I sat there, tuning out Lynx talking to the doctor about some football team.
After Andi’s visit the day before, I had spent the rest of the day in my room, thinking. The doctor and Nurse Hatchet had given me the breathing room I needed to process everything. It wasn’t pleasant.
Andi’s visit had been more difficult than I had ever expected. I was so tired of crying and letting the pain of everything crush me. Even though it was still there, I didn’t feel like I was sinking as badly as before. Yes, it sucked, but the dark void wasn’t encompassing me like normal. It was there—don’t get me wrong. I didn’t think I would ever get rid of it, yet the light … I could see a speck of it, and that minute bit seemed to calm me.
“Reign,” the doctor called, snapping me back to him and Lynx.
“Yeah.” My voice came out croaky, so I coughed a little to loosen it and repeated, “Yeah,” a little more strongly this time.
“Want to tell Lynx about yesterday?”
No, I didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want to rehash it. I thought Andi and I had left it in as good of a spot as we could. Therefore, regurgitating it wasn’t on the top of my list. However, I wanted out, so I pushed through.
“There was a lot of crying and female bonding, nothing exciting.”
“Female bonding?” Lynx asked, his eyes lit with amusement. It was that small flicker that caused my lips to move.
“I hurt her, and you were right.” I waited for him to have some snappy comment or give me some sort of shit for it, but after long moments with nothing, I continued. “I can’t fault her for doing something that she thought in her soul she had to do.” I sat quietly, my stomach churning with some of the thoughts from yesterday. “I was a shit,” I said more quietly than the rest. “She packed all my belongings when I got evicted while I was in here then put everything in her spare room at her apartment.” I felt my lip tip up at what she had done for me. “She didn’t have to do that. She could have walked away and wiped her hands of me, but she didn’t.” I turned to Lynx. “She told me, when I get out, I’m coming to stay with her so she can watch me like a hawk.”
It was Lynx’s turn to tip his lips, and what gorgeous, bowed lips they were. I looked away, wanting to kick myself for the thought.
“See? You’ve got someone.”
I nodded because the jackass was right again.
I did. She gave a shit. She cared, and I couldn’t help this overwhelming urge to not let her down. I couldn’t give up on her, because she hadn’t given up on me for a moment.
“So what are you going to do when you get out?” he asked.
I blinked a few times at him, not knowing how to answer the question. I had been busy digging myself out and hadn’t really gone there yet. I hadn’t known there would be an “after here.” I had thought for so long I would end everything as soon as I stepped outside the doors, but now I couldn’t do that to Andi.
The pain in her face yesterday was too much. I knew that if I followed through with it, I would hurt to her to a point that she couldn’t bounce back like I had initially thought. How could I do that to her? I couldn’t. I needed to find a way to find me and pull myself together.
I didn’t want to say it out loud because I just knew Lynx would smirk or smile, but I had to.
“You’re right. I need to find out why I am the way I am. I need your help.” I let out a breath that came from the depths of my lugs. I felt like a balloon that had fizzed out, and as if on cue, Lynx’s grin almost extended into a smile, like he was happy.
The doctor spoke up. “While I like the path you’re on, Reign, I think you should tread with caution. Things you could find out about your childhood may send you back into the place you found yourself in before you came here. If that happens, I fear what choices you could make.”
I didn’t acknowledge the doctor’s words; instead, I instinctively looked at Lynx. “You think it’s a bad idea?” I would never know why I valued him over a professional. Then again, he’d been right so many times before, and my gut told me he wouldn’t steer me wrong.
“I see what the doc’s saying. You might find out shit that will hurt; I’m sure of it. However, I’ll be there. Andi will be there. You’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was caught on the part where he had said he would be there, like he wouldn’t just be finding me information, but he would be there with me every step of the way.
I tried to process it in the moment yet came up short. As a result, I focused on Andi, instead. She would be there for me if I needed her. I knew that down to my soul.
Maybe, if I found all this out, I could find me.
