Finally he stopped, resting against the wall as blood poured out of his right hand and knuckles. Cautiously, I walked toward him.
"Does this mean you forgive me?"
The laugh that tore from his throat sounded sarcastic and exhausted.
"I can't for the fucking life of me reason why I should...but as usual, you win Leighton. I can't get you out of my head or my heart, no matter how I try."
He turned to look at me, a look of shared knowledge and love passing between us. "I don't fully forgive you, not yet at least. But, I'm willing to try. I may be shooting myself in the foot but...I want you to stay. We fell in love once, I think I could do it again. Just don't lie to me again. Don't supply me with the shit I have to forgive you for."
The fight was leaving both of us and I was suddenly bone-tired. But that spark of hope lit in my chest, burning bright and warming me from the inside out.
"Do you want me to clean that up for you?" I pointed to his gnarled mess of a hand.
"No. I need some time to think. Alone."
I pressed my lips into his shoulder, the closest piece of him at eye height, and closed my eyes. “Can you promise me one more thing?”
Finn shrugged, but I knew he was listening.
“Can you please go talk to someone? About Pete…about whatever you want? Just…you need to talk to a professional.”
I look up, Finn’s expression guarded but still showing me he was listening. He nods, imperceptibly, and I know he might finally take that advice. And it was time for me to go. I’d gladly leave. I'd gotten what I came for.
Now it was time to start falling back in love.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Finn
Men in general do not like to talk about their feelings. We’d rather get through the pain, hold it internally until we don’t feel like punching the walls or strangling someone. Talking about our emotions, especially to a stranger in a sterile environment is akin to running rusty razorblades across our skin.
Now take a Marine, and times that by a million.
Yet here I sit, Dr. Martha Gorink waiting patiently for me to begin talking.
“Finn, you came here today to talk to me. Now I am completely fine sitting here for the next hour, but that leaves your pocket a little more empty, and your feelings a little more unexplored.” Dr. Gorink runs a hand over the notebook in her lap, everything about her personality screaming calm but in-control.
Dr. Gorink, a darker-skinned brunette in her mid-40s, came highly recommended from two buddies I’d served with. Her practice was nestled in a quiet office park on the outskirts of LA, and didn’t exude class but whispered it quietly. Each room of her small suite was done in calming beiges, with frosted glass and white flowers dotting the decor.
I sigh, because she is right. I don’t have time to waste, especially since I’ll be leaving on our next travel destination soon. Which means I won’t be in LA, won’t be able to have my first sit-down sessions with her, and thus will be stuck with nightmares and wracking guilt like I have been for the last couple of years. It was a miracle I could slip away with some excuse about a dentist appointment without production wanting to follow me and film it.
I had promised Leighton I’d get help. But I knew I also needed this. For me.
“How do you…how do people usually start these things out?”
Dr. Gorink smiled, just a small movement of her lips, and tapped her pen on the open page in front of her. “Well, we can start with the usual cliché. What brought you in today?”
I roll my shoulders, the tension rippling through my body until I am almost choking on it. “I uh, I guess you know by now that I am a former Marine. You probably know who I am—“
“I don’t want you or I to come into this with preconceived notions about what we do or don’t know. You are brand new to me. In this room, we cease to know anything about each other. So start from the beginning.”
Her words calm me, if only marginally. “Uh, okay. I was a Marine. I was deployed in Afghanistan, two tours of duty. On the second tour, I was involved in a suicide bombing and lost my right leg below the knee. And I watched my friend die. That’s basically it.”
The doctor shrugs, her expression all but buying my simple tale. “None of that sounds basic to me. How did your recovery go? For your leg.”
I try to think back. “It’s been awhile…it was hard. Excruciating at times. I was so…messed up in the head from what happened that I could barely process the feelings about losing a limb.”
“But you did?”
“Eventually.”
“And how did you feel?”
I fold my hands in my lap and look down at them. “I was pissed. Enraged for a while. I was this athletic, strong guy and then I had to re-learn how to walk. Re-learn how to run. I couldn’t play football with my brothers on Thanksgiving without them giving me an easier time. I couldn’t go to the beach without people staring. I couldn’t be intimate…with a woman without answering 21 questions. Or getting a cramp. Or having to change positions. It was horrible.”
“You felt like less of a man?” Dr. Gorink scribbles something on her pad, waking me up to the fact that once again, I wasn’t just talking to someone.
“Yes.” My weariness of her writing got the better of me. And she noticed.
“Finn, I’m writing things down to help myself. To help you. There is no need to get self-conscious about it. Go on. Tell me how you feel now about your leg.”
“I guess I feel…settled? I don’t think about the problems with my leg so much anymore, except that it serves as a reminder of exactly what happened.”
“And that is the bigger thing you’re dealing with?”
Talking about my leg was easy now. After falling for Leighton, it just seemed not to be as big of a deal as I’d made it in my head. She’d always accepted it, liked it even. No, the bigger thing now was my nightmares. My guilt. My anger.
