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“What is it?” I asked finally, hoping to put him out of his misery.
“I’m worried about you.”
“Is this about Peyton? Because you’re not talking me out of it. I’m going in there tomorrow, and I’m finishing this thing.”
“No, it’s not. Well…a bit, but not entirely. I’m not worried about him, I’m worried about you.”
Sweat dampened my palm, and all my former ease vanished. I tried to free my hand from his, but he held firm.
“Can you please let me say what I want to say, without trying to run away?” he asked.
I went still. “I don’t run away.”
He gave my hand a squeeze, and in that moment the pain in his eyes was so raw my heart hurt just looking at it. “You do run away. You’ve always run away, bouncing from one problem to the next, hoping to avoid dealing with it. The only problems you know how to deal with are the ones you can kill. That’s why you’re so gung ho about finding Peyton.”
He sure got right to the heart of things, didn’t he?
I couldn’t speak. There were no easy, clever retorts for what he’d said, and if I did use sarcasm to fight my way out of the corner, I’d only be proving his theory. Words were a way to run the same as feet were.
I frowned. I thought I’d been hiding things well enough to keep his worry at bay. I thought I’d been doing a lot better. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“I want you to talk about it.”
My whole body went from merely still, to ice cold and rigid. “Why?” Even with such a small, simple word, my voice quaked.
Desmond started walking again, and I had no choice but to move with him unless I felt like being dragged. “Because you haven’t been yourself since we got you back. And I know you’re hurting, I know you went through hell—”
“You don’t know. You can’t know, and I’m fucking grateful you have no idea. None. I don’t want to talk about it. Talking about it means remembering it, and I can’t. I won’t.”
“Secret, you already do. You drew a gun on me while we were sleeping. You relive it every day. Do you think I can’t hear you when you’re crying? Or screaming? Do you think I’m deaf?”
“No.” Apparently I was doing a piss-poor job of projecting an air of mental well-being. Guess I could stop polishing my imaginary Best Actress award.
Desmond gave me a soft smile and ran his thumb across my cheek. I could tell he was trying to make me feel better, and I allowed my guilt to take a backseat for a little while. “I want to be here for you, and I want to help, but I can’t do that if you keep it bottled up. I thought coming to Paris was a good thing. It’s the first time in months you’ve gone anywhere willingly, so I figured it was a positive move. But you’re still having the nightmares, and you’re still seeing things.”
I hadn’t told him about the flashbacks, but it also wasn’t something I could hide very well. I defy anyone to behave like a normal human being while reliving the worst horrors of their life in vivid Technicolor.
“Is this where you tell me I need therapy or something?” I tried laughing to make a joke of it, but the truth was I’d thought the same thing myself dozens of times. Except, what kind of therapist could I talk to? The second I laid out my past, I’d be locked up in a mental institution.
“Would you talk to a therapist? Because you don’t talk to me, you don’t talk to Holden. If I thought there was a shot in hell you’d actually talk to someone, I might suggest it. There’s a doctor in the pack, her name is Felicity…” His voice drifted off. I think he’d been waiting for me to interrupt him, but I let him continue.
A werewolf therapist.
I mulled over the notion. At least she wouldn’t think I was a total crackpot. I might not be able to open up about everything, but I could definitely give her the gist of what had gone down in California.
“Okay. I’ll think about it,” I said at last.
He seemed surprised by my being so open to the idea, and pushed on. “You can always talk to me, you know.”
“I know, but it’s harder.”
“Why?”
“Because you love me, and you want me to be happy. And when I’m not happy, I know I’m disappointing you, and that makes it harder for me.” I squeezed his hand.
It was his turn to be quiet. We stepped onto a narrow street where the yellow lights made everything glow a warm butter-colored hue. This place should be romantic. It should be a wonderland for couples. But instead we were talking about how my poor screwed-up head had a habit of bringing everyone down.
“I’ll think about it,” I said again.
