Equilibrium (Marauders #4.5) (12 page)

“You thought I’d do a flower, or a cute little tramp stamp, didn’t you?”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“Ye of little faith,” I said, and reached for the lotion.

Roach laughed and shook his head while taking a step back. “Not to be an ass, but I have to go.”

“I know. I just wanted to show you. I’m gonna go home and show the others now. They’re waiting.”

“It’s great ink,” he said and reached for his coat and the cut. He waited while I finished putting the lotion on, and then he handed me my sweater. “Do you want some plastic on that?”

“No. I think it’ll be fine. I picked a black sweatshirt just in case.”

He followed behind the car until he had to take the turn towards the clubhouse and the strip club, but he waved when he did. I waved back, but I wasn’t sure if he saw me.

CHAPTER TEN

Things Happen

~oOo~

MAC WAS ALWAYS THE calm one, the quiet one, and he was the one she looked for when she wanted to talk. Everyone in their family talked all the time, but not Mac. He listened. He could sit still and listen to her for hours, and even if he didn’t comment much, she always knew he was paying attention. And he never seemed to think her problems were silly.

He was also the best for reading. His calmness was in his voice, too, so as opposed to when Mitch was reading, it didn’t sound as if Mac was in a hurry to finish. He kept a calm steady pace, letting her ask questions and look at the pictures. He never even held his finger ready to flip the page. She had to tell him it was okay, that she was done, and that was when he did it. He gave her time, took it at her pace, and never hurried along.

~oOo~ 

Eliza

I was at my weekly session with Doctor Flores, and even if I liked it better these days, even liked it a lot, the itching ink was driving me insane. She’d just said something, and I’d snapped.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s not you. My tattoo is healing and it’s driving me insane.”

“You’ve had the tattoo done?”

“Yes.”

“The Medusa tattoo you talked about earlier?”

Doctor Flores and Vi were the only ones who’d known what tattoo I was planning on doing beforehand. I’d actually mentioned it to Doctor Flores months ago.

“Yes,” I answered.

In my head, I always thought of Doctor Flores as ‘Doctor Nolan,’ Esther’s psychiatrist in
The Bell Jar
, and she was awesome. There’s a scene in the book where Esther says she hates her mom, and Doctor Nolan just looks pleased and says, ‘I suppose you do.’ I’d really liked that scene
before
, but now I loved it. Maybe it was just how Doctor Nolan is so okay with how Esther feels about things, even if it happens to be that she hates her mom. She doesn’t write it off, or scold her, or anything. She just accepts it.

Sometimes that was what I liked best about Doctor Flores; she accepted my feelings. Too many people had told me to ‘not think about it too much’ or somehow indicated that what I
said
I was feeling wasn’t actually what I was feeling, but Doctor Flores never did. There were no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ feelings I could have as far as she was concerned. And they were all valid and real, worth taking notice of if that was what I wanted. And just like Roach, she never let me slip away; she made me deal. I’d been so angry with her, I’d screamed at her, and I’d cried and begged her to stop asking things—but she never let me slip away. Lately, I’d realized that even if she did push, she still somehow followed my lead. I was in charge, and it had been a relief to realize that.

“Did you do it alone?” she asked, because I had mentioned I wanted to do it by myself.

“I did. Mom wanted to come, and Dad, but I wanted to do it alone. I’m honestly not sure why.”

“Maybe you wanted it to be a step you took by yourself?”

“Maybe.” I thought about it. “I think… I was alone then, when it happened, and I know there’s a lot of people who’ve been there when I’ve tried to come back, and I just wanted one step that was mine alone. Does that make sense?”

“It does.”

“I mean, I know Vi was there, but she’s not really present when she works, and it was her job. She wasn’t there for me.” I thought about it some more. “I might just be trying to rationalize this in my head.”

“I don’t think you are. She wasn’t there as your support.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I said, and Doctor Flores smiled. “Do you want to see it?”

