I don’t care. Declan’s like a drug, and Ineedhim.
Does it make me a shittyfather that even my love for my kids couldn’t pull me back from the brink the way my obsession for Declan has?
Ifinallyfeel like I’maliveagain.
I no longer feel that crushing weight on me every morning when I awaken, even if I’m alone in bed.
I lookforwardto every morning now, instead of dreading it when I awaken and realize I’m not dead yet.
Eventually, she draws in a long, audiblebreath. When she speaks, it’s quiet, her words deliberate. “I don’t know if you’re a sociopath, a psychopath, or functionally psychotic, George. And I don’t know what it says aboutmethat you haven’t scared me off yet. I’m leaning more toward functionally psychotic, because I’ve seen you express empathy. You love your kids. You’re a fantastic dad. You were the world’s best husband to Ellen. You’rea great friend.
“I know that before I triggered all this, you were on an express elevator to self-destruction. I felt it, and felt helpless about how to help you. I’m glad that being with Declan has triggered…somethingto make you start wanting to live again. Except I’m also worried you’re going to self-destruct at this rate, in different ways now. Or hurt Declan in ways I can’t make better.”
I bristle over that. “He likes what I do to him. He likes being hurt—”
“That’snotthe kind of hurt I mean, George,” she snaps. “And youdamnwell know it!”
The things I do to him silence the demons in my mind.
The scream of the wind through the fuselage.
The screams of our fellow passengers.
My screams.
The horrible, strangled gasp she barely had time to make when it happened.
The way myears painfully popped and the sound of my breath roaring in the plastic oxygen mask I held pressed to my face as I screamed her name and realized no, she wasn’t alive.
The fear in her remaining green eye, unseeing, staring at me.
The way her hand clamped down on mine, then the last several twitches before it finally went slack.
But I still held on.
I couldn’t let go.
I haven’t been able tolet go for two years. Part of me is still strapped into my seat in that airplane.
Still holding on.
I blink, and there’s Casey suddenly standing in front of me, arms crossed and a dark scowl on her face.
“You did it again.”
I swallow back the bitter bile threatening to come up. My hands tighten around the mug. “Did what?” I hoarsely ask. I take a sip of coffee to buy me time.
“Disappeared.”
“Now who’s psychotic?” I manage.
She steps closer, staring up at me. “You disappear,” she quietly says. “I’ve tried to catch it on video to show you, but you come back so quickly I can’t. I don’t know what triggers you. You never used to do it, so I know it’s because of the…of what happened. You’re there, then all of a sudden you freeze, your face goes completely blank before it looks like across between terror and agony, and then you’re back. Sometimes it’s only a second, and sometimes it’s two or three.
“You’ve only done it when we’re alone together, that I’ve seen. Or, lately, with Declan there. I haven’t asked him about it yet, if he’s noticed it when you’re alone with him. Like when you had the panic attack in the bathroom. I’m sure you did it then, too, but neither of us werewith you when it started.”
I can’t bear the weight of her gaze, so I stare at the mug of coffee in my hands.
“George,” she quietly says, “you haveseverePTSD. You’re having flashbacks. I think they’re verging into fugues, or even psychotic breaks, and that you’re at serious risk of harming yourself, or him.”
