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“Yes, it is. And look at how you’re dealing with it. Your fingers are clenched around that armchair, but you’re not storming out of here. You’re not yelling at me that I’m wrong. That’s got to say something.”
“I never thought…”
“Of course you didn’t. This would’ve been on an entirely subliminal level. Look at your brothers, for example. You love them, and you never thought you blamed them for any of this. But deep inside, you resented that it had to happen to you instead of them.”
“That’s not true. I’m really glad this didn’t happen to either of my brothers. I mean that.”
“I know you do. That’s not what I mean. You wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I absolutely believe that. But in the back of your mind, you were resentful. You were resentful that it was you. Why not someone else? Why not some other kid you didn’t even know? You may be thankful that it wasn’t Ryan or Jonah, but in the back of your mind, you wonder, why not one of them? Why did it have to be you?”
Could she be right? “And you think that explains why I had such a problem saying I was sorry?”
“I think it explains it very well. Don’t you?”
I shook my head, my lips trembling. “God, I never meant to…”
“I know. The subconscious mind is very powerful, though. And the good news is that you’re healing. Now you can tell people you’re sorry. You’re moving forward. You will heal.”
“I hope so. I’ve been carrying this burden for so long. I never thought I would ever be free of it. I don’t know that I ever can be totally free of it.”
“No, you’ll never be completely free of it. It will always be part of your history, part of your psyche, part of what makes you Talon Steel. But what you can do is let it stay in your past, move forward, let yourself love and be loved. You’ve come such a long way already. I know it may not feel like you have, but just the fact that you can say you’re sorry to someone. That’s huge.”
Was she right? And then something dawned on me—like a light bulb moment. I was amazed I hadn’t realized it before now. “Wow,” I said aloud.
“What is it?”
“I can’t remember the last time I went to the kitchen at night to stare at a glass of water.”
* * *
The experts I’d retained before I went to Dr. Carmichael’s met me at Shem’s body shop at seven. We entered around back, and Shem let us in the locked gate.
“The car’s over here,” Shem said.
He led us to a black Bentley. A fucking Bentley. I was no stranger to nice cars, though I preferred my old pickup to my Mercedes-Benz.
“Shem,” I said, “thanks for letting us in. This is Bill Friedman and Clark Tyson. They?
??ve agreed to take a look and see if the airbag was tampered with.”
“Go right ahead,” Shem said.
“Thanks.” I handed Shem some bills. “For your trouble.”
“I’ll just be over here looking the other way.” He ambled back inside the shop.
The two guys looked at the car for about half an hour and then came back to me.
“I wish we had better news for you, Mr. Steel,” Friedman said. “Because the car has been completely rebuilt since the accident and a new airbag put in, there’s just no way to tell if the original was tampered with. Do you think Shem in there has the original airbag? The one that didn’t deploy?”
“I don’t have a clue, but we can ask him.”
I motioned to Shem through the window.
He came out. “Yeah?”
“The guys here can’t find any problem with the airbag. Nothing indicated it had been tampered with.”
“I was afraid of that. I mean, we completed the work. We had no reason to suspect any wrongdoing, so we didn’t look for anything.”
