Thatgot his attention.
“Like what the soldiers go through when they come home?” he asked, his expression lifting in surprise. “I… I don’t have that. They see terrible things… they’re forced to do terrible things. Magnus said that they can’t always relate to civ… civ…”
“Civilian life,” I said.
He nodded.
“Magnus says that their minds play tricks on them when they come home but that it isn’t their fault and it’s okay for them to ask for help.”
So Magnus had suspected what Aleks was suffering from and had tried to tell the young man in a roundabout way…
It took Aleks a moment to figure things out. His mouth pulled into a frown. “I don’t have that,” he repeated. “You’re wrong. I’ve… I’ve been doing normal things since I left Father’s house.”
“Yes, you have, and you’ve done an incredible job. But PTSD isn’t something you can just will away, Aleks. Talking to someonewill help you figure out what your triggers are and how to cope—”
“No!” Aleks shouted, then seemed to remember shouting wasn’t something he was allowed to do. “No,” he repeated as his agitation grew. “I’m fine. I’m okay… Dante… he’s proud of me because I’m doing so good…”
I fell silent as he pretty much answered all of my questions with that one statement.
He doesn’t want to disappoint his brother.
It made me wonder how much he was still hiding from Dante. And if he was pushing himself too hard in an effort to make his brother proud.
So his brother wouldn’t regret coming to get him.
“Can we please just go, Vaughn?” Aleks asked as he turned away from me and stared out the window.
“Aleks—”
“Please,” he repeated, his voice sounding hoarse.
I sighed and reached out to graze his cheek with my fingers, but he seemed to be expecting the move and pulled away.
So we were back where we’d started before we’d stopped for breakfast.
Fuck.
Chapter 8
Aleks
I’m sorry,Miss Penny.
Aleks, if you’d only been good they wouldn’t have hurt me…
I jerked awake at the sound of Miss Penny’s voice. She hadn’t spoken after Brian had left the room. I’d apologized dozens of times, but she’d never once spoken. I’d known why, of course, but my mind had tried to convince me she’d just been sleeping. Even when the man who’d worked for Brian had come to take her away, I’d kept right on reading. When Brian had come to get me later that morning, he’d led me to his bedroom, washed me off in his big bathtub and then had tucked me into his bed and told me how much he would have missed me if Miss Penny had tried to take me away from him. When his touch had stopped being about comfort, I’d silently begun repeating the names of the flowers and their meanings from Miss Penny’s book and within seconds I’d slipped away to my safe place on the beach with my family. After a long day spent building that epic sand castle, I’d fallen asleep on the sand and when I’d awoken, I’d been alone in Brian’s bed.
And Miss Penny had still been gone.
As the present returned full-force, I tried to catch my breath andimmediately reached across the console to look for Vaughn’s hand. But it wasn’t there.
Because we weren’t in the car anymore.
There was no console, but Vaughnwasnext to me. Only, we were in bed.
Together.
Again.
