by K. A. Tucker
It’s her turn to get a hand swat. “Someone has to worry about it! What the hell am I going to do? Take up permanent residence at Penny’s V.I.P. room wearing nothing but knee pads so I can pay the bill!”
“I see our patient is awake?” The unfamiliar soft voice from before interrupts, and stalls my fit. I turn to see a decent looking older man with a receding hair line and kind charcoal eyes hold his hand out toward me. I hadn’t even heard him come in. “Hello, I’m Dr. Stayner.” I glare at that hand like it’s covered in spots and oozing puss until he pulls it back. “Yes, that’s right. Your issue with hands.”
My issue with hands? I scowl at Livie and she averts her gaze.
If any of this bothers the doctor, I can’t tell. “Kacey. Your case was brought to me by—”
“Dan,” Storm cuts in, her eyes shifting between the doctor’s and Livie’s.
“Right. Dan.” He clears his throat. “I think I can help you. I think you can live a normal life again. But I can’t help if you don’t want to be helped. Understand?” I’m left gaping at this man who calls himself a doctor and so clearly can’t be. What kind of doctor walks into a room and says that?
When I don’t answer, he strolls over to look out the barred window. “Do you want to be happy again, Kacey?”
Happy. There’s that word. I thought I was happy. And then Trent destroyed me. Again. I fell in love with my family’s murderer. I spent night after night with him next to me, inside me, dreaming of a future with him. Bile rises to my throat with the thought.
“A requirement of my therapy session is that my patients talk, Kacey,” Dr. Stayner explains without a hint of sarcasm or annoyance in his voice. “So I’ll ask you again. Do you want to be happy?”
God, this guy’s pushy. And he’s going to force me to talk. That’s what this is about. Why does everyone insist on drudging up the past? It’s done. It’s over. No amount of talking will ever change it, will ever bring anyone back. Why am I the only one who sees this?
That comforting numbness is back and trickling into my limbs and chest, forming a hard icy coating over my heart. My body’s natural defense. Numbness to take away the pain. “There’s no such thing as being happy for me.” My voice is cold and hard.
He turns to me again, those kind eyes tinged with pity. “Oh, there is, Miss Cleary. It will be an uphill battle, and I will test you every step of the way. I can be unconventional with my methods. With you, I will do things that are questionable. You may hate me at times, but you and I will get there together. You just have to want to. I will not move you into my clinic until you willingly agree to it all.”
“No,” I growl defiantly, the very idea of going anywhere with this new quack outrageous.
I hear a choking sound beside me. It’s Livie, struggling to stay calm. “Kacey, please,” she pleads.
I set my jaw stubbornly, even though it pains me to see her like this.
She sees my knee jerk reaction and sudden rare fury flashes in her eyes. “You are not the only one who lost their parents, Kacey. This isn’t just about you anymore.” She jumps out of my bed and hovers over me, her fists balled up. And then she rages like I’ve never seen before. “I can’t take it! The nightmares, the fighting, the distance. I’ve had to deal with this for four years, Kacey!” Livie’s hysterical now, tears pouring freely, screaming, and I expect security to stalk in any second. “Four years of watching you come and go in my life, wondering if today’s the day I’m going to find you hanging in a closet or floating in a river. I get that you were in that car. I get that you had to see everything. But what about me?” She chokes, the fury that fueled her forward with that outburst deflating, leaving her looking drained and miserable. “I keep losing you over and over again and I can’t take it anymore!”
Her words hit me over the head like a sledge hammer.
I thought my heart was already broken but it wasn’t.
Not completely.
Not until now.
“I know what happened the night Storm was attacked, Kacey. I know,” Livie says, watching me under a meaningful gaze. Storm. I shoot a glare her way, and Livie scolds me with a waggling finger. “Don’t you dare give Storm grief over telling me, Kacey Delyn Cleary. Don’t you dare. Storm told me because she cares about you, and she wants you to get help. You almost attacked a man with a broken beer bottle. We’re not going to help you avoid your shit anymore, understand?” Livie gracelessly wipes the tears away. “I’m not doing it anymore.”
