Forbidden: A Standalone (44 page)

fiona

M
y gums felt as if they were on fire, and my spine hurt between my shoulder blades, all the way up to my neck. I felt as though someone was pinching the top of my hand, but when I opened my eyes, I saw the IV bag hanging over me, and I knew where I was.

I took a deep breath.

Something rustled. To the right and at the foot of the bed. My senses were back, and I smelled him there. I hadn’t placed his scent before.

“Has anyone ever told you that you smell like the air before it rains?” I said.

He didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” I continued.

“Me too.”

“I can explain.”

I moved my hand. It wasn’t tied down. I touched my chin and pressed at the cleft where it met my lower lip, relieving the itch in my gums.

“I’m sure you can.”

I hitched myself up on my elbows. I was in Westonwood blues. He was in a tan suit and blue tie, his elbows on his knees and his arms draped between them as if fully engaged in something he didn’t understand. Loving me.

I felt like a clown.

“What were you thinking?” Elliot asked.

“That I was taking a cab home.”

He smiled and looked at the floor.

“I didn’t go with Deacon,” I said. “He showed up there.”

“I know.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me he didn’t bring you, and he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a liar. And also, I followed you.”

“Elliot!”

He put his finger to his lips to remind me that no one should hear. “That makes me an asshole. Fine. But I thought you might pull a stunt to get back in here. And here you are. Well done.”

I flopped back down. “I had a completely different stunt planned.”

I put my forearm over my eyes to cut the light. I saw the night in a flash. The pool. The roof. The locker room.

“Baby,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“No.” I moved my arm away and stared into the light. “Baby Chilton. Is she all right?”

“I guess. You were the only casualty. You’re all over the news.”

“I don’t give a shit about that.”

I didn’t. Baby was all right, at least physically. That mattered to me. I’d had nothing to do with her episode in the shower, but I felt responsible somehow. I was sure Jack had put the tar on her pussy to show off to me what it could do.

Elliot stood over me, blocking the light. I wished he’d put his hands on me, but he had a sort of detachment about him, and I felt ashamed of what I’d done. Again.

“So what’s the deal? Am I fifty-one-fiftied again?”

“You checked yourself in.”

“I did?”

“The paramedics gave you a choice: the ER or a mental facility. And here you are. Outpatient probation broken.” He put his hands on either side of me and leaned in, blocking out the light, the room, everything. “Now, how am I going to keep you away from Warren Chilton?”

“You’re not.”

“I’m passing you to another therapist.”

“Obviously. Since you’re fucking me.”

“I want you to leave Warren alone. Give him enough rope to hang himself.”

“Am I a disappointment?” I asked.

“I knew what I was getting into with you.”

I put my palm on his cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and the roughness under my hand was pleasantly tactile. “I asked if you were disappointed.”

“I’m not going to lie. I should say ‘thank you’ and walk away right now. I’m surprised at myself. I’m a sensible guy. I think things through, and anything that’s too risky—I don’t do. But you woke something up in me. I was dead. My life was dead. Then you came, and I feel God in you. I hear him in your voice. The crazy shit you do… he speaks to me. I don’t know how long I’ll last on a roller coaster. But all I want right now is for you to get out of here so I can experiment with your body.”

“Will God keep talking to you if I stop doing crazy shit?”

“I hope I find out soon.”

I didn’t want to promise him anything. Promises were for children and people who weren’t worthy of trust. So I didn’t say a word to him, but I spoke to myself.

I promised myself he’d find out what it was like to be with sane Fiona. Not normal Fiona. Not staid, conservative Fiona. Not a Fiona who made all the least risky choices and didn’t break any rules. That Fiona didn’t exist, and trying to create her wouldn’t do shit but make me miserable.

But he could get to know sober Fiona. Straight Fiona. Faithful Fiona. I could work hard, stay monogamous, and still be the force of nature he saw God in.

