Together We Heal (9 page)

She closed her eyes, effectively shutting me out.

“I don’t want to talk about that with you. It’s in my past and I don’t want to remember it.” She turned her face away from me, but didn’t step back.

“Oh, hun,” I said. My heart broke for her when she said things like this.

“Stop it,” she said, pushing me away and brushing at her eyes. Trish never cried in front of anyone.

“I just wish I knew what I could do to help you. This
kills
me, Trish. It kills me that someone hurt you when you were young and vulnerable. But you’re not broken. You’re not damaged. You’re whole just the way you are.” She sniffed loudly and sat on her bed, her back to me.

I took another risk and sat down next to her, my hand on her shoulder.

“I just want to be normal,” she said and then sniffed again. I looked around and found a box of tissues. There was also an extra blanket on the end of her bed and I draped it around her shoulders. She didn’t need to be any more exposed than she already was. “I don’t want to be like this.”

Taking the tissues from me, she turned around and my heart shattered just a little bit more.

“I know, hun. I know.”

“I’m so much work. Why do you stay?” She’d asked me questions like this since the day we met. I guess I never had a good enough answer for her.

“Because I love you. And when you love someone, you don’t walk away. No matter what.” She pulled the blanket further around herself, as if she was cold.

“I wish I could let myself love you. If I could love anyone that way, I would want it to be you.” My heart nearly stopped. It wasn’t a declaration, but it was pretty damn close and probably as close as I was ever going to get from her.

“That’s good enough for me,” I said, leaning forward and kissing her forehead. “Why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll order us some pizza, okay?” She nodded and got up.

I’D DONE IT
again. Taken something perfect and ruined it. I really had to stop doing that, but I didn’t know how. Stryker had always encouraged me to go to therapy, but I always refused. I didn’t want to open up to some stranger who was paid to listen to me. That was just weird.

I’d talked to Stryker about some of it, but I didn’t want him to know about the worst stuff.

I hated that this stuff ruined my future, but I was caught in a trap. Unable to move forward, but unwilling to go back and deal with the past.

Something had to give. I couldn’t keep doing this and I couldn’t drag Max along with me. I was poisoning him. Slowly, and without him knowing. Eventually, it would get to him and the poison would kill our relationship. Kill his love for me.

I took a long shower and thought about a lot of things. When I came back, the pizza had arrived and Max was getting out plates and paper towels and cans of soda for us.

“I don’t know what to do, Max, but I know I need to do something. I’ve lived like this for so long, but it’s time to change it. I never really had a reason before. Or at least I didn’t have as much support before. I only had Stryker growing up. Now I have you and Lottie and the rest of my friends. I had no idea I’d ever have friends.” I laughed a little.

“You know I’ll support you in anything you want to do. Anything. Just tell me how I can help and I’ll do it,” he said, handing me a plate. How in the hell had I found him?

I sat down and blotted my hair with my towel before turning my attention to the pizza. The room was quiet and it was driving me nuts.

“My parents were meth dealers,” I said, staring down at the oily pepperonis on the pizza. I couldn’t look at him right now.

He didn’t say anything, so I kept going.

“They had a lab in our basement and kept a lock on the door to keep us out of it. There were always addicts and dealers going in and out of our house. My earliest memory is of a junkie passed out on the floor of my room.” Of course they hadn’t gotten me an actual crib when I was a baby. Instead I had one of those big plastic tubs and a dirty blanket in it. It was a miracle Stryker and I had survived our childhood with relatively little physical damage. Psychological damage was another story.

A hand came into my line of vision and I realized it was Max’s. I reached out and he held my hand as I continued.

“We hardly ever had food. Stryker had to sneak into the kitchen when everyone was passed out. I still remember what it was like to be that hungry.” I took a jagged breath. Yeah, that was enough for today.

“So, yeah. That’s a tiny piece of what I went through. There’s a whole lot more, but I think that’s enough for now.” If I kept going, I was going to get sick. The memories of growing up weren’t distant and fuzzy. They were clear as watching a movie in my brain. Like they had happened just yesterday.

