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I gritted my teeth and clenched and unclenched my fists over and over as my body filled with rage. Meeting Devil’s eyes, I said, “My uncle.”
* * *
Four hours later, I was three sheets to the wind, walking the cement path to Tatum’s front door. My head was a messed-up shit fight and I couldn’t, no matter how much I tried, even begin to pick through my thoughts. I tried to numb the choking pain but failed. The memories of what Joseph had done to our family played in my mind like a fucking movie and no alcohol could rid me of those. I’d spent nineteen years trying to forget. I thought I’d worked them out of me. But five minutes in his goddam presence and I was right back there living it all over again.
Motherfucker.
I reached the door and came to an abrupt stop. What the fuck made me think this was a good idea? My mind was already fucked up with Tatum. I didn’t need to add to that.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
I stood there for another minute going back and forth with myself before I made the final decision that this really was a bad idea.
Exiting her property, I told myself Devil was wrong—Tatum hadn’t become someone special to me. Good sex was just that. And I could find that anywhere.
28
Tatum
“(Baby I’ve Got You) On My Mind” by Powderfinger
“Tell me how he makes you feel when you’re together.”
I looked at my therapist and contemplated her question. We’d been working together for weeks now and I’d finally brought Nitro up with her. I’d resisted doing that but after seeing him last week, I’d cracked. I was fairly sure I was spiralling into a chaotic mess of despair and defeat. Rock bottom would be one way to describe it. So, in my hopelessness, I decided to lay everything on the table with her. I decided to finally give her every piece of my soul and prayed that we could fix me.
“I hated him at first. Hated that he saved me when all I wanted was to be dead. Dead with Christopher. And he was so mean that I hated him even more. But then he saved me again and started showing me another side of him.” I wrapped my arms around my body and stared at her, remembering the night I slept next to him the first time. “He makes me feel safe. Which sounds ludicrous even to me, but it’s the truth.”
“Tatum, we can’t make ourselves feel something that’s not there, just like we can’t alter the way people make us feel. It’s not ludicrous to say that he makes you feel safe. But what you have to do now is decide what you want to do with that feeling. Do you want to spend more time with him? Get to know him better?”
“I don’t know.”
She watched me closely. The way she saw me, really saw me, made me feel uncomfortable. I wanted to turn away from her gaze. I didn’t want her to see me. But I knew I had to let her. If I had any hope of fixing myself, I had to allow her to help me.
“I think you do know,” she said simply, guiding me. She never told me what to do. That didn’t seem to be how she worked. I’d never spent time with a therapist before so I had no idea how they worked, but I’d expected more help making decisions.
I unwrapped my arms from around my body and curled my legs under me on the couch. God, why was this shit so hard? Blowing out a long breath, I said, “I want to sleep with him. But I don’t know if I want more than that. And besides, he doesn’t want more. Hell, he doesn’t even want sex with me.”
“Tell me, why do you have to know everything all at once? Do you think decisions through all the way from beginning to resolution for everything you do in your life?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s the way I’m wired. I can’t help it.”
She leant forward. “You’re a survivor, Tatum. You’re strong and capable. You can help anything you want in your life.”
Fuck, she was pissing me off today. “Maybe I don’t want to fucking help it. I like the way I live my life.”
“If you like the way you live your life, you wouldn’t be here. I challenge you to think some more about that this week. Consider the possibilities of not thinking everything through and discarding ideas because you think you know how it will end.”
I shoved my fingers through my hair, feeling all kinds of agitated. My body was a bundle of nervous, angry energy and I didn’t even know why. In desperation, I blurted out the thought I hadn’t been able to let go of for weeks. “Why am I not getting better? I’ve been coming here for weeks and I feel worse than I did at the beginning. I just want to be fixed and it’s not happening!”
She watched me for a mome
nt. Again. Always silently watching. And then—“We’ve been digging deep. You’ve been dredging up memories, hurts, and deeply rooted pain, Tatum. We’re challenging everything you’ve ever thought, and examining if your thought patterns are useful, whether they serve you or hurt you. This is a process and unfortunately you can’t escape it. What you do need to do is trust it. Move through it rather than against it. And know that slowly it will lead you out of all this pain and uncertainty you’re feeling. The other thing? Don’t try to fight your feelings as they come up. After years of avoiding them, you have to learn to live with them.”
I left the session just as confused as when I’d entered it. But for the first time, I considered the possibility that maybe it was okay to be confused. Maybe she was right and I didn’t need all the answers right away.