In his ocean-colored eyes, I saw my own potential. With a little work, I could become those things for him and, more importantly, for myself.

elliot

O
bviously, I had no interest in emotional self-preservation. I couldn’t even bring myself to consider leaving her.

I was crazier than she was.

I’d seen this type of thing go bad, read the case studies, talked a few dozen couples through nightmares of drugs, alcohol, and unpredictable behavior. I didn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through what those people put themselves through, but I counseled them anyway. I’d been the perfect example of ignorance. I didn’t know what made them love each other because I didn’t understand love.

And that was why I didn’t feel threatened by the fact that Deacon Bruce was in my Westonwood office. He loved her. I got it. I had as much compassion for him as I had for myself.

“Mister Bruce,” I said, closing the door behind me.

He was sitting in the leather chair by the window as if it was his office, not mine. He wore a dark suit and white shirt open two buttons, revealing a leather string tied around his neck. A bone-colored pendant in the shape of a cornucopia dangled from it. “You need to let her go.”

“I can’t.” I started for my desk but stopped. I didn’t want to sit behind a barrier. I put my files down and sat across from him. The light from the window behind him kept his face in darkness and must have exposed my every expression.

“You’re the one managing her probation.”

“Not anymore.”

He didn’t make a move. He was pure control, and I wondered for the first time why he needed to regulate Fiona. I saw his cracks and knew his secrets in that moment. His life was out of control, and without her, it spun away.

“You found her in a weakened state, and you took advantage of your position.” He spoke as if broadcasting the news. All facts. “She came here, confused and willing to hear whatever anyone said. She idealized you, then you found a way in. You used tricks like hypnosis. You manipulated her vulnerability. For what? What’s your game? Are you her therapist or her lover? Because you know as well as I do that you can’t be both.”

And in those few words, I was on the defensive.

“You need to let her go,” I said, turning the subject away from the lines I’d crossed.

“You don’t have the tools to give her what she needs. You’re weak. If you loved her, you’d take care of her. You’d do what she needed you to do.” His voice was absent of jealousy or venom. He spoke as if we were two men with a common interest, and his was superior.

“It doesn’t work like that. She needs to make her own life.”

“You’re going to let Warren Chilton rape her again?”

The “again” was loaded. It implied I’d let it happen the first time. I tamped down my desire to defend myself. I didn’t have to. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I hadn’t failed, even if I felt as though I had.

“You thought I didn’t know who did it or where it happened,” he said. “She told me last night, before the ambulance came for her. She was raped under your care, and now I’m supposed to roll over and let you have her? You underestimate me.”

“What do you think I should do? Arrange her release? What caseworker in their right mind would put her back in a police cruiser to go home after she was found on a twelve-story ledge, fucked up on a designer drug? Or I should find a way to get Chilton out so he can continue his psychotic spree in society?”

“She is your priority. Not society.”

“It’s all my responsibility. All of it. I don’t get to pick and choose.”

He sprang up and stood over me. “That’s the problem.”

I wouldn’t be cowed. I wouldn’t be intimidated. Not every decision I’d made had been perfect, but I’d be damned if I would be told I didn’t love her the right way.

I stood. He was two inches taller, and I was over six feet.

“The problem, Mister Bruce, is that you’ve done nothing but baby her. You’ve continued the damage her parents did. Your boundaries are constructs. They don’t give her the power to make the right decision. You don’t let her fail because you design failures that are irrelevant and you train her behavior to mold into your world, not the real world. You fucked this up. You fucked it all up. You took a woman who could have figured her life out, and you turned her into a pet who couldn’t wait to run away as soon as you left the gate open.”

I thought he recognized the truth in what I was saying. Or maybe I needed to believe that. But he seemed to soften just a little, enough for me to continue.

“You need to let her be,” I said.

“So you can take her?”

And there, in its full and splendid glory, was the reason therapists shouldn’t fall in love with their patients. It muddied the waters to thick paste. I lost my ability to advise both Fiona and her enabler. Neither could trust me.

“You know what’s right. Just do it.” I opened the door. “Let me figure out what to do with Warren.”

