My eyes rolled and she caught it. She caught everything. “What was that for, just now?”
I sighed. “Maverick is… Well, he’s the very opposite. He’s difficult in every way.”
“Do you enjoy that?”
I drew my eyes to the framed photo on her desk. “Yes, I think so.”
“Why do you think you enjoy that?” she asked.
Crossing my legs, I then uncrossed them, my nervous therapy habit.
The answer came to me quickly, however. “It’s just in his nature. He challenges me.”
I lifted my head to look her in the eyes. “He’s so unpredictable. It’s like he forces me to grow. If I don’t adapt, he’d swallow me whole, and I guess I thought that would scare me, but it doesn’t really.”
“Why do you think it doesn’t scare you?” she inquired.
“He doesn’t treat me like I’m made of porcelain.” I thought about it. “He treats me like I can take him, like I’m just as strong as he is, and if I broke, he’d expect me to put myself back together again.”
I heard Henry’s voice in my head and I smiled. “He’s the man who should scare me the most, but he’s the one man who doesn’t scare me at all.”
Doctor Colby tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean by that?”
“I become a fearless part of me when I’m around him.” I looked at her. “No one can hurt me, not even me.”
She scribbled something down, and mumbled, “Interesting.”
I waited for her head to come back up.
“And Dean?”
My stomach knotted in the way that it always did when someone said his name.
“Dean is…” I struggled with the words. “Well, Dean is the middle, I guess.”
She waited for me to continue.
“There’s so much water under the bridge there.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “I guess at first I thought it was about closure, that somehow I’d feel differently after finding out what happened, and to a certain degree, I do… but then…” I winced. “We slept together, and that changed everything.”
Doctor Colby didn’t react for two reasons. One, it was her job to remain impartial, and two, she already knew I’d slept with Dean.
I had but one secret from her.
“Why do you think that changed everything, Charleston?” she asked. “Why do you feel like the need for closure didn’t end there?”
My mind worked double time, seeing flashes of him on my floor that night. “I couldn’t forgive him.” I shook my head. “He wanted my forgiveness, and I couldn’t forgive him.”
“Do you feel burdened by that?”
I rubbed my palms down the tops of my thighs. “Yes.” I nodded. “I want to be able to give him that, but I can’t.”
A tear slid down my cheek and darkened the blue of my denim jeans.
“Forgiveness doesn’t have a road map, Charleston, and neither does letting go.”
I choked on the lump in my throat.
“I think what’s important to remember is that you’re trying, and that is a very brave thing to do.”
Swiping at the tears with the back of my hand, I lifted my eyes to look into hers.
To tell her the one truth I’d kept from her in all these years.
“Henry talks to me.” I started to cry a little harder. “I hear his voice in my head sometimes.”
Her face drew the tell-tale signs of sympathy. “Oh, Charleston. For how long?”
“Since he left me,” I divulged. “It’s not like when I have memories of him. Those are different. But sometimes he talks to me.” I winced. “Am I crazy?”
Standing up, she moved and sat down on the table across from me. “Is that what you’ve thought all this years?”
I nodded.
It couldn’t be normal to hear the voice of your dead brother so often.
“Sometimes, our subconscious develops a way to help us through difficult times,” she started. “We all hear voices to a certain extent. Some of us hear our mothers reminding us not to eat that second piece of cake. Some of us hear our grandparents reminding us to smile. Some of us hear our teachers reminding us to study. It’s how the human brain copes with everything it’s seen.”
The tears came a little quicker now. “I’m not crazy?”
“No, Charleston. You’re not crazy. Your subconscious took on the voice of Henry, because you trusted him and you loved him.” I hiccupped. “The person you’re really hearing from is you.”
I broke down and leaned forward into her hug.
I wasn’t crazy, but I was sad.
It meant that Henry was still gone.
“I miss him,” I sobbed into her.
She rubbed my back and whispered, “And that won’t ever go away.”
“Will it get easier?”
Squeezing my upper arms, she pulled me back to look at her. “It may never get easier, but you will get better at managing it, Charleston. With all this work you are doing, you will get better at letting go.”
I prayed she was right.
“Grief is unpractised emotion. There’s no way to prepare yourself for it,” she said. “You just have to ride the wave and find your own way to make peace with that.”
“I’m trying,” I promised.
And for the first time in my adult life, I meant it.