Braden flinched. “I never said that, babe.”
I shivered as the endearment rolled over me, hitting a nerve I didn’t even know I had. My words tumbled out caustically, “Don’t call me babe. Don’t ever call me babe.”
My sharp tone and sudden anger caused a thick tension to fall between the three of us and I suddenly couldn’t remember why I was so grateful to Braden yesterday when he helped me out after the panic attack. This is what you got when you let people in. They started to think they knew you when they didn’t know shit.
Ellie cleared her throat. “So James has gone back to London?”
“Yup.” I stood up and dumped the dregs of my coffee in the sink. “I’m going to hit the gym.”
“Jocelyn-” Braden started.
“Don’t you have a meeting?” I cut him off, about to stroll out of there, leaving the tension behind.
“Jocelyn . . .” he sounded concerned.
I caught myself with a deep inner sigh.
You’ve made your point, Joss. I didn’t need to continue to be a bitch about it. Sighing outwardly, I looked up at him and offered with snarky charitableness, “I have a travel mug in the top left cupboard if you want to take some coffee to go.”
Braden stared at me a moment, his eyes searching. He shook his head with a quizzical smile playing on his lips. “I’m good, thanks.”
I nodded, pretending indifference to the atmosphere we’d caused, and then I glanced back at Ellie. “You want to hit the gym with me?”
Ellie wrinkled her button nose. “Gym? Me?”
I eyed her skinny self. “You mean you’re naturally that gorgeous?”
She laughed, flushing a little. “I have good genes.”
“Yeah, well, I have to work-out to fit into mine.”
“Cute,” Braden murmured into his coffee, his eyes laughing at me.
I grinned at him, my second non-verbal apology for snapping at him. “Whatever. Guess I’m flying solo. Catch you guys later.”
“Thanks for the coffee, Jocelyn,” he called cheekily to me as I wandered down the hall.
I winced. “It’s Joss!” I yelled back grouchily, trying to ignore the sound of his laughter.
* * *
“So, now that we’ve got our introductions and all the basics over, do you want to tell me why you felt it was time to talk to someone?” Dr. Kathryn Pritchard asked me softly.
Why did all therapists speak in that soft, ‘soothing’ voice? It was supposed to be soothing, but it sounded just as condescending to me now as it had when I was fifteen. I glanced around at her large office on North St. Andrews Lane. It was surprisingly cold and modern—nothing like the cozy clutter of the therapist I’d been sent to in high school. Plus, the high school therapy was free. This suede and glass chick was costing me a small fortune.
“You need flowers or something,” I observed. “A bit of color. Your office isn’t very welcoming.”
She grinned at me. “Noted.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Jocelyn-”
“Joss.”
“Joss. Why are you here?”
I felt my stomach flip and the cold sweats start and I rushed to remind myself that anything I said to her was private. I’d never see her outside this office, and she’d never use my past, my issues, against me or to get to know me personally. I drew a deep breath. “I’ve started having panic attacks again.”
“Again?”
“I used to have them a lot when I was fourteen.”
“Well panic attacks are brought on by all kinds of anxiety. Why then? What was going on in your life?”
I swallowed past the brick in my throat. “My parents and little sister were killed in a car accident. I have no other family—except an uncle who didn’t give a shit—and I spent the rest of my teen years in foster care.”
Dr. Pritchard had been scribbling as I talked. She stopped and looked directly into my eyes. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Joss.”
I felt my shoulders relax at her sincerity and I nodded in acknowledgment of it.
“After they died, you started having panic attacks. Can you tell me your symptoms?”
I told her and she nodded along with them.
“Is there a trigger? At least, are you aware of one?”
“I don’t allow myself to think about them a lot. My family I mean. Memories of them, actual real, solid memories not just vague impressions . . . the memories trigger the attacks.”
“But they stopped?”
I curled my lip. “I got really good at not thinking about them.”
Dr. Pritchard lifted an eyebrow. “For eight years?”
I shrugged. “I can look at pictures, I can have a thought about them, but I carefully avoid actual memories of us together.”
“But your panic attacks have started up again?”
“I let my guard down. I let the memories in—took a panic attack at the gym and then at a friend’s family dinner.”
“What were you thinking about at the gym?”
I shifted uneasily. “I’m a writer. Well, trying to be. I started thinking about my mom’s story. It’s a good story. Sad. But I think people would like her. Anyway, I had a memory—a few actually—of my parents, and their relationship. They had a good relationship. Next thing I know some guy is helping me off the treadmill.”
“And the family dinner? Was that the first family dinner you’ve been to since being in foster care?”
“We never really had family dinners in foster care.” I smiled humorlessly.
“So this was your first family dinner since losing yours?”
“Yeah.”
“So that triggered a memory too?”
“Yeah.”
“Has there been any big changes in your life recently, Joss?”
I thought about Ellie and Braden and our coffee morning a week ago. “I moved. New apartment, new roommate.”
