling first, but then I was afraid you’d say not to come.”
“I would have.” I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and looked down at the floor.
“Do you want me to leave?”
It was touch and go for a minute since something inside me saw him as a danger, a threat to my very tentative stability. The demons rose up, causing a flash of panic as I felt again violent hands, the hard edge of a table against my stomach—and they almost pushed me into telling him to leave.
But the part of me that remembered everything he’d done—recognized him as good—won out in the end. “You can stay,” I said at last. “Have you eaten? The food is great here. You could stay for dinner if you want.”
He smiled again, a tension in his neck and shoulders relaxing. “Thanks. That would be great.”
We were walking toward the dining room when I gave him a sidelong glance. He didn’t look anything like the man I’d first seen in that horrible room. None of his tattoos were visible, and the suit was good quality. “You’re all dressed up today.”
“I came right from work.”
“Really? Are you undercover in a bank or something?”
He chuckled. “No. I’m still with organized crime, but I’ve been given what’s mostly a desk job.”
“Really? So you’re not working undercover anymore?”
“My cover was blown with the Albanians, so there’s nothing I can do there anymore. There’s plenty to be done that’s not undercover.”
“But why did they put you behind a desk?”
He didn’t answer immediately as we sat down at a pleasant table near the window.
I wasn’t sure he was going to answer at all, so I prompted, “Why did they put you behind a desk, Gideon? It doesn’t seem like your kind of thing.”
“It’s not,” he murmured, glancing away from me, out the window. “It won’t be forever. They’re just not convinced I’m ready for fieldwork again yet.”
“Oh.” I thought about that. “Psychologically, you mean?”
He gave a huff of bitter amusement. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. But you know all my issues, so you’re obviously dealing with things way better than me.
It must have been really hard. Living that life for so long.
Living with those… with them.” I shuddered as the vision of the men rose up before I pushed it back down. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“It was hard. Being undercover like that tears you up in a lot of ways. Some guys have it worse than I did. Some guys just can’t deal.”
I nodded, sipping the water in my glass since I had no idea what to say.
He suddenly met my eyes. “But for me that night was the worst.”
His words hit me hard. I don’t even know why. I felt shaky and didn’t try to speak.
After that, we talked about lighter things. Politics and current events and the friend he had who was on the staff of a senator and had an inside scoop on all kinds of interesting gossip.