It was already shaping up to be another beautiful spring day.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I really can’t apologize enough,” Xavier told Sarah for what had to be the hundredth time since their appointment had started.
She smiled at him kindly, shaking her head. “You have nothing to apologize for,” she reminded him.
The two of them were meeting in her temporary office space while her original office was being repaired from all the destruction Jed had caused. In his fit of rage, Jed had pretty much torn apart the entire room, so it would be a while before she could feasibly work from that space again. She had too many patients needing help to take time off, and she had insisted on moving to a makeshift office in another part of the building and starting up her appointments again as normal.
Xavier was grateful for that. It had been nearly ten days since Jed had attacked him and taken Hannah, and he still felt unsettled sometimes. Being there in the middle of that shootout and feeling himself drawn back to all of the memories he had tried to leave behind was scary as hell.
Losing himself completely, forgetting where he was, not even being able to recognize his friends and allies—he never wanted that to happen again. So he was taking all the steps he could to help ensure he never lost himself to his past life again.
“We all made it out in one piece,” Sarah reminded him. “That’s what matters most.”
“Yeah, we got lucky,” Xavier agreed. “Though sometimes I can’t help but think about how horribly wrong it all could have turned out.”
“And how do you feel about the fact that it didn’t turn out badly?” Sarah asked, gently steering the conversation back around to the focus of their appointment.
“I feel…grateful,” he replied finally, letting out a long breath. “Extremely grateful that I didn’t lose Hannah or anyone else. I don’t think I could have survived it if I had. The guilt of harming one of my friends would have been it for me.”
“Well, grateful is a great place to start. A good emotion to focus on,” she agreed, jotting something down. “Has it brought up anything else you’re struggling with right now?”
“I… When I was out there,” he confessed. “In the middle of it, it was like my memories…fractured. Like everything that happened with Max was spilling over into the present moment, and I couldn’t tell the difference between what had happened in the past and what was happening right in that moment.”
Sarah nodded and wrote something else down on her pad. “The mind is a powerful thing. And sometimes, when we’re reminded of those moments that have stayed in our memory, it can feel like they’re happening all over again. It’s the brain’s way of trying to protect itself. You didn’t want to have to face the possibility of losing the woman you love, so your brain put in place the memories that you’d already started to deal with.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed. He was still trying to wrap his head around the way all of this worked. He had spent so long avoiding these conversations, actually accepting this help was still foreign to him, but the more he learned, the clearer all of this became. Instead of being stuck under the control of the nightmares he’d had for so long, he could look at them a little more objectively and deal with them more clearly than he had before.
“And what about the dreams?” Sarah asked him. “I would expect you’ve been dealing with some of them lately.”
“I have been dreaming about my brother,” he admitted. “But not the same flashbacks I’d been having before. The ones from the last time I saw him alive.”
“No?” she prompted him, sounding interested.
“I had this dream about the two of us racing across the field behind our house when we were young,” he said, feeling a smile spread over his face. “To see who would make it to the edge of the woods first.” Xavier briefly closed his eyes, pulling up the memory again. “It was so long ago, I’d almost forgotten we used to do that. And I always gave him a head start, but he still accused me of cheating, even though I mostly let him win.” He smiled and shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “I didn’t want to deal with him whining about how I cheated.” He chuckled at the thought. “Max was always a sore loser. And slow, for the record. He never actually beat me.”
Sarah laughed. “It’s great that you’re finally able to talk about your happier memories with your brother. And even better that you’re not having the dreams about his passing anymore.”
“You think so?” Xavier asked. Some part of him had felt guilty about the dreams turning from painful to happy, as though he should have had to contend with his failure to keep his brother safe a little longer.
“I know so,” she replied.
“Why do you think it’s happened? It seems wrong in some way that I’ve gone from reliving his death to memories of our childhood,” he asked, frowning. He’d only just started therapy again. It seemed too soon to have made such huge steps forward and for his feelings of failure to suddenly be gone.
“I can’t tell you the exact reason,” she remarked. “But I can give you my theory, if you want.”
“Go ahead,” he replied, gesturing for her to keep talking.
“You’ve struggled for a long time feeling like you failed your brother,” she explained. “Even though there was nothing moreyou could have done to help him. But now, this time, you savedher.And I think your mind knows on some level that he would be proud of you for that. Proud of both of you, actually. You’re starting to forgive yourself, because this time, it went differently.”
Xavier paused, taking it all in. It sounded right to him. His mind accepted that explanation. He hadn’t been able to save Max, no matter how much he had wanted to, but he had been able to save Hannah. And maybe that was enough to start the process of forgiving himself. And letting him find some peace.
THAT EVENING,HANNAH SNUGGLEDnext to Xavier on one of the couches in front of the fireplace in the lodge’s reception area. They had all decided on gathering in this room to warm themselves up after a long day of work putting the lodge back together. Sarah’s office was the main focus, but Hannah and River had been out planting some more flowers, too. Her hands were still chilly as she pushed them into Xavier’s and rested her head on his shoulder. Even though the spring days were warm, it still got chilly at night. Perfect for snuggling by the fire.
Opposite them, the rest of the space was filled with their friends—Cade and River, Bailey and Aaron, and Sarah and Lawson, wineglasses in hand and a quiet peace resting over all of them. After the chaos of the last several months, there was something distinctly precious about this time they had together, without having to look over their shoulders and worry about what was going to happen next.
As the season changed from winter to spring before their eyes, Xavier’s mind had drifted to the future, too. There was so much he wanted to do, so much he wanted to try. Now that some of the weight of his past had been lifted off his shoulders, it feltlike he could see a whole new future, something he had never let himself imagine before.