“Absolutely,” she answered. I pulled off my sweater and leaned forwards. “That’s… very beautiful.”

“You think?” It sounded honest, but she also sounded a bit surprised.

“Very. That’s a piece of art.”

“She’s very good.”

“I can see that.”

When I’d first mentioned the tattoo to Doctor Flores, it had been more because I wanted to talk to her about if it could become something that was just a bad memory etched into my skin. I didn’t want it to symbolize the actual rape, but leaving it behind me. Which I might not have done yet, not completely, but it felt like I’d reached that ‘new point,’ as she’d called it. A point where I believed I would become well.

“I wanna talk to you about Roach,” I said when the sweater was back on. “I know I talk about him a lot, but…”

“It’s not strange. He’s important to you, and from what I understand you spend a lot of time together.”

“Yeah. Anyway, about him being important, and so on…” I wasn’t sure how to put it. “I read about erotic transference.”

I wasn’t sure how to continue from there, either. Doctor Flores had told me to not google a lot about therapy, that it could just make me confused or make it worse. She’d been right about that.

“Are you attracted to Roach, Eliza?”

“Yes. Or… No… I mean, I don’t want to have sex with him. I think…” I sighed and looked at her. “I shouldn’t have googled that, should I?”

“Roach isn’t your therapist, Eliza. He’s a friend. He’s been there for you to talk to and to support you, but he’s not your therapist. It’s natural that you’ve developed strong feelings for him.”

“But does that mean they’re not real?”

“Of course they’re real. Is that what you’re worried about?”

“I’m worried about a lot of things, but that’s one of the things. That I’m just feeling this right now because I’m desperately looking for someone who accepts me the way I am.”

“Everyone is looking for someone who accepts them, Eliza. Your case is maybe more extreme than other cases, but that’s still what everyone does. Why has this come up now? Did something happen to make you realize how you feel about him?”

“I saw him with another woman, and… it bugged me.”

“He has a girlfriend?”

“No. It wasn’t…” This was a part of biker life that I would’ve really preferred to not explain to her. “There are girls at the club. Guess you could call them groupies. And… You know.”

She smiled. “I think I get the picture. So she was one of those girls?”

“Yes. She called him Sweetums.” I sighed. “Has he been to see you?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“Just, I know that Mom and Dad have been, and some of the others… So, I thought… You know.”

“I know, but no, he hasn’t been here. If he wants to come, I’ll see him.” She leaned forward. “He’s a person you trust, Eliza, and from what I’ve heard he’s been a good friend. It’s not strange.”

“But could it be bad for me?”

“How would it be bad for you?”

“If it’s just some weird feelings that are coming from… Fuck, I don’t know. If it’s just that I’m super-dependent on him and don’t want to lose him.”

“You know, transference is usually described as a person transferring feelings they have for one person to another person, and not just attraction. For example, if you have a Mom you don’t like, and your boss reminds you of her so you dislike her for that reason alone. The problem with erotic transference when it comes to therapists, and the reason that it’s not real love, is that a person is actually obsessed with the
idea
that another person can give them something they’ve been missing in their life. And the therapist might be the first person they’ve felt ever fully understood by. It can be a very overwhelming feeling that becomes embodied by the therapist.”

“But maybe that’s it,” I said.

“You’re not possibly in love with the idea of Roach. As I said, Roach isn’t your therapist, he’s your friend, and you
know
him as a person. You spend time together as friends do, and you know him as a person as opposed to someone who is in love with their therapist. You don’t know your therapist. Do you see the difference?”

“I think so.”

“It’s good that you’re thinking about this, though.”

“Because there could be problems?”

“I admit, I can see some problems that could be involved, but I don’t think it’s something that would automatically be
bad
.”

Even if I would’ve preferred to hear that it wasn’t a problem at all, this was at least a little better than my worst case scenario, where she told me to just try to forget all about it.

“Bad how?”

