Chapter 17
Max
“I can’t believe all the shit I said to her. Hearing it back from her and seeing the devastation all over her face, made me feel like a complete asshole.” I’d been in Dr. Singh’s office for more than an hour and we were no closer to any fucking solutions. “Now she won’t talk to me or take my calls. And she hasn’t been in class for two straight weeks. What if she’s not leaving the house, Doc?”
Singh, true to his nature, sat there as calm as could be. His breathing was even and his dark eyes were kind and sympathetic. “We can talk about that, but I’d like to talk about why you said those things to her.”
“Shit, Doc, really?” I raked a hand through my hair and then scrubbed it over my face, letting out a long harsh sigh. “If you ask my brother he’d say I was jealous. Jana probably thinks I’m an asshole. Both of them are probably right.”
“The fact that you’re admitting to having any feelings is progress, Max. When you first came to me all you would say was that you were ‘fine’. Everything was ‘fine’ and you were only here to appease your friend Brandt. This is good.”
Shit, listening to Singh I realized just how much I’d buried my head in the sand. “Shit. What you’re saying is that it’s my fault I’m still having these nightmares.” It wasn’t a question because I knew the answer, I could see it clearly now. I came here every week, talked about shit, but never tried to fix anything.
“No. I’m saying that war is the reason you’re still having nightmares. You are the reason they haven’t lessened in intensity.” His words were said in a kind, almost bland way, but that didn’t take the sting out of the sentiment. “Are you willing to try another form of therapy or maybe medicine?”
“Not meds,” I barked out. “I don’t want to be a fucking zombie, Doc. I need to be myself, to be able to function. Anything but drugs.”
“Anything?”
The challenge in his question had me on edge but I nodded anyway. “Yeah, anything.” With a wide smile, Dr. Singh told me about several alternative treatments, explaining the benefits and drawbacks of each one. There was so much fucking information my head began to swim. “Now you’re making me wish I chose the drugs.”
He laughed and shook his head. “If you’re that against the drugs, we’ll stay away from them. There are plenty of other options to explore first.” He scribbled out some shit on a pad of paper and handed it to me. “Call this number and set up an appointment.”
I gave the paper a skeptical look but nodded. “Sure. Thanks.”
“Max, the important thing is that you’re dedicated to lessening the effects of your PTSD.”
I heard what he said and nodded again. “Got it. Thanks.” After shaking his hand, I hopped on my bike and drove away from the short brick building. Home was my destination but I took the route in the opposite direction just to check on Jana, but her car was parked in the same spot it had been for the past week so I drove by and made my way home.
Leaving her alone was probably the best thing I could do for her, but I couldn’t do that. Jana had crawled under my skin, she’d gotten to me in a way no one ever had. Hell, in a way I didn’t think anyone even could. I knew I had to make this right, but I had no fucking clue how. And worse, I had no clue where to even begin looking for an answer.
Inside the house I found Tate lying on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling. “Find any answers up there? Because I could use a few myself.”
His mouth curved up but he didn’t move otherwise. “Bad day with the head shrink?”
“The opposite, actually. The problem is I need more than an apology to get Jana fucking talking to me again.” I dropped down on the chair and crossed my legs on the old coffee table, wishing I’d stopped by the kitchen for a beer first. “She was right about a lot of the shit she said and I’m working on it, but…,” shit I didn’t even know how to finish that sentence. Pathetic.
“But working on it isn’t good enough when you consider all the shit you threw at her?” His lips twitched with amusement.
“Yeah, basically. You don’t have to enjoy this so much, you know.”
He sat up and shrugged. “I don’t have to, but it’s a nice change of pace, seeing you out of sorts. Growing up you were always so damn unflappable, cool under pressure. And now a tiny wisp of a thing is twisting you in knots.” His smile changed from amused to wistful. “It’s not such a bad thing.”
“Having it and losing it though, fucking sucks.” And I just couldn’t fucking live with the idea of not seeing Jana again, not holding her or kissing her. Never hearing that sexy, husky laugh that always sent a shot of lust straight through me. “Got any advice? Useful advice,” I added when he opened his mouth, closed it and smiled.
“Yeah, go big.”
“What the hell does that mean? An engagement ring? An expensive trip?” I didn’t make an effort with women, especially outside the bedroom. They were guaranteed a good time, at least one incredible orgasm before I got mine and that was it. “Why isn’t an apology enough?”
“Because you said terrible shit to her. Do you think I should take the state of Nevada’s apology and forego making them pay for stealing six fucking years from me?”
“You know I don’t. Those fuckers messed up and they have all the power, I hope you get their fucking pensions!”
“And Jana deserves less?” He must’ve seen something pathetic in my eyes because his anger deflated. “You need a big ass gesture to prove to Jana that you’re not just sorry but willing to go to extremes to make sure you know how bad you fucked up.”
That made a twisted kind of sense. “So, make a fool of myself?”
Tate laughed and raked a hand through his hair. “That always helps, but somehow I don’t think that’s what Jana would want you to do. Find something that matters and show her how you feel about her. If you know, that is.”
I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tate stood and shrugged, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with two bottles of beer. “It means if you don’t love her, you probably shouldn’t bother.”
Shit. “Why is it always about love?” I liked Jana, a lot. I had other feelings that were more than like but they didn’t seem big enough to be love. How the fuck should I know what love is? Other than familial love, for my family and my brothers in arms, I had no idea.
“Because, big brother, love makes the world go round. Or so they say. Personally though, you love her and you don’t want to be without her, so why deny it?”
Why the fuck, indeed. Love was a big word, a really big one. It was important, all-consuming. Life-changing. “I need to think about this shit. Thanks,” I told him and took my beer to my room so I could dig deep into the dark recesses of my mind and figure out if I deserved the kind of light Jana brought with her.