Page 48 of The Promise

“Michelle. Michelle Yang.”

Right.

Ph-fucking-D.

“I don’t know you to trust you.”

Michelle lifted one shoulder as if to silently say, and? “Would you like me to tell you things that are important to know about me?”

“You still haven’t answered my questions.”

The doctor nodded with a laugh, but her joy was short-lived when she replied, “My brother has a gambling problem, and he ended up owing money to the wrong people. Not that I don’t understand why he’s found himself where he has, I do, but he makes it hard to care sometimes. His children, though ... well, I do care a great deal about what happens to them. So, here I am, Karine.”

From the way Michelle avoided looking at the far end of the room—where Roman sat watching the exchange without inserting himself because Karine asked him to be there—it was highly likely that the wrong people her brother owed money to were the Avdonins. Or someone with close enough connections to Roman’s family that he had been able to pull weight.

The woman hadn’t wanted Roman to be in the room with them. In fact, she’d insisted on privacy to facilitate the most effective first meeting and session. But that wasn’t what Karine wanted; to be alone with a stranger, already twisting inside from anxiety eating her alive.

She didn’t think this would be easy, but goddammit ... it didn’t have to be hard, either. She wanted Roman with her every step of the way, if he would be there, and hadn’t been able to suppress the smile when he agreed to be in the room with her.

There was something settling about knowing he was willing to face all the darkness with her, to peel back the layers and uncover everything there was to find inside her. Even the things she didn’t know about herself. It felt a bit like Pandora’s box, really, but some things just had to be done.

So fine.

She’d do it with him.

As comfortable and safe as she felt with Roman, Karine couldn’t say the same about the woman who was there to help her. Part of it could certainly be blamed on the invisible itchiness under Karine’s skin making itself known—the undeniable urge to flee from the conversation they were about to have. The rest of it was just ... her nature.

Karine couldn’t help it.

Everyone hurt her. Not a single soul had ever given a shit about her, and she wasn’t going to start trusting that had changed just because the woman introduced herself as a specialist at the top of her field.

She peeked Roman’s way, then.

Well, almost everyone.

Every time she came close to leaving the room, she turned to look at Roman, and he would nod at her. It encouraged her to stay. Just a little longer, to see if the feeling improved. Honestly, that was the only thing keeping here there at the moment.

“How about,” Michelle said, “I ask a few simple things ... just to be sure what you’re dealing with? I was told a little bit, and I suspect that’s really what’d you like from me, Karine. To know.”

She dragged in a stinging, shaky breath. “Yeah, I would.”

“So, can I ask?”

“Okay.”

Michelle nodded with a smile, and glanced down at the black notebook in her lap. “Why don’t you start by telling me if there are chunks of time in your day to day life—when you just black out? Do you have moments like that? A lot of time where you don’t remember what happens or how you end up where you do.”

Karine stared at the woman who was examining her, trying to focus on the shape of the spectacles resting on the bridge of her freckled nose instead of her voice.

Yes, there were times like that.

Much too often.

Michelle glanced up at Karine’s silence, but she managed to tip her chin down in a half-nod that at least did its job. It was enough for the doctor to make a note of it in her book.

“How often in a week? Less than ten, more—”

“It depends.”