“Then there’s Drew,” the doctor said, making my stomach plummet to my toes. That so called confidence I had thought I was gaining melted into a pool around my feet, swirling and disappearing into nothingness.
Drew. What in the hell would I do about that part of my life?
“You have two options,” Lynx said, rattling me. How was he in my head? “One, you never contact him again and let him live his life. Or two, you contact him and talk to him.”
How could I never talk to him, never see him, knowing he’s alive and living? Then, on the other hand, what would I say to him? Oh, hi, remember me, the girl you watched fucking her foster father before she watched you die? Neither were on my list.
“I’m not sure I can do either of those.”
“You don’t have to decide right now. You have time.”
Again, this was true because it was my choice. I had the control of both of these options. I liked that. I liked it a lot.
“I do,” I whispered.
***
I didn’t want to go to therapy today. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk. No, it was because it was my last session with Lynx. While I didn’t think he’d renege on helping once I stepped outside these doors, there was no guarantee. There never was in life. However, if I wanted to figure myself out, I had to push forward.
As I sat in my chair, neither Lynx nor I spoke. I didn’t even look at him. I couldn’t force myself to do it. I had this disappointing feeling he would give up on me like so many others in my life, and I didn’t want him to be that person. I didn’t want to have any hope he could be different, but the burn in my heart was what agonized me the most, and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t put words to it.
“So, Lynx, do you think you have yourself under control?” Wrestler McMann asked him, but I still didn’t look his way, choosing to chew on my thumbnail, instead.
“I’m good,” he replied, not giving the doctor an inch.
“Not good enough. What are you going to do to tamp your anger? We’ve talked about several techniques; which do you think would work best?”
I looked up at Lynx through my lashes, not wanting to make eye contact yet unable to help myself as I listened to him speak.
“I’ll stop and think before I react.” He paused. “Oh, and keep taking those little pills every day.”
My head snapped up at that, and our eyes connected, his registering a little shock.
“Pills?”
The nurse had tried to get me to take pills, but I flat-out refused. I had always had an aversion to them. I’m not sure when in my life that had started exactly.
“Yep, I get to feeling pretty good and think I don’t need to take them anymore, because hell, I’m good.” He shook his head. “I need the fuckers. Hate takin’ them, but they help.” He shrugged as if it weren’t a big deal at all.
“I don’t want any pills,” I told him. I didn’t even want sleeping pills. Nothing.
“This is something that we need to discuss,” the doctor threw in, causing both Lynx and my eyes to come back to him. He sat at his desk, fingers laced together and eyes boring into mine. “I highly advise you begin the medication regimen that I’ve laid out for you, too.”
I shook my head as Lynx spoke up. “Why don’t you want the pills? Don’t want people to think you’re crazy?” He said this comment like it was perfectly natural for someone to think this.
“I don’t have any people to worry about thinking I’m…” I trailed off, not really wanting to say the word.
Lynx caught on. “So you don’t want to think you’re crazy.”
“I’m not crazy,” I barked a bit more harshly than anticipated.
I closed my eyes and sat back in my chair, tipping my head up to the ceiling. Flashes passed across my eyelids as my breathing became labored, and the tight noose around my neck started choking the air from my lungs.
She’s a bit nuts. She has quite a few screws loose. Crazy…
“Reign!” Lynx’s harsh voice snapped me from my thoughts as I gasped for breath, clutching the chair for dear life. “Tell me,” he demanded, something he had never done before with me. I wasn’t scared, but I also didn’t waver.
“Being called crazy, having screws loose. My court liaison would tell my foster parents this when I was placed with them.” I sucked in deeply as my father flitted into my head. “My father would tell me I was just as wacko as my mother.” I shook my head. “But I’m not crazy. I … I don’t know what I am, but crazy isn’t it.”
“I can see how that word bothers you, Reign,” the doctor said as my eyes stayed glued to Lynx, his look on me intense. “It is perfectly normal for you to feel this way.”
I gulped, turning to the doctor. Was it really normal that I felt this way?
“It is?”
