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I swore to all creation her face was about to combust. She hid in her arms, as if that would save her.
“How have you felt while being here?” she asked, trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.
I thought about it for a moment. “Calm. It’s allowed me to come down from the emotions.”
She smiled and rubbed her arm. “I’m glad. I do apologize if I’m the cause of any of that. Aya… told me that I share some similarities with your wife, and I was worried that might have caused some issues in our session. If it did—”
I held up my hand. While I didn’t like that Aya had made the comparison to Astrid, I didn’t feel angry. More relieved than anything, if I was honest with myself. “Please don’t. Yes, you do remind me a lot of my wife, and that made the conversation difficult. It felt like it was her questioning the situation, when I knew it was you. But I think that’s what I needed.”
Astrid wrapped her arms around her legs. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Did I?
“I know it can be hard for a lot of men to talk to someone about their emotions. There’s a lot of societal pressure to lock those up. That somehow your strength comes from how well you hide all that. Those pressures are wrong.” She smiled. “That strength comes from acknowledging them as part of who we are and being open about them. It’s something I have to tell myself a lot. Not because I have some pressure to hide my emotions, but because I don’t want to burden people. So, I make the repeated mistake of trying to deal with them privately. I acknowledge this fault, and try to do better, even if I’m not perfect.”
I worked my jaw. It would be nice to talk to someone finally, even if in a coded manner. And Astrid could be the best person to talk to. Old her and current her, she wouldn’t judge. I could always be vulnerable with her. “I would be willing to talk through this, under one condition.”
She cocked her head. “And what’s that?”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m talking to a shr—therapist.” Astrid’s eyes narrowed slightly right before I corrected myself. “I don’t have much in the way of friends anymore. Makes it hard to… express myself. And I’d rather talk to a friend than anyone else.”
Astrid’s posture relaxed, and she turned toward me more. “I can do that.”
Whether this was some act, or she really meant it, I didn’t care. This new posture and her full attention already made me feel better. Angel settled in between us, rolling on her back for belly rubs.
While I spoke, I rubbed my arm along Angel’s fur. “I should have been able to protect her. I was right there. She always trusted me to keep her safe.”
I closed my eyes. The image of her bleeding and dying in my arms was so clear, as if a hundred mortal lifetimes hadn’t passed since then.
Astrid’s warm touch drew me out of my mind. Her hand rested on my arm, and the achingly familiar sensation of her healing pulsed through me. Yet, her hands didn’t glow with magic. It was the same as when we’d been in the house, when she grabbed my hand to calm me. That power she had over me, it remained even now.
“What you’re feeling is normal,” she said. “And these feelings are okay to have. Surviving something so traumatic isn’t easy.”
My shoulders drooped. “I should have done more…”
“Did you do your best in the moment?”
Her words caught me off guard. Her expression was soft and kind, so I knew it wasn’t accusatory. “I…”
“When you think about that moment, did you do everything you could have within such a stressful situation?”
Could I have done anything else?“I… don’t think I would have done anything differently.”
She nodded slowly. “It’s easy for us to be hard on ourselves for the things we should have done. It’s easy, once outside that situation, to criticize and question and see where we could have done something differently. But upon doing that, we forget that we’re human. There’s only so much we can do.”
Her attention shifted out to the lake. “I’ve helped a lot of people. So many have gone off to be better versions of themselves and are living amazing lives. But that number isn’t one-hundred percent. There are people I feel like I’ve failed. They’ve either gone back to their old ways, or worse. I find myself in the trappings of what-ifs and self-doubt. What could I have done differently? Do they blame me for not being able to do more? Am I not cut out for this job?”
Something pulsed deep in my chest. This was far from the sterile professional approach I suspected she was trained to take. She took my request to heart, because it felt like I was really connecting with a person who knew what I was going through, without me being able to put all the words out there myself.
“And for most, I know they don’t,” she said. “They would know I did my best, even if that best wasn’t enough for what they needed.”
My hand curled into a fist. My best hadn’t been good enough. If I’d been better, I could have saved her. None of this would have happened.
Astrid offered a kind smile. “I don’t know the woman you loved, but I’ve glimpsed just enough to confidently say, she wouldn’t be the type to blame you. I know I wouldn’t.”
Those piercing green eyes of her peered through me, to the deepest parts I hid from the world.She doesn’t… blame me…Something inside me cracked.
“You… forgive me?”