“I get nightmares. Vivid ones, of exactly what happened on that day. Or when I’m pushed, really pushed, by someone…I get. I don’t know what to call it. It’s more than anger. It feels like a hot meteor of rage is about to burst from my chest, like I could set the entire world on fire just by blinking.”
“And has that anger ever resulted in anything? You hurting yourself, or another person?”
I think about the hotel room. “Maybe the destruction of property, but never another person. Not that I haven’t wanted to…to harm someone in my path.”
She nods and scribbles.
“You have to understand, I’m a laid back guy. Most of the time, things don’t bother me. I value honesty, I like the simple things. But random moments or phrases will get to me, set me off like a ticking time bomb.”
The doctor regards me. “You say you witnessed your friend die in this suicide bombing. The anger that you feel, is it only when you think about the bombing? Or is it at other times…say maybe when you feel like control has been taken away from you?”
I take her words, digest them, roll them around like marbles in my head. “Yes, that’s…that is possible.”
“Will you tell me about the bombing?”
I had just told Leighton, practically the only other person on this earth who knew the full story, my side of it anyway, besides the men who had been there that day and rescued us. I didn’t think I was ready to pour more poison in the wound I’d just picked open last night.
“I’m…not ready to do that.”
She raises her hands in surrender. “Fair enough. But looking back on the bombing, you felt that there was more that you could do?”
“Of course there was. Someone died. Of course there was more that I could do!” I could feel my blood pressure rising, ticking up my neck in stages of heat like a thermometer.
“I understand that’s how you feel.” She looked over my shoulder. “Unfortunately, our time for today is up.”
I blinked twice, not realizing that an hour had already gone by as we were talking.
; She pulled out a card from her blazer pocket and held it out to me. “This is my card, with business line and personal cellphone. I want to continue our sessions, even if it is only over the phone. Because even though I want to get to know you as a new person, I do know you have…commitments that may take you out of the country.”
I nod and smile just the tiniest bit. Of course she knows who the new Mr. Right is.
“And I know you’re not willing to tell me the entire story right now, but I’ll bet you only think about the bombing when you’re forced to. Nightmares, right? Before our next session, I want you to sit down, even if it is only once or twice a week, and really go over every sequence of events. I know it will be painful, but really go over it. And then when we talk next, I want to hear what blame, if any, you place on yourself.”
I place all of the blame on myself, I want to say, but I find I’m actually exhausted just from dredging this all up and it’s only been an hour. Therapy isn’t supposed to be a picnic, I remind myself. This is the hard work, that’s what everyone always says. But it’s what I need to do.
Leaving Dr. Gorink’s office, I don’t feel lighter or like all of my problems have been solved. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think I’d be magically cured after one session. But with her card in my pocket, I finally feel like I have a lifeline on the sinking ship that has been slowly dragging me under water for years.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Finn
If I've said it before, I've said it a million times…honesty is one of the most important qualities to me.
So the date today was for me and my peace of mind.
The girls tittered and whispered in hushed voices about the test ahead. I knew some of them were scared, sweating what would come from this. I wasn't trying to embarrass them, but when Mitchell and Chuck suggested this, I had agreed wholeheartedly. Not only would it make for good TV for them, but maybe I would sleep better at night.
"Okay ladies, time to tell the truth." Mitchell rubbed his hands together like some kind of evil dictator and I sighed, stepping forward.
"This isn't a tattle tale session, I'm not trying to uncover ancient secrets or make you tell me what your sister did in 9th grade to get her grounded. I simply want to know that you're honest, that I can trust you. Honesty is a huge factor me, and so I want to make sure we're all on the same page. Just breathe and relax. And you'll be happy to know that this test comes with a reward. You'll get to ask me questions while I'm hooked up to that machine at the end."
The women squealed and clapped, ecstatic that they would get to torture me. My eyes, as they always did, flitted to Leighton. She looked like she was about to hurl her guts up onto her shoes.
Part of me felt sorry for her, we'd already hashed this out two days ago. Or more like paid $600 in incidental fees to get our anger and hurt out. I'd taken my time, settled with my decision to forgive and move on. And I was really trying to. It would just take some more time to hear what happened and not feel like a spike was being driven through my chest.
I'd come here promising to be open to everything, and taking Leighton back had to be one of them. Because no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I was still tethered to her, still wanted her, thorns and all.
Kristen, the girl who'd come out of Leighton's limo on that first night, volunteered to go first. I was annoyed that she was still here, but the producers insisted she stay for ratings. I knew from multiple sources that she was causing a hell storm in the mansion, calling girls fat and making fun of everything from their upbringings to their nail polish color. She'd also cornered me at least a dozen times, trying to sink her claws into me and offering every man's wildest fantasies. My dick hadn't even twitched at her crude whispers. In fact, I think it shrunk away from her.
The technician hooked her up, the wiring and pulse monitors wrapping around the skin tight dress that seemed to be painted onto her body.