He gave me a soft, reassuring smile. “Of course. The word crazy means mentally deranged. Most of the time, people in the world use the word in a joking, light-hearted manner to tease someone who doesn’t take the meaning of the word seriously. Others use it as a derogatory comment to put someone down. You see the word as the latter.”
I nodded. I knew something was messed up in my head—it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that—yet I didn’t want to be crazy. I didn’t want to be associated with that word. It bothered me down to my bones, and it wasn’t what others thought, because I only had Andi who gave a damn. It was inside of me. I wanted better than that.
The doctor continued, “From a medical standpoint, depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. The medicine helps regulate what the brain isn’t producing on its own.”
An imbalance. That word didn’t seem nearly as bad as someone calling me crazy.
“Taking the meds will help,” Lynx added when I didn’t respond to the doctor, too lost in my thoughts.
I placed my thumb in my mouth and began chewing on the nail again. This had always been a way to calm myself since I was a kid, and it had never gone away.
“It helps keep the calm, the peace,” Lynx said.
My head swam with the word peace. That was what I needed in order to calm the waters inside me.
“So, if I take them, my thoughts will calm?” I asked.
Lynx nodded. “Yep. They won’t go totally away, but the meds will help.”
“But you said you stopped taking yours,” I argued.
“Yep, I did. I also told you why. There comes a point when taking them makes you feel carefree, like everything is finally right … or close to it. Then, you think, I don’t need this shit anymore. I thought it, stopped taking them, and I honestly can’t say if it would have helped being on them when I caught that lying bitch. I don’t know if I would have done anything differently, because I can’t see myself doing so; but that was an extreme situation. Everyday situations, like the asshole who cuts me off with his car, when I normally would fly off the handle, I don’t. I’m able to tap it down for the most part.”
A chilling form of relief came over me. I was glad that Lynx had found help in the meds, but how did I know that I would, too?
“You don’t know until you try, and chances are, it will take a while to find the right combination of medicine for you,” the doctor threw in. “The chemicals in our brains all fire differently. What will work for you won’t work for someone else. That’s why we wanted you to start them when you got in here so we could get the right dosage, but you refused.”
I did. The thought of already being attuned to what I needed made me ache now, though. If I had started the medicine, maybe things would be different. I would be different.
“There is nothing wrong with taking medicine. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do,” Lynx stated, sitting back in his chair and crossing his ankles, his arms locked across his chest like he owned the place. “Reign, you’ve gotta take care of you. No more of this going to kill yourself bullshit. They’re offering you help. You need to take that shit and run with it because trust me, you don’t want to have to come back here.” His smirk made my insides relax a bit.
The bottom pit of the void I was in started to swirl, but I sucked in deeply and began to climb up.
“Okay, I’ll try.”
***
The rest of the session, Wrestler McMann talked to Lynx about keeping an even head and going over all the different techniques to sooth himself when triggered.
I didn’t say much. I was still processing my agreement to take meds. I couldn’t believe I had or even wanted to. I had been so set on ending everything after getting out, but now I didn’t want to hurt Andi. If I was really serious, I wasn’t sure I wanted it for myself anymore, either.
I wasn’t anything to sneeze at, and I really had nothing to show for in my life except the fact of being alive, but what if I could be more? What if I could do something to make life better for me instead of living in the same circle over and over again, replaying my past like a broken record? What if I could throw the record in the trash and have a life? What if …?
I was told once by a foster father that the “what if” game was stupid because you couldn’t change the past. “What if” didn’t matter; it was what you did now. Mr. Johnsboid was the only foster father who actually gave me anything I could take with me in life, and those words now meant more to me than I had thought at the time.
I had to move forward, but how did I do that when Drew was out there, alive? That was a huge hurdle I didn’t know how to overcome, but at least I was now thinking about how to do so. Although it was a tiny step, it was something.
“Time’s up,” the doctor said, causing all thoughts to slip away.
This was it. Lynx was leaving, and I had this small ball inside of me where my hope started to burn just a bit—the hope that he would follow through on what he had said and help me outside of here.