He stepped toward the doorway but stopped long enough to say, “I’ll figure out what to do with him. Here’s what you do. You understand that she’s mine. You understand that what you did was wrong, and you go back to your God and ask for forgiveness. You do not stand in the way of what she needs, now or ever, because I will expose you. I won’t have to lay a finger on you to destroy you.”

And with that, he strode off as if taking care of Chilton was his responsibility.

What a fucking mess.

Frances made her way down the hall, passing him. She gave him the once-over, head to toe, then nodded, smiling, and turned her head as he walked by.

“Chapman,” she said before I could close the door, “I want to talk to you.”

She slipped in, and I shut the door behind her.

“Who was that?” she asked, sinking into the seat Deacon had just vacated.

“You want his number?”

“Jealous? You’re cute too. I’m just used to you.”

“He wants Fiona Drazen released to his care.”

“And? Do you have a recommendation?”

“A few days observation.”

She held up her file. “By someone else, apparently.”

“I wasn’t able to help her before—”

“So you’re abdicating? That’s not like you. As a matter of fact—”

“I haven’t gotten anywhere,” I said.

“Are we still talking about her therapy?”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve seen nearly a thousand kids come in and out of this facility, and I’ve managed dozens of doctors. I’ve seen how they stand with each other. How they talk. I’ve seen you and the Drazen girl in the same room, and what I see is that you’re too damned handsome for your own good—”

“Frances, really?”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“No.”

“We could get in a lot of trouble,” she said.

“You won’t.”

“Besides the core ethical ickiness.”

I crossed my legs. “Are you making an accusation?”

“I’m prying directly into the place where your business intersects with mine.”

“There is no such place.”

“I sense you’re deflecting.” She crossed her legs to match mine and upped the ante by crossing her wrists over her knee.

“You must have been amazing in session.”

“I was. And you’re still deflecting.”

“I came to you with a serious problem,” I said. “Fiona was raped by Warren Chilton on the grounds of this facility. What did you do? You took me off his case, and he’s still walking around like he owns the joint. Let’s address that core ethical ickiness.”

“He denied it.”

“Welcome back to the nineteen-fifties.”

“Please”—she waved as if there was nothing there—“give me a break.”

“Tell me what Rob Chilton’s people said about Warren’s habits. And I mean habits. Fiona’s not the first or last. You know it. They know it. Is the Chilton Foundation putting a new wing on the place? Paying double?”

“Enough.” She straightened her legs and leaned forward. “The matter is under investigation.” She stood. “Until the authorities come back with something to nail him, like actual evidence, there’s nothing I can do.”

I stood and walked toward the door. “This has been such a fun little chat. Was there something you wanted?”

“I enjoy the hell out of you, Chapman. I’d hate to see your career end over a little ickiness.”

It was doomed to end over something. Old age. Exhaustion. Death. Might as well be love.

fiona

“T
his is like déjà vu all over again,” I said.

Frances smiled with an undertone of superiority then slid the papers across the table.

“I bet this happens all the time, actually.”

“Everyone’s different,” she said noncommittally. “Some people need to do this a couple of times. Sometimes we have to switch methods. Try new things.”

I scribbled my name on familiar forms. “Such as?” I was just making conversation.

“We’re putting you in a group session,” she said.

“Okay.”

Whatever. I could do a group. Not a big deal. I didn’t feel as if I needed to have Elliot in a room to myself. He and I could wait. We were solid.

“We’ll do everything possible to keep you away from Warren Chilton.”

My blood froze, and I stopped signing.

“But you have to meet us halfway,” she said. “Stay where you belong. We closed off the holes in the fence back there, but you guys are smart. I’m sure there are more little hideouts. Stay away from them. I’ve scheduled you for different mealtimes, but you’re to steer clear of each other in the halls and everywhere else.”

“You’re making it my responsibility to stay away from my rapist?”

“I’m asking you to participate in preventing it from happening again. You asked to be here. I’d be happy to transfer you to a different facility.”