I’ve told myself time and time again that this is all for Livie. Everything I've done is to protect Livie. If I watch her now, if I look at what Livie has had to deal with, I wonder if it’s all been about protecting myself? I know Livie lost her parents. I know she lost me too, in a way. But have I ever really considered what she feels like? Tried to put myself in her shoes? I figured no one’s shoes were half as bad as the ones dragging me down like cement blocks. And Livie never let on. She’s always been so strong and level-headed. She’s always been Livie—with or without my parents. I just thought …
I didn’t think … My God! I never really weighed my actions, all my reactions, and what they do to Livie. I just figured if I was upright and breathing, that I was here for her. For Livie. But in a way, I never really have been.
Suddenly I want to die.
I feel my head bob up and down, all resistance vanishing as a new level of pain surges. Awareness. All I’ve ever told myself is that I want to protect my little sister from pain, but it hasn’t been about protecting her. It’s been about protecting me. All I keep doing is causing pain for her. For everyone in my life.
“Good,” Dr. Stayner takes that as an agreement. “I will have your room prepared. The first part of your therapy will begin now.” I’m reeling over how quickly he seems to react. Efficient and business-like, but at the same time like a tornado, swooping in to wreak havoc. He smoothly walks over to the door and motions someone in.
No. I cower in my bed and squeeze Livie’s hands until she whimpers slightly. Good God, please … no! He wouldn’t.
An older version of Trent turns the corner and steps into my room, sorrow marring his handsome features.
Trent’s father.
Cole’s father.
Fuck. I don’t even know what to call him anymore.
“I want you to listen to what Mr. Reynolds has to say. Nothing more. Just listen. Can you manage that?” Dr. Stayner asks me.
I think I nod, but I’m not sure, I’m too busy staring at this man’s face, how much he reminds me of his face. His eyes that I fell into day after day. Happy. In love. Yes. In love. I was in love with Trent. With my life’s murderer.
“We’ll be here with you the whole time,” Storm says, gripping onto my free hand.
Trent/Cole’s father clears his throat. “Hello, Kacey.”
I don’t respond. I just watch him slide his hands into his pockets and hold them there. Just like his son does. “My name is Carter Reynolds. You can call me Carter.”
A shiver runs through my body at the sound of that family name.
“I want to apologize to you for all that my son has put you and your sister through. I tried to do so four years ago, but the police issued the restraining orders. My family and I respected your privacy then. Unfortunately, Cole … Trent has since harmed you again.”
He takes a few steps further into the room until he’s at the end of my bed, casting a furtive look at Dr. Stayner, who only smiles at him. “It was our car … my car … that Sasha drove the night of the accident.” A frown flashes across his face. “I think you knew that, though, right? Insurance papers would have specified that.”
There’s a pause as if he’s waiting for me to acknowledge. I don’t.
“We lost Cole after the accident. He ceased to exist. He dropped out of Michigan State, quit football, cut off all contact with his friends. He left his girlfriend of four years and stopped drinking altogether. He changed his name from Cole Reynolds to Trent Emerson—his middle
name and his mother’s maiden name.”
Carter pauses, his lips pressing together in a slight scowl. “That accident tore our family apart. His mother and I divorced a year later.” He waves his hand dismissively. “That doesn’t matter. What I do want you to know is that Cole … er … Trent is a troubled young man. Two years after the accident, I found him in my garage with the car running and a hose connected to the tail pipe. We thought we lost him for good that night.” Carter’s voice cracks with emotion and I feel an unwelcome spike of pain over the image in my head. “Soon after that, we admitted him to Dr. Stayner’s inpatient program for post traumatic stress disorder.” Again, Carter looks to the doctor to see him smiling and nodding him on. “When they released Trent, it was with a seal of approval. We were sure he had recovered. He laughed and smiled again. He began calling us regularly. He enrolled in a graphic design school in Rochester. He seemed to have moved on. He even attended outpatient programs and therapy groups to help others get through their grief.
