Page 17 of Saving Meadow

“That I had a woman,” I finished for her.

“Yeah.”

Her cheeks pinkened, and I wanted to fist bump the air.

“Are you ready for today?” I asked and noticed she hadn’t stopped petting Sally. Good. I’d leave her in here with Meadow when her and Mandy had their session.

“I think so. I barely slept last night. I worried I won’t remember now that I want to. I’ve spent so much time pushing the memories away. It will be my luck I did a good job, and Mandy won’t be able to find them.”

“You’ll do fine. All you need to do is relax. Mandy is great; she’ll stop whenever you need her to. Don’t push it. If it gets to be too much, you can try again, or not.”

“I want to do this. If somewhere locked inside of me is the break you need to find this guy, I want to remember. I don’t want anyone else to die.”

She kept saying man, guy, him. I wondered if those pronouns were an assumption or if she knew it was a man. I still hadn’t asked, that was for Mandy to dig through. I didn’t want to put any ideas in her head.

“So damn brave,” I told her.

“What? I’m not brave. I hide away from everyone.”

She looked so sad and was folding into herself again. That shit had to stop. If I did nothing else, I’d make sure when this was over Meadow Holiday stood tall and proud.

“Red, you don’t give yourself enough credit. Most people, after what you went through, don’t recover. You have. You are brave and sweet, and so damn pretty. You’re breaking my heart standing there hunched over. You don’t have one damn thing to hide. And before you say it, or point it out, the scar on your face doesn’t do a goddamn thing to take away from how beautiful you are.”

It was painful to watch her recoil at my words.

“There’s nothing beautiful about me. Not anymore. Trust me. I’m better off blending in and being a loner. I have nothing to offer anyone.”

I was wrong. Listening to her wasn’t painful, it was pure agony. My gut twisted hearing her say she had nothing to offer. As much as I wanted to correct her and tell her. she had everything, she was everything, it wasn’t the right time. She needed to be relaxed and not freaked out when I turned into a caveman and beat my chest until she understood just how lovely she was.

“Red, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Before she could protest, I asked, “Do you want me to leave Sally in here with you while you talk to Mandy? She seems to like you.”

“I think I’d like that if it’s okay.”

“Sure, it is. Mandy knows her commands, and if she starts to misbehave, I’ll come in and get her.”

Suddenly I was unsure about Meadow being hypnotized. What if she did remember and it set her back? Mandy knocked on the door at the same time as she opened it poking her head in.

“You ready?” she asked.

“As I’ll ever be.” Meadow tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. Hell, it barely pulled the corner of her mouth up.

Fuck. I didn’t like this, but it wasn’t my place to stop her. And truth be told we needed a break, some bit of information that would help us catch this asshole.

“I’ll be right outside.”

Before I could change my mind, I left the conference room and walked right into Joel.

“Damn, boy, you’ve got it bad.” He chuckled.

“What are you talking about?”

On an exhale he shook his head as if he was irritated, but the smile told me he was anything but. “I’m changing your name. You’ve been upgraded from Boy Wonder to Glass. You’re in a room full of men that not only are trained to crawl into your head and extrapolate any and every emotion, but we are men. Dude, we see right through you. You’re not hiding shit. From the moment that woman entered the building, you’ve been hovering. Shit bro, I think we have some bubble wrap in the supply closet if you’d like to wrap her up.”

I thought about lying and telling Joel he was full of shit, but he was right, I was hovering. And I wasn’t doing a damn thing to hide it.

“I can’t explain it. I don’t know why she’s different. And before you say it, it has nothing to do with her being a victim. I don’t have a savior complex. I’ve watched her for years at the coffee house. I was going to try and talk to her, but one day she was there, then she was gone for a long time. When she started going to the shop again, she was a different person. Not one part of her hinted she was approachable. She’d made an effort to avoid everyone. So I left her alone. Big mistake.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you.” He made a low whistling sound. “Hope you’re ready for her.”