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Six WeeksLater
“So, Bree, you’ve been back to work for about a month now,” Dr. Candace Hollingsworth said as she held her pen at the ready, the rollerball ink soaking into the yellow paper of her legal pad as Lady Macbeth’s pleas for the widening spot to disappear repeated in Bree’s head. “Are you feeling more in alignment with yourself? Or still have that bit of you missing?”
“The routine is nice,” she admitted, part of her holding back in contradiction to the whole idea of therapy. Mandated or not, she’d found her way out of daily visits and was whittling them down to weekly, she hoped.
“And are you still considering selling your home?”
Bree nodded, the chill crawling along her spine and throat tightening as she did her best to hold herself together.
“Have you tried the suggestions we came up with last time?”
“Yes, I’ve reset the sensitivity on my cameras, motion lights, and now I’m woken up all night long from the wildlife I hadn’t even known was so prevalent even in a gated yard.”
“So you’re not sleeping as much?” she reflected. “That can make you threadbare.”
“I’m fine,” she replied even though the woman was right.
“That’s not a maintainable lifestyle, Bree,” Dr. Hollingsworth said. “Have you tried anything to help you sleep?”
“I’m not comfortable with the idea of not being in control of my body,” Bree said, and Ice’s whispered words of letting him take over sent a shiver through her, one bringing back the lust-driven night she feared she’d never be able to experience again. Letting go, was there a man beyond Ice she could feel safe enough with to take on her body?
They continued to talk for twenty minutes about ways to block out and work through the trauma of her home being invaded. Empirically she knew the man who did it was dead. Any threat from Misty’s transgressions were settled by the Sinners, but that didn’t stop her from seeing shadows in every corner or keep her hand from trembling when she had to open a closed door.
“So, last thing, the man,” the therapist said, crossing her legs at the knee and letting her foot dangle and bounce a bit. Part of Bree wondered if the woman was asking for patient care or curiosity about the bad boy. “Have you opened yourself up to grieve the loss?”
“There was nothing with him. I have lost nothing,” she replied, smoothing her hand along the side of her freshly shorn head. The hard prickles weren’t there yet since it had only been a day since she’d been to the stylist.
“Do you miss them?” she questioned, and Bree’s heart tightened. “Him or the twins? In the past you spoke of playing in the pool and watching them get lost in a world of make-believe while playing.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” she replied.
“They didn’t see you as one,” she countered. “You said they called you Auntie Bree.”
“And they call me daddy, and not in the way you want to.”Ice’s words weren’t so much a distant memory, but a siren call sending fire into the lower half of her body, making her wish he was between her legs with an ice cube to tongue to tame the embers.
“He was a fling,” Bree surmised. “Ice wasn’t exactly the type of man to settle down. Even with two kids.”
“Is it Aiden and Jane you’re worried about or Ice?”
“I don’t worry about Ice. He…” She absently brushed a finger along her brow. “Look, he’s a security system in and of himself.”
“It’s strange you word it that way.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re worried about your security,” she pointed out. “Relationships—”
“There was no relationship,” Bree interjected as if the woman had tapped her knee, the words involuntary and in many ways protective.
“Ten hours, ten days, or ten months, you have a connection with the man,” she countered. “One that is unresolved.”
“I’m sure he’s been icing down women in my absence.” A shudder got out of Bree’s control, and she tried to shift into it to try to hide the motion, only to feel herself fall a bit and have to grip the arm of the chair.
“And the thought of that is unsettling?”
“No, I have no claim on him,” she rebuffed, her lips tingling as if to call her on the lie. They remembered he had more than kissed her. The connection was there, but she had to be practical. This was life, not a game. Wetness danced at the corners of her eyes, and she brushed away the weakness on display as she lied, “And he has no claim on me.”
