Ranger didn’t answer right away, knowing he needed to word this carefully, as well as truthfully. “I don’t want to see the pity on their faces. They’ll be happy for me, they’ll be here to support me, but underneath, they know I didn’t fall on my own. They know I was pushed. I think if I’d gone out and gotten high on my own, made that decision, they would look at me differently. Like I was sick and now on the mend. But now they look at me like I’m broken, fragile. They don’t know everything, but in some ways, that makes it worse. How would they look at me if they knew everything that happened? I don’t doubt Ghost knows. Becks would have told him. Maybe Tessa and Bear, but the others?” Ranger shook his head. “They love me, and I knowthat, but this isn’t a celebration like when Pumpkin was released from rehab. I’m here because I knowingly went out and bought heroin before shooting up in my bathtub. I’m here because I fell, as you put it.”
Dr. Sutton waited a moment to see if Ranger would continue before he said, “You describe your club brothers as men you respect deeply. Men you consider to be physically and mentally formidable, but they’ve all stumbled before, Liam. Andyouwere there to help them stand. Why is it so hard for you to be the one who needs help this time?”
Ranger shook his head, not wanting to answer. But Dr. Sutton didn’t fill the silence. He sat there, ankle on his knee, staring at Ranger. Waiting him out. Frustrated, Ranger turned his face away from the doctor. He both respected and hated that Dr. Sutton had the ability to wait him out. He now had a new understanding of the expression “the silence was deafening”.
“Because I hate this. I hate what was done to me. I hate that I can’t just move on. I hate that there will never be a day for the rest of my life where I don’t think of that crazy, fucking bitch.” Though he was able to hold back tears, Ranger sniffled and rubbed his eyes like he was tired. “I hate that I have this disease now. I hate that Ihaveto lean on them, instead of being the one they can lean on.”
The club didn’t take away his enforcer title, but they didn’t have to for Ranger to know things were going to be different upon his return. When Ghost stepped up as president over a year ago, it was with the understanding that Ranger would be his VP after an adjustment period. Lucky stayed on so the club didn’t have such a major change after Steel stepped down. Ranger accepted and respected that decision, choosing to use that time to learn from Lucky how to be the best VP for Ghost and the club.
But now… The club didn’t have to tell him. Ranger already knew. They couldn’t have an addict as VP. Hell, they couldn’thave an addict as an enforcer either. Likely they were letting him keep the position out of pity, not wanting to hand him too many blows while he was in such a vulnerable state. Ghost told him that Jigsaw and Starbucks were sharing his responsibilities “for now”. But that was a line of bullshit. There was no “for now”. It wasn’t like Ranger was getting out of here tomorrow and Ghost was going to hand him back the keys to the kingdom.
“You’ve worked hard these past ninety days. You’re grieving, Liam, and it’s okay to hate what happened to you, so long as you acknowledge it. From my perspective, you’ve been honest about the addiction, about your relapse, about your childhood before Andrew Fremont rescued you and your mom, about Cameron’s manipulation… But there is one area I’ve noticed you always choose your words very carefully, and you and I both know what I’m referring to.”
Dr. Sutton kept his expression professionally neutral. “I’d like to talk about it today, Liam. Not because you have to have it resolved before you leave—you don’t. You’ve already given me permission to send Dr. Rutenberg all my notes and our progress, so he can pick up where you and I leave off. But I would like you to be able to name it before you walk back into your life tomorrow.”
Bile rose, but Ranger was able to push it down. “My rape.” The words tasted like acid on his tongue, like he’d swallowed a handful of ground black pepper.
Dr. Sutton paused for a minute to allow Ranger to get control of himself before he continued. “What Cameron did to you while you were incapacitated—what word would you use to describe it?”
Ranger gripped the arms of the chairs, the ants starting their march up and down his arms like that fucking children’s song.
“Take your time.”
He wanted to say “emasculating” but knew he’d get pushback for that one. Instead, he said, “Dehumanizing.”
“You’ve spent your adult life being the strongest person in the room. The protector. The one who shows up. What does it mean to you that this happened and you couldn’t stop it?”
A wet heat touched his memory at the doctor’s words, and that was all it took.
Ranger bolted over to the trash can, barely reaching the small bucket before the vomit came spewing from his mouth for the third time that day. Honestly, he was a bit surprised there was anything left in his stomach, since he’d only picked at his lunch an hour ago. He probably wouldn’t have even had that if Colby hadn’t planted himself across the table from Ranger and stared him down like the pushy asshole he’d come to realize his friend was.
And of course he’d eaten all his sweet corn.
Dr. Sutton did not touch him, only approached him with a patient expression and a glass of water. When Ranger was done dry heaving, Dr. Sutton took the trash can, keeping it held up at chest height so Ranger could rinse and spit. As Dr. Sutton walked the trash can out into the hall for one of the orderlies to clean up, Ranger drank down the remaining water in the glass, went over to the pitcher, refilled the cup, and gulped that down, too.
He remained facing the drink cart and the wall, unable to return to his seat. “I can’t remember it. I get flashes, like theideaof it, but I can’t remember. I feel stupid even calling it rape, even though I know that’s what it was. Nothing was putinsideme, but I know that’s a stereotype. Only reason I even really know about it was because of the lipstick. I’m sure you have the notes from the hospital. When I was admitted, they found lipstick and teeth marks on my dick, but it was my sister who confirmed what happened. I was fuckingrapedin front of my sister. I can blockit out, I cannotthink about it for a minute or two, but it’s always there. Just like the cravings and the need for the drug they forced into me. I wish they’d have never told me. I wish I didn’t know. The lack of memory is the worst of it, because my brain fills in the rest. Am I making it worse than what it was? It was a fuckingblowjob. I’ve had plenty of them in my life. So what if I can’t remember this one. Itshouldn’tmatter. I shouldn’t let it get to me.”
“Would you tell your sister that it ‘shouldn’t matter’ if Ritchie had performed oral, non-penetrative sex on her without her consent?”
Ranger spun around so fast that he knocked the pitcher off the drink cart. It spilled, but didn’t shatter. Which was good. He owed this place enough as it was. Both of them ignored the dripping water as Ranger shouted, “Of course not! That’s disgusting!”
“Then why is it okay for you to say it doesn’t matter to you? You were in no condition to consent, even if youwereawake and lucid. So what’s the difference? Because you’re a man?”
Ranger looked down, staring at the wet spot down on the carpet to the right of his foot.
“Ghost and your brothers, what if this had happened to one of them? Would you think less of them?”
Ranger’s silence was answer enough, becauseof coursehe wouldn’t.
“Then why does a different standard apply to you?”
Ranger lifted his eyes, glaring at the older man. “It would be really helpful if you weren’t so fucking smart and would let me live with my delusions.”
Dr. Sutton smiled widely. “Nah. This is how I get my kicks in for the day, torturing my patients by constantly bursting their delusion bubbles.”
Ranger snorted. Leaving the mess he’d created because they both knew staying to clean up would only be a delaying tactic, Ranger walked slowly back over to his chair.
Dr. Sutton waited for him to sit, reposition himself, cross his legs, uncross his legs, and then cross his legs in the other direction before he spoke again. “You’ve said several times that you don’t feel like yourself, that you feel like a stranger in your own skin. I want to offer you a different way to look at that.
