All the Broken Places

by Anise Eden

  “You can hold a second job if you want to, but not as a therapist.” He spoke slowly and with care. “It would be impossible for you to do two jobs simultaneously that require the use of your empath abilities. You would burn out in no time.”

  I started to jump in with an objection, but Ben held up his hand. “I know, I know. You would never leave your job. But there’s something else you don’t know.” Darkness clouded his expression. “I hate being the one to tell you this—this isn’t how we planned it—but once you’ve finished the training program, Dr. Nelson only wants to have you back at the clinic for a month or six weeks, however long you need to wrap things up with your clients.”

  “Wha—? No, that’s wrong.” I shook my head. “You’re wrong. The whole reason he sent me here was to get better so that I could come back to work. Obviously there’s been a misunderstanding.”

  The lines in Ben’s forehead deepened. “Dr. Nelson didn’t want to tell you the truth until after you’d completed our program. He thought you would be more likely to understand his decision and go along with it once you had the training under your belt—not to mention a new job offer. We all agreed that would be the best approach, which is why I didn’t want to have this conversation with you yet.”

  “You all what?” A fist of anxiety clutched at my chest. No, there was no way Dr. Nelson would do that to me. In any case, there was no way Ben would do that to me—was there? “I don’t believe you,” I said resolutely, as though saying the words could stop it from being true.

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot to take in.” Ben’s sympathy appeared authentic. He picked up the phone handset. “If you like, we can call Dr. Nelson and talk to him about it. He cares a lot about you. We all do. If it helps, none of us enjoyed keeping this from you.” He must have seen the blood draining from my face, because he added, “While I know this might not mean much to you right now, we will double your salary, and we offer flexible hours with a top-notch benefits package.”

  I felt like I had just stepped off of the Tilt-A-Whirl at the carnival: dizzy, disoriented, and nauseous. “But, Ben, my clients…”

  His voice was gentle. “I know that leaving them is going to be the hardest part for you. We’ll be right here for you, though, giving you all the support you need.”

  Ben’s words landed like stones in the pit of my stomach. “Hang on. When you closed the portals to my clients, you had no intention of opening them back up, did you?” I rose halfway out of my chair. “Oh my god! You don’t give a damn about the relationships I’ve formed with them, all of the work that we’ve done…”

  Ben gestured for me to sit back. “I know this will be hard for you to accept, but everything that we did, we did to help you.”

  The calmer he sounded, the more I panicked. “No you didn’t! You did it because you and your mother wanted a full set of paranormal action figures to play with!”

  Ben’s jaw tightened. “That is not—”

  But I was no longer interested in anything he had to say. I stood up. “I can’t believe you lied to me. You all lied to me!”

  “Only because we thought it was necessary for your own good.” He stood up, too, speaking as though he were presenting a courtroom defense. “In retrospect, I still think we made the right decision. You would never have come to the program otherwise.”

  My panic began to transform into fury. “Well I wish I had never come, and I’m certainly not going to stay!”

  Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “I know you’re upset right now, and that’s understandable. But you did promise not to overreact.”

  He thought that was overreacting? I jabbed an accusing finger at him. “I can’t believe I ever thought you cared about me!”

  The ridge of his eyebrows formed a firm line. “There is no need to be melodramatic.”

  “How dare you!” For a moment, my outrage was so complete that I couldn’t form words.

  Ben took advantage of my temporary speechlessness. “Cate, I know how much being a therapist means to you, but you simply couldn’t go on the way you were. It was hurting you.”

  I paused for a moment to marvel at the fact that he was still trying to justify what he had done, instead of groveling on the floor and begging for forgiveness. I planted my hands on my hips. “So what if it was? What business is that of yours?”

  He extended a hand to me. “You know how I feel about you.”

  “Oh no you don’t!” I backed away from him. “You don’t get to play the ‘I care about you’ card, not after what you did! You have exactly no right to express an opinion about the choices I make and whether or not they’re hurting me! What I do is none of your goddamned business!”

