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“And how did that go?” she asked.
“About as well as I expected. She was angry and hurt that we hadn’t trusted her with the information before now. She asked a lot of questions, wanted to know a lot of details—details I wasn’t comfortable sharing.”
“And how did you handle that?”
“I didn’t want to lie to her. I had only just shared some of the details with my brothers earlier. I didn’t want to saddle Marjorie with the horror of it all. So I just said I didn’t remember a lot of the details. She seemed to buy that.”
“Why did you feel she couldn’t handle the details?”
“I guess it’s not that I thought she couldn’t handle them. She’s my baby sister. I didn’t want her to have
to handle them, you know?”
Dr. Carmichael nodded. “I understand. How else did she react?”
“She cried. She said it helped her understand so much now. And of course she wanted to tell…”
“Tell whom?”
“She wanted to tell Jade. Jade’s her best friend.”
Dr. Carmichael cleared her throat. “What did you say to that?”
“I made her promise not to tell Jade.”
“And did she?”
“Yes, she promised, but on one condition.”
“And that was?”
“That I tell Jade. When I’m ready.”
“I think that’s a good idea. I think you do need to tell Jade. But you don’t have to be in any hurry.”
“How can you say that? I’m in love with this woman. And she said she loves me too. I’m amazed every day at the fact that someone so wonderful could love me.”
“That’s exactly why I can say that, Talon. You have a long way to go to work through all of this. You need to understand that you’re worthy of her love, and you’re just not there yet.”
Dr. Carmichael was right. I sure wasn’t there yet. “You’re right. I’m not.”
“So is there anything you want to talk about today?”
Where to start? “I have no idea where to begin, Doc. So much happened, and so much of it affected me.”
“The last time, you said that the one with the phoenix tattoo seemed to be the leader.”
“Maybe that’s a good place to start,” I said. “The phoenix.”
“What about the phoenix?”
“I came across a similar image recently.”
“Oh? Where?”
I breathed in and let it out slowly. “Jade. She was going to have an almost identical image tattooed on her lower back.”
Dr. Carmichael widened her eyes. “Really? How did that come about?”
