His brow furrows, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You mean sixteen, right?”
I shake my head. “No, I mean seventeen. It was my birthday last week.”
“What?” He jerks his head up, sitting upright in the chair. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” He looks profoundly unhappy.
I shrug, straightening up too. “What’s the point? It’s not like you could make me a cake or take me out to celebrate.”
“Your birthday is definitely something to celebrate, and I … I have a present for you,” he sheepishly admits as his shy alter ego makes a reappearance.
I tilt my head to the side. “You do? How?”
His eyes spark to life, and I’m pleased to see a smile forming on his mouth. “I’ll show you later, after you’re done with your session. You’ll be back at your usual time, right?”
“Of course.” Ryder is almost regimental about time and routine, and anything out of the ordinary really throws him for a loop, I’ve noticed. “Where else would I go?” I reassure him.
* * *
“What wasthe nightmare about this time?” Dr. Reynolds asks me during our scheduled therapy session. I swear she was a spy or an interrogator in a previous lifetime. Her ability to manipulate me into telling her stuff I had no intention or desire to disclose is hugely impressive even if it worries me enormously.
Part of me wants to tell her the truth in the hope she might have some insight on my options, but there’s a bigger part of me that’s still too fearful to open up. With her mad manipulative skills, I feel it’s only a matter of time before the inevitable happens.
“It was the same one,” I lie. “About that night.”
“Talk me through it again.”
“I don’t want to. It only puts me in a bad mood.”
“You need to talk about it. It’s not going away until you process all your feelings related to your mother and that night.” She stands, rounding the desk and hovering over me. “I know it’s not easy to relive these things, but you can’t focus on the future until you’ve dealt with the past.”
Pain stabs me in the chest. “It hurts too much to relive it, and I really don’t see how it will help. It’s not like it can change what happened.”
Her facial expression softens, and she walks toward me at a slow pace, grabbing a box of Kleenex from her desk on the way. “Please, sit with me.” She motions toward the couch propped against the wall.
Perching on the edge of the couch, she smooths a hand over her tailored, black pencil skirt before patting the empty space beside her. I sit down, keeping reasonable distance between us. “I’m going to be direct, because you need to hear this. You come in here, Zeta, and you play a part. This is our fifth session together, and I have no understanding of who you are. I can’t help you if you don’t open up to me. Whatever we discuss in this room is confidential, and you can trust me with anything.”
“Trust has to be earned. It’s not something that can be freely given.”
“Have I ever given you any reason to doubt me?” She waits for my reply, but I don’t say anything. Fact is, she’s been nothing but pleasant to me. The reason this isn’t working is all down to me. She sighs. “I’m on your side. I just want to help.”
“I can’t discuss that night. Not yet. Please don’t force me to.” I pull my knees into my chest, wrapping my arms around my body to ward off the chills snaking through me.
“I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.” Her earnest expression goes a long way toward reassuring me. “Let’s talk some more about your relationship with your mother. The last time, you told me how sad she was after your father died and how everything changed then. Do you feel comfortable sharing what happened after that?”
I wet my dry lips, nodding. “I was six when my dad was killed in Afghanistan. I remember feeling so sad and wanting my mom to comfort me, but she just sat around in her pajamas all day, crying. Then we had to move, and we relocated to a new town where we knew no one. I was so upset because she took me away from all my friends. I started at a new school, and I hated it because the kids had all grown up together and I was the outsider. They made fun of me because my mom showed up at the school gates in her slippers and PJs, usually drunk and babbling shit no one wanted to listen to. No one wanted to play with me, and I was ostracized. I used to cry myself to sleep every night, praying she would hear me and come comfort me. But she never did. I might as well have been invisible.”
“How did that make you feel?”
I shrug, briefly pursing my lips. “Lost. Scared. Lonely. Unlovable. Unloved.” The words glide off my tongue without hesitation, because that pain is always with me. Piercing pain presses down on my chest. I might have only been six or seven, but the feelings were so intense I have no trouble recalling them again.
“Did things change when she met your stepfather?”
Every bone in my body turns rigidly still. Bile floods my mouth and my stomach churns violently. “Yes, but not in a good way.”
Her eyes penetrate mine, and she holds my gaze as she asks her next question. “In what way did things change after he came into your life?”
I draw a huge breath, carefully composing my words. It’d be so easy to let it all pour out, but I’ve got to be cautious until I know I can trust her completely. “He was very controlling, and Mom just let him get away with it. Of course, he wasn’t like that at the start. They dated, and he romanced her good. At first, things were looking up. She didn’t drink so much during the day, and she stopped going out in her sleep clothes. She made an effort to shower and look presentable, and she started paying more attention to the house and to me. But then she moved him in, and gradually, she started changing again.”
“How old were you then?”