“Then, six weeks ago, it looked like he was having a relapse. He appeared on his mother’s door step, mumbling something about you and how you’ll never forgive him. We brought him here and admitted him to Dr. Stayner.”
I fight hard to school the shock from my face. So all the time that Trent was missing, he was here, in Chicago. In a hospital for P.T.S.D., the thing he was insistent on curing me of.
“A few days after release, Trent was ecstatic again. We couldn’t figure it out. We thought maybe he was manic or on drugs. Dr. Stayner said no to both. He couldn’t tell us what was going on because of patient-doctor privilege.”
“And I didn’t know what was going on, to be clear. Trent hid critical information from his sessions with me, knowing I wouldn’t approve,” Dr. Stayner interrupts.
“Right,” Carter dips his head in assent. “We figured it out three days ago, when his mother ran into the receptionist here and she asked if Trent and Kacey had worked things out. She didn’t think anything of it, given Trent mentioned he had a girlfriend named Kacey and they were having trouble. I guess he felt telling the receptionist was low risk.”
Carter sighs. “When my son left the inpatient program two years ago, he did so with the belief that if he could fix your life, he would be forgiven for all the pain that he had caused.” He looks down at the floor now, as a shadow of shame crosses his face. “My son has been watching you from a distance for two years, Kacey. Biding his time until he approached you.”
I hardly notice Livie’s fingers dig into my forearm. Though I don’t feel much, the knowledge spikes somewhere deep inside. Trent’s been following me? Stalking me? All because he wants to fix what he broke? I want to make you happy. Make you smile. His words play back in my head. It all makes sense now. He truly did. He was on a mission to fix me.
“His mother and I had no idea, Kacey. Honestly. But Trent has watched over you for the past two years. He knew someone from school who could hack into your email. That’s how he found out you were moving to Miami. We had no clue that he up and left New York. But he did, leaving his condo and his life to come to follow you with this notion that if he could fix your life, he would be forgiven. We talked daily over email and voice mail. He even came to visit his mother once.”
“So I was a project,” I mutter to myself. A peace project.
Nauseous. That’s all I feel right now. Thick bile rising up my throat as realization hits. He never cared about me. I was a step in a fucked up twelve-step program he created in his head. “It doesn’t matter.” My voice is hollow. It really doesn’t matter.
Trent and all the good that he brought to my life is dead. It was never really alive.
Storm speaks up now, for the first time since Carter stepped in. “Kacey, Dan wants you to press charges against Trent. What he did is wrong and illegal and fucked up on so many levels. He deserves to go to jail.”
I smirk to myself. Storm never swears. She must be really mad.
“But I made him wait to report it until you were feeling better and you could make the call. I thought that should be your call.” She adds with a low growl, “even though I want to shoot the bastard in the head.”
I nod slowly. Report Trent. Charge Trent. Trent goes to jail.
“His mother and I understand if you want to press charges,” Carter says calmly, but I see his shoulders droop as he casts away his only son.
“No.” The word surprises even me as it leaves my lips.
Carter’s brow curves, surprised. “No?”
“Kacey, are you sure?” Livie asks, her hand squeezing mine.
I look at her and I nod. I have no idea why, but I know that I don’t want to do that. I’m sure I hate Trent. I’m sure I have to hate him because he’s Cole and hatred for Cole is all that I know.
I look up at Carter, imagining this man pull his son’s limp body from his car, and it’s not hatred that I feel right now, though. It’s pity. For him, and for Trent, because I’m intimately familiar with the level of pain that would drive a person to do that. It’s an end that has danced through my own thoughts once or twice in the years.
“No. No charges. No police. It won’t change anything. It never has.”
Carter squeezes his eyelids shut for a moment. “Thank you.” The words are hoarse and full of emotion. He clears his throat. With a look at Livie, he adds, “I understand there is a matter of Livie’s custody.”
“No, there’s no matter. She’s under my custody.” I turn to glare at Livie. Why did she tell him?
“I called Aunt Darla,” she explained softly. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it for a while. She said she could take me home with her and—”
“No! No! You can’t leave me,” I yell suddenly, my heart rate spiking.
