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Fuck me.How did she do that?“What?” I ask caught off guard.
“You still think you don’t deserve happiness? Because of what’s happened in your past, and because of the things you have done.”
Jesus, I’m sweating. “Doc look—”
“Please, call me Miss Monroe. Or Melissa, if you must, but not Doc. I’m your therapist, Mr Carter, not your doctor.”
That’s me told. “Sorry.” I sit back in my chair throwing my arm over the back, and wait for her to speak.
“Moving on.” Doc—Miss Monroe, or Melissa if I must, stands from behind her desk and sits opposite me in another, equally blue chair. “Dean, you started these sessions by telling me that what you do is something you couldn’t change, that you had lived somewhat of a solitary life before you met your partner.”
I nod and watch her mind replay seeing my leather cut for the first time, trying to work out what itisthat I really do.
“You said that your partner had given you hope and was… what was it you said?” She flicks through her notes looking back to our first session.
“My sunshine.”
She stops flicking pages and smiles. “Right.” I watch her shift in her seat. “Dean, I think throughout our sessions it’s been clear that you and,” she looks at me for help.
“Mads,” I say.
She smiles again. “It’s obvious that you have overcome a huge amount of turmoil with the help and support from Mads,” that’s an understatement, “but what isn’t clear, and I had hoped with only a few sessions remaining we might have already uncovered it, is why you still feel undeserving?”
Well with only a few sessions left, I can only guess that I’m about to be hit with Melissa if I musts’ conclusions.
Truth is, I only agreed to come to these sessions for Mads.And what Mads wants, she eventually gets. And fuck me, if I hadn’t found out she’s Rocco’s biological daughter, I would have guessed it, because as stubborn as she has been since the day I met her, I swear a tiny bit of outlaw has come out in her since we found out.
Or maybe it’s the fact she’s growing a human inside her? Hormones all over the show. Either way, I already know why I feel the way that I do. I had a hard life before the club, but I chose to lock my emotions away and I buried them. Deep. I never talked about them or opened up about what happened, and whilst I thought I was managing to hide how I really felt, turns out those closest to me had me figured out.
I was drowning.
Then,undeservedly,Mads fell at my feet, dug up and opened the box I’d buried and I had to face that shit head on. It was fucking difficult, and in no way is it fully dealt with, but it’s better—life,is better.
Except for losing Jack. That’s the fucking worst.
But why I feel undeserving, is because somewhere inside me, I can feel a familiar heavy weight trying to swamp me again. The blackness waiting to consume me. I can’t place it—can’t fucking put my finger on it. All I know is that whenever there is good, there is bad. And I can’t ignore the knot in my gut telling me that something dark is looming with this new deal we’re going to sign off on. The new player bringing bigger guns and a fuck load of cash… it goes against every instinct I have, but it’s the lesser of two evils needed to keep the peace.
Peace. There’s been plenty of it; our understanding with The Sodom Saviours upheld. So, naturally, something bad is coming.
I wake up every day praying I can keep the promise I made to Mads; that I would love and protect her and our baby. But what am I protecting her from? My life? The club? Saviours? I ask myself daily; would she be safer without me in her life?The answer is undoubtedly yes. Would she be happy though? Probably not. Would I? Fuck no.
So here we are. In love. Good and bad. Sunshine and the dark.
Balanced.
Melissa if I must looks down at her notes, gently tapping her pen against the edge of the paper before she looks up. When I don’t offer up my answer, she crosses one leg over the other and leans forward slightly. “I think our trauma focused cognitive behavioural therapy sessions have helped you to understand what happened to you as a child wasn’t your fault?”
Agreed, but I always knew that.
“So, tell me in your own words, if your past wasn’t your fault, why do you still feel undeserving of the love that clearly is helping you come to terms with everything you’ve faced?”
That’s the same question worded differently. So, it’s the same answer. “Because if we hadn’t met, I wouldn’t need to worry about protecting what I love. But without the things I love, what’s the point in living?”
Melissa hums, and I can only look up at the lady on the wall, my heart rate unexpectedly picking up speed. The lady on the boat’s holding a chain from her incarceration. Fuck, did I trap Mads?
Don’t let fear and doubt get in the way.
I look down at my hands as my phone vibrates in my pocket. I know I shouldn’t, but I pull it out to see who it is, desperate for a distraction.