"Okay, we are just going to start with a series of basic questions," I heard the technician say as I watched through the double sided mirror. Some of the girls probably knew I'd be watching, Leighton especially. She'd been through this dog and pony show once, she knew there was never a private moment.
Except for last night. And the night in Ireland. I really needed to stop thinking of her perfect naked body under mine or I was going to pitch a large tent in public. I was halfway there already.
"Is your name Kristen Marie Lollana?"
"Yes."
"Are you competing for Finn Wyatt on Mr. Right?"
"Yes." That answer accompanied a saucy flip of her hair and narrowing of her brilliant green eyes. She knew how to work a camera I'd give her that.
"Have you been in serious relationships in the past?"
Kristen paused. "No."
I saw the machine start to scribble and knew she had lied.
"Have you ever cheated on a partner?"
"No."
More beeping from the polygraph. She was lying.
"Are you attracted to Finn?"
"Of course!"
"I need a yes or no answer..."
"Yes."
More beeping and movement from the needle. Huh? She wasn't attracted to me? I mean I figured the girl wasn't here for love, but she'd tried to seduce me more than once. I thought I was an okay enough looking guy. What was going on?
The technician's questions brought me back from my thoughts. "Have you ever been in love?"
Kristen suddenly looked terrified, like a skittish animal about to caged. In an instant she jumped from the chair, the wires and machines clattering around her as they fell off. "I'm not doing this anymore!"
She ripped herself free and bolted. Mitchell and I exchanged a look, a Cheshire grin splitting his manipulative lips while I know my face mirrored worry back. I headed in the direction Kristen went, my intent being to calm her down even though I'd wanted her gone weeks ago.
Around the corner, a female producer hovered in the doorway of the women's bathroom. "Kristen, let's come out and talk about this."
I scowled at the crew member holding a grip microphone above her head, waiting to bait Kristen into answering questions she'd never want aired on national TV. This was the part I hated. The filthy vile that coated your skin and took you down like quicksand, equating you to the scum you associated with.
"Get. Out." I nearly growled at them, and they scampered. The crew had heard about my destructive temper-tantrum in the hotel, and now I had a feeling they were nervous around me. Good.
"Kristen, it’s just Finn."
I could hear quiet sobbing coming from the larger handicap stall at the end of the row. I walked to stand in front of it, jiggling the handle to see if she'd accidentally not locked it.
Kristen, do you want to come out and talk to me?"
"Just go away." Her voice wobbled.
I ducked my head so I could see under the stall, and sure enough, her heels clacked against the floor as her legs shook against the tile where she sat.
"Kristen, I'm sorry if they pushed you in there, but those...those questions are the ones they'll be asking all of the girls. I'd really like you to talk to me..."
I wasn't good at the whole kids gloves thing. Tears were a major downfall of mine, as they were for every human with a pair of balls.
"What happened in there?" I tried again.
"I don't want to talk about...you just, no one will understand." Her voice got higher at the end of her self-pitying declaration, the whiny tone making me wince.
"Try me."
She blew out a long, shaky breath. "Finn...it's not that you're not good looking, you're a really handsome guy. It's just that..."
A sob escaped her and I sank to the floor, trying to show her some support by getting down on her level.
"It's not that I'm not attracted to you. I'm just not attracted to men."
I clamped my lips together, holding in the questions or statements that had instantly popped into my head the moment the statement left her lips.
"So what you're saying is-"
"I'm gay, yes."
I nodded to myself, working the information over in my head. Not that I had a problem with it or was judging her, but it just seemed strange to do a show like this. "I think this might be an obvious question, but why come on Mr. Right then?"
I heard her sigh as her heels clicked against the floor, the stall door unlocking a moment later. Kristen stood over me, mascara running down her cheeks in thin black lines. "Because girl's like me aren't supposed to be gay. I'm supposed to put on my makeup and get dolled up for dates with hot men who sweep me off of my feet and propose marriage and give me babies. I'm supposed to be the hot MILF everyone is jealous of. I'm supposed to be normal."
She buried her face in her hands as she leaned against the granite sink. I rose to meet her at eye level, and mulled over quickly in my head what I should say.
"Kristen, there is no normal today. This world we live in right now has plenty of gay, straight, biracial, transgender...hell I read a news story the other day about a woman who married the Eiffel Tower. You know what is normal? Being happy. Christ, I literally lost half of my leg and there is a robotic limb in its place. Do I get down on myself some days? Sure. But I choose to be happy with the hand that life dealt me."
She glanced up at me, hope sparkling in her coal-rimmed eyes. "You can still dress up and be 'girly,' you can whatever you want to do. You'll still be a hot MILF, but the people in your life will be even more envious because that is just how women are. All of the other lesbian mom's will hate how beautiful you are."
This earned me a smile, even if I didn't agree with some of the stuff I was spouting.
“Does your family know?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t told anyone. Well…except for you. And the woman I was in…in love with.”
“She’s the one you were lying about in there?”
“Yeah.” Kristen looked very small in that moment.
Kissed by Reality Page 12
