AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I thoughthe’dbe the first person she went to.”
With a deep sigh, I cover my eyes and think about how I can help. “Let me speak to her, try and get a sense of what she’s thinking. I have the cop’s number in case…”
“Okay.”
“I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“And Suze?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you give her a big hug from me? And tell her I’m sorry…”
“Sure. I can do that.”
“I never wanted to hurt her.” She sighs tiredly. “I just wanted to give her a nudge in the right direction.”
The retort, ‘You probably should have thought that through’, is on the tip of my tongue. But I bite it back. Getting angry isn’t going to help anyone, especially Catherine. All that’s left to do is to try and mitigate the damage and move on. “I know. Bye, Toni.”
“Bye.”
***
Thirty minutes after leavingCatherine in the tub I approach the door and knock gently. “Cat? You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Opening the door, I hold up the yoga pants and baggy shirt I’m holding in my hands. “I brought you some clothes.” I place them on the small dresser by the sink and move to lean against the wall. There’s a part of me that is weary of the conversation we’re about to have. Catherine is only sober four years, and, while it may seem like a long time to many people, that type of addiction lasts lifetimes. Sure, maybe theneedturns intowantwith time, but the problem with addiction is that the wanting never quite fades to acomfortable level.
Catherine is calm and now that she’s stopped panicking, I can see that she’s lucid. “I spoke to Toni.”
Cat’s eyes, already red and puffy from crying, shutter a little. “She told you? About Aiden?”
“She did.” I look at her face, trying to gauge her reaction.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she says pitifully, her eyes instantly welling.
But I won’t have it. “Yes. You do.”
Her eyes shift to me. They are charged with emotion. “Ican’t,” she whispers.
“You can.” Moving closer, I slide down against the wall and extend my legs out in front of me, making sure to sweep the crinkles of my dress out from under me before relaxing entirely. I lean my head back against the wall and eye Catherine.
She’s sitting in the bathtub, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms locked around them. She’s not being modest. Catherine and I don’t have those boundaries. She’s genuinely fighting some self-preservation instinct, some fear inside of her that is making her feel the need to physically close in on herself.
“If you didn’t love him, you would have gone to him,” I say. “Not to me.”
“What?” She blinks at me as if she’s trying to make sense of my words.
“I know you. And when you’re scared, you run. The fact that you’re here and not with Lieutenant Flint tells me that you’re afraid.”
She nods, following my logic now.
“And given that the man in a giant teddy bear, we both know you’re not physically afraid of him. Which can only mean…”
She closes her eyes, forcing her gathering tears to fall. I should stop. The sight of her crying again is enough to make me feel deeply guilty. But I agree with Toni on this one. “You’re afraid of how you feel about him.”
She covers her face with both hands, her entire body shaking. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
