“At the club, we have many guys who’ve come from broken pasts. Most of them are still living with what happened to them. They think of their lives as the before and after, and they think there’s going to be a day or a moment where it all just switches back, but that’s not true.” Scythe stops himself and shoots Loreena a sheepish look. “Sorry. You didn’t ask for a sermon.”
“No! I want to hear what you have to say.Please.”
“It’s always gonna be the after, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be a life that was as good as the before,” Scythe continues. “Our Prez, Tyrant, has a lot of guys go to therapy, but they all talk to the same guy, because he’s specifically a trauma specialist. For some, their whole lives have been traumatic. There’s no outgrowing what’s been encoded into your DNA.”
“That all sounds as hopeless as I’ve often felt.”
I want to shift this chair over and slip an arm around Loreena, just for comfort. It helped last night, when I was hershield. I swear it did. If she’s had anyone in her corner in the past, it seems to have been the wrong kind of people.
If Loreena wanted comfort, she’d probably give me some kind of clue that even I could understand. We’ve exchanged letters, hundreds of them. I didn’t think that entitled me to feeling like I knew her better than anyone else, but what I know now changes things.
Fuck knowing her better. I might be the only person she has left.
“I know it does,” Scythe says sympathetically. “That’s just the starting point. It’s understanding that what happened to you has made you who you are today. Your brain’s been primed to act defensively, to be flooded with anger or panic or pain. It’s gotten to the stage where everything seems a threat.”
“I’ve talked plenty about the four F shit the brain does.” The words are snappy, but Loreena isn’t. She sounds exhausted again.
“Your brain is the center for everything that happens in your body, though.”
I’m just going to sit here and let everything they’re both saying wash over me. I keep asking myself when the hell Scythe got so smart, although I guess he’s already answered that. The club. I thought it was mostly just about bikes, mechanics, and guys who liked both of those. I’m not one of those guys. This is the first time that I’ve actually truly been interested in what he’s saying about it.
“I do get that,” Loreena responds. She sucks an orange slice clean before she continues. “It’s been pointed out that my life is one big rut. I keep repeating the same patterns. Mosttherapists are smart enough to see that, and they’ve tried to give me tools to break it. It’s not just mental. I’ve tried breathing, meditation, chanting, trances, getting hypnotized. All of it.”
“If you see your trauma as the enemy, then everything that stems from it, every thought, every action and reaction, is going to be negative. It’s going to dominate your life because it has the power.”
“So I’ve heard, but I fail to see how being attacked and beaten and almost dying could be anything but a terrible thing.”
I shove back my chair so fast that both Scythe and Loreena’s heads crank around to me. It’s fine that I’ve been watching and listening to them have this discussion in front of me like I’m not even here. If Scythe can help, or offer some insight, I want him to do that. I want it with everything I am. But what she just said unleashed something inside of me I wasn’t even aware was there.
The feral part of me goes completely red inside my skull.
I don’t know what happened, and now I’m imagining a thousand different things. Someone hurt this woman. Someone who might have manipulated her and broken her trust and then physically harmed her. Did they get away with it? What happened to them? Are they in jail?
Losing my shit and asking her for a name, then informing Scythe that he’s going to have to use his club to help me plan and cover up a murder isn’t going to help anyone.
Or would it?
Would all of this end for Loreena if the person who did this was brought to the only kind of justice that he deserves? I’m assuming it’s a he. What if it’s not? What if a woman hurt her?Could I harm a woman? Could I truly harmanyone? This isn’t who I am or who I wanted to be.
The urge to vomit is so strong that I stumble to the sink and grasp the ledge to steady myself. There’s no breathing through it, and I jerk forward from the waist, ejecting the coffee I just drank in a hot, scalding mess.
Loreena shoots up from her seat as fast as I did. I see her cross the room out of the corner of my eye. I fumble with the faucet and rinse out the sink. Cupping my hand under the running faucet I rinse my mouth with water so cold it makes my teeth ache.
She hands me a bunch of paper towels and shuts off the tap then waits for me to wipe my mouth and face before she says anything. “I’m sorry that you’re upset.” Her hand slips away from my neck.
Why didn’t I think to ask her what happened? Right… I did. She said she didn’t want to talk about it. I can see why. She appears calm right now, but I can see the fear burning bright as a fever in her eyes.
Whoever hurt her is still out there. Is that the root of why she can’t go outside? Is she afraid that this person will find her and finish what they started? I can’t just ask her that. I can tell that she’d wall up and wouldn’t answer me, and I don’t want to undo whatever small progress we might have made.
Scythe stands up and faces us. “Would you agree to speak with the therapist the club uses, if I can get him to come here? Or by phone, although I feel like in person would be best.”
Loreena hesitates. Her eyes flick to me, but then she meets Scythe’s gaze again. “Yes. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I want this to be over.”
“It does seem like you do,” he corrects her, but not like an imperious asshole. “All this time, you’ve been fighting to take the control back. I don’t think it’s about you telling your brain one thing while it wants to do another. You’re afraid of open spaces, of going outside, of all that emptiness pressing down on you and having nowhere safe to hide. Outside, everything is out of your control, but when you’re at home you’re safe, because you control your environment. Does that sound about right?”
“I- sort of. A little. Yes. I know that all that’s out there isn’t just pain and fear and people who want to do terrible things. The world can be ugly, but it can be beautiful too. Iknowthat. I just don’t know how to make my body heal. I don’t know how to convince it to find peace in that space, goodness, and love, instead of panic, triggers, and distress.”
The atmosphere in here is heavy and suffocating. I need to say something or do something. I’m so fucking helpless against this that the rage starts to grow and fill upmylungs. Maybe that’s where part of Loreena’s panic comes from. I’ve always had a dry sense of humor, and I try to fall back on it now.