“She’s not going anywhere, Kacey,” Carter promises. “Except back to Miami to go to school. My firm will ensure all the legal custody paperwork is drawn up. Custody may need to go to Ms. Matthews for now, until you’re better or Livie is old enough.”
I nod numbly. “Th … thanks.” He’s helping us. Why is he helping us?
He gives me a firm smile. “I’ve also had a conversation with your uncle.” His eyes turn cold and hard. “There is still insurance money left, Kacey. He didn’t squander it all. I’ll see to it that it is all transferred into yours and you sister’s name.” He pulls something from his inside coat pocket. “Here’s my business card, should you ever need anything. Ever, Kacey. Livie. Anything. I will help in any way that I can.” He places it on a side table.
With a nod to Dr. Stayner, he heads toward the door, his shoulders slouched as if carrying a terrible burden. And I suppose he is, after what his son has done. He stops with a hand on the doorknob. “For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen Trent as happy as he’s been while with you. Never.”
***
I stare at the clinic’s large oak doors. They contrast so greatly to the sterile white stucco exterior. Still, it’s a nice building.
My home for the next little while.
A tiny hand slips inside mine and I don’t recoil. “Don’t worry. It’s not so bad and, if you’re good, when you get out, we’ll go get ice cream,” Mia says with a somber face. She and Dan spent their time visiting Chicago’s zoos and parks while Storm stayed with me. Now, they’re here to see me off. She raises her free hand with two fingers held high. “Three scoops!”
Storm slides up behind her with Dan hanging onto her arm, laughing. “That’s right, Mia.” She winks at me.
“Ready?” Livie asks, hooking her arm through mine.
Inhaling deeply, I look at the place again. “It looks a little posh.”
“Don’t worry. I know a guy who knows a guy … who knows a guy.” Dan grins. For some reason, I don’t believe him. I have a feeling that Carter Reynolds’s manicured hands are somehow in the mix. Maybe I’m a buy one get one free offer for Stayner not curing his son in the first place. For once though, I don’t fight it.
Livie and I walk forward
, our steps mirroring each other. “Thank you for doing this, Kacey,” she whispers, wiping away the tear that rolls down her cheek.
A man in a light blue uniform opens the door and reaches forward, offering to take my bag.
“I’ll call as often as they let me,” Livie calls out, giving my forearm one last squeeze before letting go.
I wink, putting on a brave face for her. “See you above water.”
Chapter Eighteen
I won’t survive this.
I can’t survive this.
All they want me to do is talk. Talk and talk and talk. About my feelings, my nightmares, the almost assault on Storm’s attacker, my dead parents, Jenny, Billy, Trent. Every time I shove it all back into that dark, cramped closet where it belongs, Dr. Stayner barges in and drags it back out like a madman on a mission, with me kicking and screaming as I hang onto his coattails.
None of this will help me.
Neither will the anti-anxiety meds. They make me feel tired and nauseous. Dr. Stayner tells me they take time to work.
I tell him I’m going to punch him in the face.
I hate his guts.
And when I close my eyes at night, Trent is there to greet me, laughing. Always laughing.
I tell that to Dr. Stayner one day in his office, during my daily private session. “Do you think he’s laughing, Kacey?” he asks.
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
“No, you told me you had a dream about him laughing at you. But do you believe that he’s laughing?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?”
I glare at him. This conversation has gone on far longer than I expected. This is what I get for opening my big mouth. Normally, I stay quiet and give simple “yes” and “no” answers. Those have worked well for me so far. I don’t know why I thought this would be an innocuous topic.
“Let’s think about this a moment, shall we, Kacey?” He leans back in his chair and he just sits there, watching me. Is he thinking about this? Does he think I’m thinking? This is unnerving. I let my focus roam around his office as a distraction from the awkwardness. It’s small and clinical. He has walls upon walls of books just like any normal shrink should have. But he’s not like any other shrink that I’ve met. I don’t know how to describe him. His voice, his mannerisms, they’re all unusual.
