He passed me the cup of coffee with robotic movements.
I took a sip of the dark, bitter liquid to show willing. Then I set it down. ‘You’re not sleeping well,’ I started.
‘No, I—are you asking as my boss?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘As a friend.’
He flashed me a brilliant grin reminiscent of his old one. ‘Cool, cool.’ He stalked back to his desk and sat on his swivel chair. He turned to face me, his leg bouncing up and down, nerves firing with anxiety and caffeine.
‘I keep seeing that moment,’ he admitted suddenly. ‘Awake and asleep, flashbacks and nightmares. The moment when thatfucking undeadthingopened the van door like it was using a can opener on a tin. The grinding sound of the metal. I wake up thinking I hear it again and wonder if he’s coming for me.’
‘He’s not,’ I murmured, though I well understood the fear. ‘He’s dead, forever dead, his body burned into ashes that nothing can resurrect.’
‘Yeah. Yup. Logically, I know it. My hind brain though is still fucking terrified. My heart pounds, my chest gets so tight I can’t breathe, and then it’s like I’m in the fucking coffin, and I can’t breathe and I’m going to die, buried in the earth like every nightmare made real. And itisreal. Fuck.’ His hands shook as he lifted his mug of coffee to his lips.
It was rare to hear Ji-ho swear. I could see him, frazzled and hurting, and my heart hurt because I’d been there too.
‘You need to talk to someone,’ I said firmly.
‘I’m talking to you, Shirlylock.’
‘You are, and that’s a great first step. One you should be proud of. But you need to speak to a professional.’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘No,’ he said a shade gentler. ‘Men in my family don’t talk about their feelings. It’s just not done. Culturally, you know?’
I knew. I also knew that three-quarters of suicides were men because they weren’t encouraged to talk about, recognise, and deal with their emotions, as if they had none. Men care, menfeel,and pretending otherwise is absurd at best, deadly at worst.
‘Then let’s not call it talking about your feelings,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s call it what it is – making sure you’re not stuck inside that moment forever. You wouldn’t ignore a bullet wound, would you?’
Ji-ho gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Depends where it hit me.’
‘You’re bleeding on the inside,’ I said, keeping my tone soft but steady. ‘Doesn’t make it any less dangerous. In fact, internal bleeding is downright deadly.’
He scrubbed a hand down his face. The shadows under his eyes looked painted on. ‘It’s just … every time I close my eyes, it’s there. I smell the rust. I feel that thing’s hand on me. I hear the sound—’ He shuddered, biting off the rest of the sentence.
I nodded. ‘That’s trauma doing laps in your brain. It’s not weakness, Ji-ho. It’s wiring. Your mind’s trying to process what happened, and it’s stuck on repeat. A therapist can help you unstick it. Talking to a therapist doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means you’re brave enough to stop running from a ghost and face your problems head-on.’
He stared at me for a long moment. ‘You sound like you’ve rehearsed that.’
‘No, not rehearsed.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve lived it,’ I admitted. ‘Different monster, same nightmares. I kept telling myself I was fine, but I wasn’t. I started sneaking down to the kitchen and drinking this shit at 3am.’ I tapped the hot mug abandoned next to me. ‘Just so I wouldn’t have to close my eyes.’ I would always associate coffee with that time, that trauma. Tainted forever by the darkest days of my life, it would never again be a drink I could enjoy.
I continued, ‘I thought I could get through it alone, but I couldn’t. A psychologist can talk you through your trauma – because that’s what it was, Ji-ho. It was pure fucking trauma. You went through something so dark and horrific that any sane person would have fallen to pieces.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said. He looked at me like I was the second coming of Christ.
‘I did,’ I insisted, finding it harder to complete the sentence than I’d ever thought possible, ‘after I was kidnapped.’
His jaw was on the floor. ‘Youwere kidnapped?’
‘Different monster, same nightmare,’ I repeated. ‘I was kidnapped when I was fourteen, and I fell to pieces for the longest time, Ji-ho. I was Humpty Dumpty, and I needed professional help to put myself back together. To not flinch at every car coming up behind me, to not sweat whenever my clothes constrained me, to not panic every time I closed my eyes. I had to check every window, every lock, even though that wasn’t how they got me.’ Even now, I hesitated every time I lifted the sash window for Loki, but I still did it because I refused to let my demons rule me.
His eyes shone, and he crossed the distance to hug me tightly. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you went through that Stacy. And so damned young too.’
‘There’s no good age for an experience like that,’ I murmured, accepting his embrace and hugging him back just as fiercely, letting myself take comfort as well as give it.
He had a fresh scent, clean and earthy with a hint of lemongrass. ‘It’s okay not to be okay,’ I whispered to him.
Ji-ho nodded against my shoulder, and then he sucked in a huge breath and started to cry.
