Jesse sat down across from Esri, fighting to keep his rage and agitation in check. He didn’t know how to talk about this. “I care about the woman I’m seeing. I don’t want to fuck this up. I don’t want to hurt her. I had the nightmare again last night while I was sleeping at her place and fell the fuck apart.”
He had decided he wouldn’t tell Esri what had happened on the mountain today. In the end, he hadn’t done anything besides make a bogus call, and he was far from the first patroller to do that. He didn’t want to risk his job or his place on the Team by having Esri flag him as being a danger to himself or some damned thing.
“When I last saw you four days ago, you hadn’t yet become intimate with this woman. Your relationship has clearly deepened.”
Jesse nodded, thinking of Ellie taking some of the edge off. “I care about her. But last night, I lost it. I told her about the nightmare, and I cried. I’ve never cried in front of anyone, not even as a kid.”
“It sounds like you moved outside your comfort level again. But tell me—do you think it’s bad for a man to cry?”
Jesse stared at her, his mind torn between the answer he knew he was supposed to give and his true feelings. “Even if it’s okay for men to cry, I don’t.”
“Why do you think you cried last night?”
Jesse fought not to shout. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
That made Esri smile in her irritating oh-so-Zen way. “Sometimes when we feel truly safe with someone, emotions surface that we wouldn’t ordinarily share. Do you feel safe with Ellie?”
He’d never considered that. Did he feel safe with Ellie? Of course, he did. He felt safe with her. He cared about her. He felt protective of her and the twins. When he was around her, he felt whole.
Until last night.
“Yeah, I guess I do. But now…” Regret cut through him, the pain almost physical. “I feel like damaged goods. I feel like I ruined everything, like I destroyed what was clean and beautiful. I feel naked. I feel…”
“Exposed?”
That was the word. “Yeah.”
“Did she say anything to make you believe that she thinks less of you?”
He shook his head. “No, but Ellie’s a nurse and…”
Shit. He’d said her name.
“Ellie’s a nurse and…” Esri prompted him.
“She has a lot of compassion for people.”
“Is it wrong if her compassion includes you—a man she obviously cares about?”
“I guess not.”
“Do you feel you’re worthy of compassion, Jesse?”
That question stopped him cold. “I don’t know.”
“Consider this for a moment: She believes you’re worthy of comfort and compassion even if you’re uncomfortable receiving it.”
They talked for a while about the dream, about the terrifying sense of helplessness he felt watching the little girl get swept away. But they’d been through this before, and the minutes were ticking by.
Jesse cut Esri off mid-sentence. “You said last time you needed more pieces of the puzzle. I do not want to fuck things up with Ellie. What pieces do you need?”
He was ready to cut himself open and lay himself out for Esri right here and now if only it would make the darkness inside him go away.
Esri watched him for a moment. “Your childhood. Your combat experience. Any major traumatic events, especially those that made you feel helpless.”
He steeled himself.
“My dad was a dick. He beat me when I was little—not all the time, but often enough. He beat my mother sometimes, too, usually when she got in between the two of us. Also, he wasn’t really my dad. He married my mom when she was pregnant. My sister is his child, but I’m not. As for my combat experience—I killed the enemies of my country without remorse, and I watched good people die.”
“That’s a lot to tell me all in one go. Do you mind if we sift through this?”
He glanced at the clock. “I can’t leave here until…”
Until I feel worthy of Ellie again.
She seemed to understand his urgency. “How did it make you feel to see your father hurting your mother, especially when it involved you?”
He looked into Esri’s brown eyes. “I felt guilty. I felt so angry. I hated him. I felt … helpless.”
That word again.
“How scary for a little boy to see someone he loves—his mother—being hurt. Did you ever try to stop him?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Memories Jesse had tried to bury drifted through his mind. “I jumped on him, started hitting him. He knocked me to the ground and kicked the shit out of me. Afterward, my mother told me never to do that again.”
“So you tried to save her, but you couldn’t. You were overpowered by a stronger force, and you felt helpless.”
Jesse wasn’t a therapist, but even he could see the parallel. “Like in the dream.”
“Like real life. You tried to save the little Fisher girl. You were overpowered by the rushing water, and you felt helpless.”