???
I stared absently at the blue coffee mug on the small side table. Sarah crossed her legs and the silence dragged on.
“He says he loves me.”
Sarah nodded and the silence returned. I took a deep breath of her ‘spill your guts’ essential oils wafting through the room and cracked my knuckles.
“He says that he doesn’t think I should be held accountable for the things I did while in the gang. Says he doesn’t care what I did and that I don’t even need to tell him everything.”
“Why don’t you seem happy about that?”
I scoffed, looking up at her in disbelief. “Are you for real right now? I told this man I murdered someone, andheapologized to me. Tome.”
She pursed her lips and blinked like she didn’t see my point. Like I hadn’t just confessed to killing someone. Like all her patients confessed to killing people.
“You wanted him to be angry with you. Why?”
“Because.”
She waited for me to elaborate but I kept my mouth shut.
“Because that means you could keep punishing yourself?”
I shrugged, but she was right. Mostly.
“You’ve never told me about what you did prior to ending up in witness protection.”
“I wasn’t supposed to.”
“Right,” she nodded. “But you’re not in witness protection anymore. And unless you tell me you’ve got a plan to kill someone, or yourself, I’m not allowed to tell anyone about it either.”
I bit into my bottom lip, debating.
“What do you want to know?”
“I want to know whatever you’re comfortable sharing. But I think we need to get to the root of this guilt you’re harboring. Why don’t we start there? Tell me, what’s the thing you feel guiltiest about.”
I blew out a breath, smoothing my sweaty palms down my pants.
“Probably the murder.”
She nodded. “Tell me why you feel guilty?”
It took me a minute to get the words out, to be honest.
“I chose my life over his. I…If I hadn’t chosen to live, if I had ended things sooner, I wouldn’t have been in that position.”
“What do you mean, ‘ended things sooner’?”
“It wasmychoice. Carlos, he was the man in charge, and he gave me a choice. I could join his gang, or I could die. But if I died, he was going to make someone else take my place…a child, someone younger, someone more innocent. And maybe he was lying, maybe he wouldn’t have…I wasn’t going to take that risk. So, I agreed to join. I didn’t know what they were going to make me do to initiate, I just knew I didn’t want anyone else to take my place.”
I swallowed, the story not any easier to tell than it was speaking to Enoch and Jae.
Sarah waited.
“I had to give them my body.”
I kept my eyes on the mug, unwilling to watch her reactions. When she didn’t say anything, I continued.