“Anything else?”
“My old roommate, my best friend, Rhian, she moved to London and her and her boyfriend just got engaged. But that’s about all.”
“Were Rhian and you close?”
I shrugged. “As close as I allow anyone to get.”
She smiled at me, a sad pressing of her lips. “Well that sentence said a lot. What about your new flatmate then? Are you allowing yourself to get close to her or him?”
“Her.” I thought about it. I suppose I had let Ellie in more than I’d intended to. And I cared about her more than I thought I would. “Ellie. We’ve become fast friends. I wasn’t expecting that. Ellie’s friends are cool, and her brother and their crowd hang around a lot. I guess my life is more social now.”
“Was it Ellie and her brother’s family dinner you had a panic attack at?”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Pritchard nodded and scribbled something else down.
“Well?” I asked.
She smiled at me. “Are you looking for a diagnosis?”
I raised my brow at her.
“Sorry to disappoint, Joss, but we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
“You think these changes have something to do with it though right? I want the panic attacks to stop.”
“Joss, you’ve been in my office fifteen minutes and I can already tell you that these panic attacks aren’t going to stop any time soon . . . unless you start dealing with your family’s death.”
What? Well, that was just stupid. “I have dealt with it.”
“Look, you were smart enough to know that you have a problem and that you need to talk to someone about that problem, so you’re smart enough to realize that burying memories of your family is not a healthy way to deal with their death. Changes to daily life, new people, new emotions, new e
xpectations, can trigger past events. Especially if they haven’t been dealt with. Spending time with a family after years of not having one of your own has broken through whatever wall you’ve put up around your family’s death. I think it’s possible you might be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that’s not something to ignore.”
I grunted. “You think I have PTSD. The thing that veterans have?”
“Not just soldiers. Anybody who suffers through any kind of loss, or emotional, or physical trauma can suffer from PTSD.”
“And you think I have that?”
“Possibly, yes. I’ll know more, the more we talk. And hopefully the more we talk, the easier it’ll become for you to think about and remember your family.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“It won’t be easy. But it’ll help.”
Chapter 8
I loved the smell of books.
“Don’t you think that’s a bit brutal for Hannah?” Ellie’s soft, concerned voice asked above my head.
I smiled at Hannah, who stood an inch above me. Like her mom and sister, the kid was tall. Twisting my head around to look up at Ellie hovering behind me, my look was incredulous. “She’s fourteen. It’s a YA book.”
The book slipped from my fingers as Hannah took it before Ellie could stop her. I was spending my Sunday morning with them in the bookstore where Hannah was having a great time spending her gift card from Braden.
Ellie seemed perturbed. “Yes, about a dystopian world where teens kill one another.”
“Have you even read it?”
“No . . .”
“Then trust me.” I grinned back at Hannah. “It rocks.”
“I’m buying it, Ellie,” Hannah told her adamantly, adding the book to her ever-growing pile.
With a sigh of defeat, Ellie nodded reluctantly and wandered back into the romance section. I was coming to learn she was a huge sucker for a happy ending. We’d watched no less than three romantic dramas this week. However, before I overdosed on another Nicholas Sparks adaptation, I was determined that tonight we’d be watching Matt Damon crack some heads as Jason Bourne.
My cell rang and I scrambled around in my purse for it only to discover it was Rhian.
I’d emailed her last night.
“Will you be okay while I take this?” I asked Hannah.
She waved me off, her nose practically pressed against the bookshelf as she scanned the titles. With laughter on my lips I wandered away from her to answer the call in private.
“Hey.”
“Hi,” Rhian replied, almost tentatively.
I braced myself.
Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared my news. Was she going to start treating me like a headcase from now on? As in carefully? Because that would be too weird. I’d miss being cursed at for one thing.
“How are you and James?” I asked before she could say anything.
“We’re a lot better. We’re getting there. Actually, he asked me to see someone. A therapist.”
I froze in the sci-fi aisle. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. I didn’t tell him about your email, I swear. He just blurted it out. Some coincidence.” She took a deep breath. “You really went to see one?”
I glanced around to make sure I was alone. “I needed someone to talk to, and a professional with no personal interest in my life is the only person I trust to . . . well . . . to talk to about what I need to talk about . . .” I frowned. Ten points for language skills on that one.
“I see.”
I winced at her tone. There was a definite bite to it. “Rhian, I don’t mean to be hurtful.”
“I’m not hurt. I just think you should talk to someone who actually cares about you. Why do you think I told James all my shit? You know, you were right before. I trusted him. And I’m glad I did.”
“I’m not ready for that. I don’t have a James. I don’t want a James. And anyway, your James still wants you to talk to a therapist.”
She made a grumbling noise. “I think he thinks if I green light the whole therapy thing, then I’m serious about making this work with him.”
I thought about how devastated James had been the night he came to see me. “Then you should do it.”