“I don’t know yet, Eliza,” she answered with a smile. “But I think the biggest problem could be you pushing yourself. Or maybe that you become too dependent on one person, which seems to be a risk you’re worried about, too. And you thinking about it makes me worry a lot less.”

“Or that I’m completely crushed when I find out that he doesn’t have any feelings for me?” I mumbled.

“That, too. But that’s a risk everyone takes.”

“Would I be able to handle that, though?”

“I think you would. I think you could handle pretty much anything, but I do think you need him right now.”

“You’re saying I should wait?”

“I’m saying you should figure out what it is you’re feeling for him. I’m not trying to trivialize it, I’m just getting the feeling that you’re a bit confused about it at the moment. Which is understandable.”

I was confused. Really confused, so she could be right that it might be better to be sure.

“Sometimes when we have really strong feelings for someone,” she continued, “it’s hard to know exactly what we’re feeling. For someone who’s been through what you have, it can be even harder.”

That made sense. Mostly because I understood what she meant. I felt a lot of things around Roach, safe most of all, so it was hard to really sort out the different feelings and what they meant.

Most of all, I was scared I’d lose him if I told him the truth and he didn’t feel the same way.

At least the topic of conversation had made me forget about the itching tattoo.

~oOo~

Brick

Eliza smiled when she saw him below the stairs outside the shrink’s office. She skipped down the stairs and took his hand.

“You okay?” he asked, just as he always did when he picked her up after her sessions. She’d come out of there with puffy, red eyes more than once, but lately it had been better. It was more like she was relieved and relaxed these days. He always asked, but he never waited for an answer. “Where do you want to go?” he asked instead.

“Clubhouse,” she answered. “Roach had some work for me.”

“I gotta say, Baby Girl, I like you working there. The place has never been cleaner.”

“Since when do you care what the place looks like?” Eliza asked with a laugh. She pulled a pack of smokes from her bag and lit one. When she offered him, he took one, too. He figured she owed him a few, even if he technically paid for all her cigarettes. “Did you take your bike?”

“Yeah,” he said and lit his smoke. “Wanna take a ride?”

She shook her head and pointed towards a café across the road. “No. Think we have time to grab a coffee, though? I’m a bit… unhinged.”

“Unhinged?” he asked, and then he nodded. “Let’s have a coffee.”

He put an arm around her shoulders, and they walked across the street to the coffee shop. He ordered two black coffees, and then they sat down at a table. This wasn’t something they usually did. He knew Bear used to take Vi out for Sunday breakfast every Sunday for years, he still did sometimes, but Brick and Eliza hadn’t had anything like it. They’d talked, she used to sit next to him chatting away while he was working, or she watched a movie with him, but nothing like this. In general, the only one Brick ever went to a café with was Bear, and that was at greasy diner along the highway to Phoenix.

“Was there something you wanted to talk about?” he asked, unsure of how to start.

“Not really,” Eliza answered. “Think I just wanted some time to land before we went back to the rest of them. I just… realized some things, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” she hurried to say. “I think I just need to process it on my own.”

“Okay.”

“You’ve been great,” she mumbled.

“Really?” he asked with a laugh. “Doesn’t feel like I have.”

“You have. Everyone has. I know this isn’t easy for you.”

Brick shook his head with a sigh. “Honey, don’t… blame yourself for any of this. We both know it was my fault.”

He wasn’t sure if he’d ever taken the blame to her face. He should have, but he didn’t think he’d said it. Not the way he just did.

“It’s okay. Or… not okay, but…” She looked at the table in front of her, and he realized she didn’t do that as often anymore. She generally looked him in the eyes when talking these days. “I don’t think it was your fault. I know it had to do with the club, but I don’t think that makes it your fault. Can I ask something?”

“Sure.” He wasn’t about to promise her a straight answer, but she deserved to ask whatever questions she had, and he would do his very best to answer them as honestly as possible.