  Ben’s arm dropped to his side. “Dr. Nelson evidently felt it was his business, as someone else who cares about you—and as your boss.”

  Dr. Nelson. The mention of his name brought with it a stabbing pain so sharp that for a moment, it took my breath away. If Ben was to be believed, Dr. Nelson had been the author of the whole deception. He had been lying to me the entire time and I hadn’t even picked up on it. Some empath I was.

  Well, I didn’t give a damn about their Machiavellian plans. There was simply no way I was leaving my clients. I would just have to convince Dr. Nelson to let me keep my job. But as far as I was concerned, both he and the MacGregors had lost any authority they might have claimed. I was done playing by their rules.

  “You know what? It’s none of his business either,” I countered. “I should never have accepted his offer to take more time off. I’m going back to work tomorrow, and if he asks me how I’m doing, I’ll tell him I’m fine. I’ll just take a few of those pills he gave me. If he tries to make me go home, I’ll go straight to Human Resources. I’m sure that what he did must have violated some personnel policy.” I knew that plan was shaky at best, but at least it was something—enough, anyway, to propel me out of that prison of a church and as far away from Ben as possible. I reached down to pick up my purse.

  Ben’s tone took on a hard edge. “I know this has been difficult for you to hear, and I understand that you’re upset, but you might as well take a seat. Even if you do decide to leave the program, you can’t walk away just like that—not until we take care of a few things.”

  “Still giving orders? Really?” I threw my hands up in disbelief. “Don’t you get it? I’m done here! It’s not up to you whether I stay or go!”

  “Maybe not, but it is up to me to ensure that if you go, you do so safely. I’ve said from the beginning that it would be dangerous for you to leave in the middle of the program—which you agreed not to do, by the way.”

  “Under false pretenses!”

  I could sense that Ben was shifting into drill instructor mode. “The work we’ve done so far has stripped you of your former protections, leaving you extremely vulnerable. I can’t let you out of here on your own until we’ve at least put those protections back in place. Without them, the cardiac arrest you experienced yesterday is only one of the many things that could potentially go wrong.”

  The turning-to-stone incident was still fresh in my memory. On the off chance that he was telling the truth, I gingerly sat down again, but I was in no mood to be accommodating. “Then put my protections back already!”

  Ben pulled out his tablet and appeared to be reading something. “Let’s see. Since Eve and I will be in Rockville for the rest of the day, tomorrow morning is the absolute earliest we could do the closing rituals.”

  So he was resorting to stall tactics. “If it’s liability you’re worried about, give me a release and I’ll sign it, absolving you and your mother of any and all responsibility. Give me ten damn releases if you want to. I’ll sign them all right now!”

  He shook his head. “Nice try, Cate, but that’s not going to work. You’re going to have to stay with us for at least one more day.”

  “I’d like to see you make me!” My voice rose to a semi-hysterical pitch.

  The edge in Ben’s voice sharpene
d. “It’s not optional. I’ll have Pete stay with you until we get back tomorrow afternoon.”

  “A babysitter?” I slammed my fist on the arm of my chair. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Fine, then.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “What do you do when you’re worried about someone’s safety? Put them in the hospital?”

  I couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or sarcastic. Either way, his words felt like ice water being thrown in my face. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He spoke with the gruffness of a determined Marine. “You’re a clinician. Let’s look at your risk factors. Labile mood—”

  “You’re making my mood labile!”

  “—active suicidal thoughts—”

  “Oh, so you listen to my dead mother, but not your dead father?”

  “—impulsivity as demonstrated by engaging in risky behaviors without regard to personal safety—”

  “Nobody warned me that Reiki could give me a heart attack!”

  Ben opened his desk drawer, pulled out a piece of paper, and flung it onto his desk. “And then we have this.”

  I gasped. It was a folded-up piece of marbled blue stationery with the name “Simone” written across it. I didn’t have to look any closer; I knew instantly what it was.