“How was it? Was it weird?”
It was awful. “It was fine. Strange at first, but I’m going back.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Yeah, that’s why I’m paying one hundred pounds an hour to a professional, so I can talk to you. I held my sarcasm in check. “No, Rhian, I don’t.”
“Fine, you don’t have to snap at me, you grumpy cow.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I miss your face-to-face insults. It’s just not the same over the phone.”
She snorted. “I miss someone who gets me. I called a woman on my research team a bitch—you know in a friendly way—and she told me to go to hell. And I think she really meant it.”
“Rhian, we’ve talked about this. Normal people don’t like to be called names. For some reason, they tend to take that personally. And you are a tad bitchy, by the way.”
“Normal people are so sensitive.”
“Joss, have you read this one?” Hannah appeared around the corner of the aisle, waving yet another dystopian at me. I had read it. What can I say? I had a thing for dystopia.
“Who’s that?” Rhian asked. “Where are you?”
I nodded at Hannah. “That’s a good one. And there’s a hot guy in it. I think you’ll really like it.”
Hannah was delighted at that and clutched the book to her chest, before lugging her hand-basket of goodies back to the teen fiction section.
“Joss?”
“That was Hannah.” I tilted my head at a Dan Simmons novel. Ooh, I hadn’t read that one.
“And Hannah is . . . ?”
“Ellie’s fourteen year old sister.”
“And you’re with a teenager . . . why?”
What was with the tone? Her question might as well have been, ‘and you’re smoking crack . . . why?’
“We’re in the bookstore.”
“You’re shopping with a teenager?”
“Why do you keep saying it like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve moved into an expensive flat, you’re spending money you were always weird about spending, you’re friends with a girl who’s seen The Notebook fifty-five times and, like, smiles a lot; you’re out for drinks with actual people on week nights, you saved my relationship, you’re seeing a therapist, and you’re babysitting teens. I moved to London and you got a fuckin’ lobotomy.”
I exhaled heavily. “You know you could just be grateful for the whole saving your relationship thing.”
“Joss, seriously, what’s going on with you?”
I pulled the Dan Simmons novel off the shelf. “I didn’t do all those things deliberately. Ellie and I get along and for some reason she likes having my broody ass around, and she has a different life than what we had. She actually likes people, and that means I’m around them a lot.”
“Joss?”
I spun around to see Ellie standing before me, a deep frown between her eyes. A rush of concern swam over me and I bobbed my head above the shelves in panic, looking for Hannah.
“Hannah’s fine,” Ellie guessed the reason for the manic head-bobbing. “I’m stuck.” She held up a paperback with a woman in a lavish Victorian dress on the cover. A masculine pair of hands reached seductively for the laces on the back of it. There was also something about seduction in the title. In her other hand was the latest Sparks novel. “Which one?”
Without hesitation I pointed at the bodice ripper. “The seduction of what’s her face. The sparks novel would be overkill this week.”
/> She gestured at me with the bodice ripper book and a militant nod before heading back out of the aisle.
“Seriously,” Rhian muttered down the line. “Where’s Joss, and what have you done with her?”
“Joss is getting off the phone if you’re done psycho-analyzing her.”
“Joss is speaking in third person.”
I laughed. “Rhian, get gone, okay. And tell James I said hi and yeah, he does owe me.”
“Wait, what?”
Still laughing I hung up on her and went to find Hannah and Ellie.
They were waiting in line to be served and I slid in beside them, watching as Ellie stood there uncharacteristically silent and Hannah just stared adoringly down at all her books. We should have brought a backpack for them all.
At the checkout, I watched them piling Hannah’s books into weak plastic bags, and since Ellie had spaced out on me, I pointed behind the clerk. “Hey, could you maybe pack them into those shopper bags. These ones will just break.”
He shrugged lazily. “They’re fifty pence a bag.”
I made a face. “The kid just bought a hundred pounds worth of books and you can’t give us the bags for free?”
He waved the gift card at me. “No, she didn’t.”
“Yeah. But the person who gave her that gift card did. You’re not seriously asking us to pay for something to carry them in?”
“No.” He drawled the word out like I was stupid. “You can carry them in the free bags.”
Maybe I would have backed off if he wasn’t speaking to me in that condescending ‘I hate my job so fuck customer service’ manner. I opened my mouth to set him down but Ellie gripped my hand, stopping me. I looked up at her to see she was swaying a little, her face pale, her eyes screwed shut.
“Ellie.” I grabbed for her and she held onto me.
“Ellie?” Hannah asked worriedly, hurrying to her sister’s other side.
“I’m okay,” she murmured. “Just dizzy. I have this . . . headache . . .”
“Another one?” That was like the third one this week.
Leaving the clerk to wither under my death stare, I pulled Ellie over to the side, sniping at him, “Just pack the books into the normal bags.”
On Dublin Street (9781101623497) Page 9