I knew I shouldn’t have any of the H-word. It had never helped and had always let me down. I thought Lynx was different, though. I wanted to believe he was.
“I’m out of here.” Lynx’s grin widened into a full-fledged smile, and I sucked in a breath. It was beautiful, totally transforming his rock hard, stern face into something women would swoon over. And I hated to admit it, but I was included in that. Holy shit.
My stomach had these little flutters, and my throat felt like it was going to close up.
When Lynx rose from the chair and moved toward me, I had to bend my neck way back to see him.
“Up,” he demanded sternly but not harshly.
I complied, taking a step back to give myself some space between us.
Funny how when I first saw him, I wanted to run and hide. I didn’t want to be in the same room with him for fear he would hurt me. Now, sadness was racking me down to my core that this could be the last time I would ever see this man who, in his own way, had helped me so much.
He took a step closer, and my breathing became labored. He was too close, but something inside me wouldn’t allow me to move back any farther. I wasn’t sure how or when this had happened, when I had become so trusting of this man that I was able to stand my ground and not move into my own personal space when he was so close. I wondered if that meant I was getting a little better, but I didn’t want to have the H-word. Therefore, I stared into his eyes, transfixed, instead.
“I’ll come to you when you get out,” he said.
I had tonight and tomorrow night in here, which felt like an eternity. It was a lifetime before I would find out if Lynx was the guy I thought he was or a disappointment like all the rest.
“I didn’t tell you where I’m going to live.”
He gave me a half-grin and raised his hand toward me. I flinched out of habit, but I didn’t move as his hand came up and cupped the side of my cheek. His warmth caused my pulse to spike so hard I heard the thunder of my heart in my ears and breaths were becoming hard to find. I was letting this man touch me, and all I was doing was clenching and unclenching my hands, not saying anything. On top of that, I actually liked the feeling of his hand on me.
“Reign,” he whispered until my focus was back on him. “I’ll find you. We’ll get this worked out together.”
My chest squeezed unnaturally. I didn’t know how, but I leaned into his hand, taking the warmth he was giving me. If this was the last time I would see him, I was going to enjoy this sliver of feeling.
“Bye, Lynx,” I whispered softly.
I had been let down more times than not in my life, and he didn’t know for sure what would be waiting for him outside these doors. Hell, his woman could come crawling back, and then I would just be a small blip on his radar of that one-time-when-I-was-in-the-hospital. I wanted to hold on to his words, keep them, and lock them away someplace, so I did.
His thumb lifted my chin, making sure he had my full attention. His eyes glistened as he spoke. “Not bye, Reign.” He studied me closely. “You think I’m full of shit.” I didn’t think those exact words, but how the hell did this man know what was floating in my brain? “I see I have a lot of work ahead of me.” His intensity bore into mine. “I love a good challenge.” His hand slipped behind my neck, and before I could do anything, he face-planted me into his chest.
I froze, unable to move, my body feeling as stiff as a board, my arms straight at my sides. Lynx’s arms wrapped around my back, and I did nothing, including breathe. When I did start to breathe again, I sucked in deeply, and damn did he smell good, but I didn’t melt into him. No, I couldn’t. I had only had this with Andi; that was it. No one else.
I full-out gasped when he kissed the top of my head, his arms giving me one last squeeze before releasing me. I took a hasty step back, unsure what to think or do. I was out of sorts in more ways than one because not only had I let this man touch me, but I had liked it. I might not have shown him I had, but terrifyingly, I really had.
“I see we need to work on that, too.” He chuckled with all the patience of a saint. He and Andi would get along well.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Pardon?”
“Why? Why waste your time helping me? Why be this way with me?” I was terrified of the answer. No one in my life, besides Andi, took time to help me. Everyone let me down.
“I’ll answer that when we’re out of here.”
“Time to go,” his nurse said, entering the room, and Lynx started walking toward her. I couldn’t blame him. If they said those words to me, I would hightail it the hell out of here, too.
He did turn around to me, though, and said, “A couple of days.” He winked before the door shut behind him.
For the first time, I cried that night for a man who wasn’t Drew.