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She wouldn’t have gone out there willingly, would she?
“Veronica?”
He found her sitting on the deck chair with Alfie on her lap, staring out over the restless Pacific. Her eyes were closed and her fingers were buried in Alfie’s fur. Instead of wine, she had a glass of water on the table beside her.
“What are you doing out here?” Connelly settled into the seat beside her. Rebel padded over, still dragging the towel, and dropped it at her feet before resting her head on Veronica’s knee.
A smile flitted over her mouth, but she still didn’t open her eyes. “I challenged myself to sit out here for ten minutes.”
“How long has it been?”
“Not long enough.”
He watched her. The longer she sat there, the more she relaxed, the easier her breathing. “I think you’ll make it.”
Finally, she exhaled and opened her eyes. “I was scared today.”
He wanted to reach for her, to squeeze her hand, but stayed still. “I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“But I didn’t freeze. I didn’t let the fear win.”
A silence settled between them, only to be broken by the lapping of the waves and the distant cries of seagulls. Connelly took a deep breath, tasting the salt in the air.
“I’m tired of letting fear win, Conn.”
“Then don’t.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“You did it today.”
“That was different. That was a tangible threat I had to deal with. But the daily fear? The fear that keeps me locked in the house? It’s not tangible. It’s not logical. I know it’s not, but knowing that doesn’t stop it.” Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes and she shook her head hard as if to fling them away. “If I could just decide to stop being scared, don’t you think I would’ve done it by now? I’m exhausted. I don’t even know myself anymore. If I could’ve woken up one day and just decided to be normal again, I would have done it ages ago.”
“Normal’s overrated.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. Or, if she did, she ignored him. “It’s not a voluntary reaction. It’s not controllable. I walk outside and every nerve in my body screams for me to run back inside, to lock the doors, to hide. I don’t know why. I don’t know how to stop it.”
Connelly studied her profile in the fading light, taking note of the lines of exhaustion etched into her face. The Veronica he knew was a fighter; she had always been a fighter. But now, that fight seemed to have ebbed away, leaving only a hollowed-out husk of the woman she once was.
“But you’re sitting outside now,” he pointed out.
Her arms tightened around Alfie. The dog licked her cheek before burrowing under her chin. “It’s taking everything I have to stay put and not run inside and drown myself in that bottle of wine.”
So the fight hadn’t completely disappeared from her, after all. “That’s still a victory. And you faced down a killer today. Most normal people wouldn’t have been able to do that. Another victory. A huge one. You can conquer this.”
“How?”
“You could start by talking to Rylan Cross.”
“No.”
“Or go back to group therapy. The guys there miss you.”
She turned toward him, her eyes huge and full of a desperation he had never seen before. The sight sent a pang of guilt through him.
“You think I can just go back? Walk into that room full of men and just... trust them?”
“Yes, because they’re your friends.”