  “Eve found it this morning on the floor of the bathroom downstairs. Don’t worry,” he said in response to what must have been a look of horror on my face. “She said she didn’t read it. She brought it straight to me.”

  The note must have fallen out of my pocket that first day, while I was changing clothes after tai chi. I thought about trying to snatch it off of his desk, but given how fast his reflexes were, I didn’t rate my chances. “That’s private,” I said to no effect. I cringed as he unfolded the paper.

  “Dear Simone,” he read, his voice straining under the effort to speak calmly. “I know you’re already blaming yourself, so just stop. It’s not your fault; this was my decision. There’s so much I want to say, but the first thing is, if you were the one they called to identify my body, I’m so terribly sorry. That’s not how I had it planned.” Ben emphasized the last word. The way he looked at me then made me shudder. “Would you like to tell me what you have planned?”

  My chest heaved with the struggle to take in air. Unevenly, I said, “It was a writing exercise. I never intended to act on it.”

  He kept his eyes on mine for a moment. Then he looked down and refolded the note. “That may be what you tell yourself,” he said, “but self-deception is a dangerous game. My mother can have you admitted to Washington Hill with one phone call,” he continued. “Of course, if you don’t want Pete to look out for you, and you don’t want to go to the hospital, we always could just handcuff you and keep you downstairs until we get back.”

  “Handcuff me?” I began to think that he might actually be serious. My heart fluttered against my ribcage. I summoned my most biting tone and asked, “Who’s overreacting now, Rottie?”

  To my disappointment, the use of Ben’s old nickname caused only a slight ripple in his composure. “If I’ve learned anything over the past several days,” he said, “it’s that when it comes to you, it pays to err on the side of caution. I’m going to keep you safe, Cate, one way or another. What’s it going to be?”

  “None of the above!” I declared, again standing up to leave.

  Ben leaned forward on the desk and gave me a look so intense that it felt like he could see through to the back of my head. “I can choose for you, if you like. I’ll warn you right now, though, that I like the simplicity of handcuffs.”

  Something in his voice made me freeze in place. It occurred to me that I had only known Ben for a few days and really had no idea what he was capable of. Blood pounded in my head, but I knew better than to show any fear. “You don’t scare me with your little drill sergeant act!”

  Ben slowly stood up. “Well you scare me, and I’m not going to allow you destroy yourself,” he said with steel in his voice. “Not on my watch.”

  My sense of control over the situation was slipping away. I had to get out of there. I grabbed my purse and ran for the door. But Ben moved faster than I did. He blocked the door with his body and grabbed the handle. “Sit down,” he ordered.

  “Get out of my way!”

  “Sit down, Cate.”

  “Move!” I put both of my hands on his chest and pushed as hard as I could.

  The next thing I knew, Ben’s arms were around me, squeezing tightly. I pushed against his hold, trying to free myself, but he was like a vise. Waves of outrage overtook me, inspiring me to tell Ben again and again how much I hated him and what an asshole he was. I tried to kick my way out and pounded my fists against him, but he didn’t budge or react in any way. He just held me there while my anger spiraled into despair.

  I was losing my job and my clients. I couldn’t even trust Ben anymore. I hadn’t felt so helpless since the doctor had taken me to my mother’s hospital room to say goodbye…

  Sobs rose up again and again from a bottomless well. For a while, I believed they would never stop. But after what seemed like an eternity, out of sheer exhaustion, my body quieted. I felt like a field after a brush fire: scorched, dry, and desolate. My muscles were so tired that I could barely stand. Ben loosened his hold and led me back over to the chair. I sank into it, and he took a seat in the chair beside me.

  Completely spent, I stared at a random spot on the floor. When Ben spoke, he sounded troubled, his tone unexpectedly affectionate. “Are you okay?”