Max squeezed my hand.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Trish. It took a lot of courage and I’m proud of you.” That made me start crying again and Max moved the pizza box off the bed so he could put his arms around me.

I’d never put much stock in the power of hugs, but right now Max’s arms were the only things keeping me together. I started breathing too fast and panicking and he talked in my ear, telling me to breathe slower and relax. He said all kinds of things and they distracted me from the memories.

After what might have been hours, I untangled myself from him.

“You doing okay?” he asked. I thought about it for a minute.

“Yeah, I think I am.”

I SLEPT LIKE
crazy that night and it wasn’t just because I was exhausted from the road trip. For once, my mind didn’t feel so… heavy. Most nights my brain spun thoughts around and around for so long it took hours for me to actually fall asleep.

This was different.

I woke up feeling
amazing
. Like I could conquer the world and run marathons and shit. I smiled at Max and he kissed me on the nose. I’d made a rule of no kissing before tooth brushing.

“You seem happy,” he said, his tone surprised.

“I am happy,” I said and it was the truth. So that was what this feeling was. This bright bubbly in my chest feeling like I was going to float away like a runaway balloon.

“Good. My goal is for you to have at least one happy moment every day. And I want to be there to witness it. Happy looks really damn good on you.” He winked and got up to brush his teeth and I stayed in bed and basked in my happy for a little bit longer.

THE HAPPY FEELING
lasted for quite a while. Into doing homework and waiting to hear from Stryker and Katie about telling her mom about the baby and the wedding.

The wedding. It was going to be the pinkest fucking wedding to ever happen in the history of weddings. It would be awesome, though. Definitely non-traditional. Definitely with a kickass reception. It would probably be the most fun wedding I’d ever attend.

I still wasn’t sure how I felt about the marriage subject. I just couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to commit to me like that, so I’d never entertained the idea of it. I wasn’t opposed to marriage at all. I mean, I wasn’t a lover of romance books and Happily Ever Afters for nothing. But that was not for me. Never for me.

I finished my homework early, so I was reading a new book when I got the phone call from Stryker.

“Hey, how did it go?”

He laughed a little.

“Hey, better than expected. I thought she was going to pass out. After her initial shock, she hugged us both so hard I thought my ribs were going to break and Katie had to tell her that she was squishing the baby.” We both laughed and he went on to say that Mrs. Hallman wanted to throw Katie and Kayla a joint baby and wedding shower, which was all kinds of crazy.

“You gonna be back soon?” I asked.

“Yeah, you and Max want to come over for dinner? Katie is dying to know how your date went.” Oh I bet everyone did. I almost didn’t want to share it with them. I wanted to keep it between just the two of us. Our little secret. I liked the idea of sharing a secret like this with him. A sweet and fun secret. Not the dark and disgusting kind of secrets I currently carried around that weighed me down like chains.

That would never work, though. My friends were persistent and annoying when they wanted to know something, and it would be less work to just tell them than to try to keep it to ourselves.

“We’re going to dinner at Stryker’s,” I said as I hung up. Max got up and stretched his arms over his head.

“Sounds good. I think I pulled something from driving yesterday.” He tilted his neck from left to right and winced.

“I don’t think you can pull something just from driving.”

“How do you know? Are you a doctor?” I made a face at him and he got up and pretty much tackled me.

“Max! What the hell? Get off me,” I said, but then he got his fingers under my ribs and started fucking tickling me. I couldn’t help the breathless laughter that came out of me. I was completely at his mercy.

“Say you’re not a doctor. Say it!” he said as I tried to wriggle out from under him.

“I’m not a doctor!” I yelled and he stopped. I wiped tears out of my eyes and got my breath back under control.

“You’re an asshole,” I said, poking him in the chest. “I almost kicked you in the skull.”

“Nah, I would have ducked out of the way. I’ve got good reflexes.” He grabbed my wrist and then kissed the back of my hand. It was impossible to be mad at him for long. He was just too damn cute.

“You are trouble,” I said as he got up and pulled me up after him.

“The good kind of trouble, I hope.” I pecked him on the lips.

“The best kind.”