  No, I was definitely not okay. In fact, I had never been so not okay. “I hate you,” I said, repeating my new favorite mantra. “I never had any intention of hurting myself, but even if I had, I can guarantee you that I would never act on it, if for no other reason than to spite you.” I dried the last of my tears on my sleeve.

  He examined me for a long moment. “Even though that makes no sense, I believe you.”

  I looked at his lips—those lips that I’d thought about kissing—and willed them to be magically sewn together so I wouldn’t have to hear another word out of them.

  “I wish I didn’t have to go anywhere this afternoon, but it’s unavoidable. We’ll continue this discussion when I get back.” He pulled a business card out of his wallet. “In the meantime, here’s Pete’s cell phone number. Eve and I will be in a hospital, so I’ll probably have to keep my cell phone turned off. I’ll tell Pete to keep his distance, but if you need anything while I’m away, you can call him.”

  No babysitter; that was something, at least. I pressed my palms against my eyes.

  “I promise that after you’ve had a good rest and some time to think things over, you’ll feel better.” He reached over and gently tugged my arms away from my face so he could look me in the eyes, then asked softly, “Can you do that for me? Stay home tonight, eat something, and get some sleep?”

  I gave him a deadeye stare. “If I say yes, will you let me go?”

  He removed his hands from my arms and held them up in a gesture of surrender.

  I took Pete’s card and tucked it into my pocket, although I had zero intention of using it.

  Ben followed me into the lounge. Pete was stretched out on the couch reading a newspaper.

  “Pete, Cate would like to go home now.”

  Pete stood up slowly. “Sure thing.”

  “And pick her up tomorrow at, say, two p.m.?” Ben turned to me and gave me a look freighted with meaning. “Does that work for you, Cate?”

  He was trying to get me to agree to come back in front of Pete. All right, I would agree, but they couldn’t hold me to it. After all, that was more than twenty-four hours away. By then, I could be in another country. “Fine.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Ben said, his voice pressing home that he would, in fact, see me. I pointedly did not reply.

  “All right, saddle up,” Pete said. I could feel Ben’s eyes following me as I walked away. That�
��s right, take a good look, I told him silently. It may be your last.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was early afternoon and I was lying on my back across the bed, watching sunlight flicker on the ceiling as it filtered through the tree outside my window. With my arms up over my head, I held onto the smooth wood of the bedpost with both hands in an attempt to grip something solid and familiar.

  All the way home in the truck with Pete, I had stared out the window in silence. Thankfully, he hadn’t asked any questions about what happened between Ben and me. I had found his presence surprisingly calming.

  Once home, I tried to make sense of everything that had happened over the past few days, but every time I began to reach some conclusions, they hurt too much—conclusions like, I am pathetic. I am a failure. I’m no good to anyone.

  I had failed my mother, obviously. Her suicide had proven that. As close as we were, somehow I had missed how much she was suffering, probably because I was so wrapped up in my own problems that I hadn’t been able to see beyond my own nose. She had been on the edge of catastrophe, and I had been utterly useless to her—the person I loved most in the world.

  According to Ben, I had apparently failed Dr. Nelson, too. If I was really a decent therapist, Dr. Nelson would have found some way to keep me on—empath or not—rather than enlisting the MacGregors to help him get rid of me. As much as I hated to admit it, Ben must have been right about one thing: Dr. Nelson must really care about me if he’d gone to the trouble of arranging a soft landing for me, instead of firing me outright. Even if he had done it through deception, I should be grateful for that at least.

  And if I had failed Dr. Nelson, that must mean I had been failing my clients as well without realizing it. I hadn’t been there for over ten weeks, but even before that, I wondered how long everyone had been humoring me, telling me that I was doing a good job.

  My clients trusted me. They put so much of themselves into our work, and they expected me to come back and pick up where we left off. Well, it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. It was true that I might be able to fight getting fired, but my long absence didn’t exactly strengthen my case. If Dr. Nelson really wanted me gone, he could find a way. I should be grateful that he was going to let me come back long enough to wrap up my cases.