“Why?”
“For telling you what happened to me.”
“No. You did.”
“No you said—”
“I told you, ‘He was there when you arrived.’ Gabe would never say anything about a prognosis unless a patient agrees or I’m direct family.”
“You tricked me,” I groan. “I wasn’t ready to…”
“I’m sorry, but there are options if you want to have children.”
“What if I can’t find a man who’ll be okay with it?”
She clears her throat. “Excuse me, but you have a man, and he loves you very much.”
“He’ll want—”
“You can’t be thinking about your future when you’re still dealing with your past.”
“A line from a self-help book or a fortune cookie?”
Piper laughs. “You can quote me if you ever do a post on your social media.”
“Now that you know about me, why don’t you tell me what happened to you?” She has to give me something more than I had no idea where they took me—and who exactly is they?
“Broken ribs, broken leg, and broken…” She sighs. “It was an experience.”
I want to know what the third thing was, but also, I notice there’s something wrong with her voice. She… “You don’t sound like yourself.”
“I lived through my worst nightmare.”
I recall what one of my therapists told me when I said that maybe what I had gone through wasn’t as bad as what other women have faced. She told me that I can’t compare traumas. It’s not a competition. However, we all need to support each other.
“But you’re going to therapy?” If her mom convinced me to do it, I’m sure she’ll do the same with her daughter.
“Sure.”
“You sound defeated.”
“It’s only been a few days since I came back,” she says, as if it’s unimportant.
“Why did I think you wouldn’t be back until it was safe?”
She laughs. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in my life. Nothing is safe. I could die tomorrow while taking a shower.”
Piper sounds different. Sad, depressed. Like someone who lost the will to live.
“Archer wouldn’t like to know you’re—”
“Archer is fucking dead. He’s not coming back.” I’ve never heard her sound so angry before.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing really,” she whispers. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I intended to see what I could do for my favorite friend.”
Friend? Not sister? Something is off, and this may be exactly how I sound to everyone around me. They just learned to deal with me. “But you don’t have it in you to help yourself or me, do you?”
“It’ll get better.”
“Does it?”
“It has to, because if not, what’s the point of living?”
“I keep asking myself the same thing.”
“Sorry for not being there when you needed me.”
“You’re back.”
“I am, and I promise to do better,” she assures me, almost sounding like the Piper from before the attack. “If you need to talk, I’m your person.”
“What about you? Who is there for you?”
“I always land on my feet.”
“I thought you said you have a broken leg,” I joke.
“The cast should come off in a couple of weeks.”
“The ribs?”
“I’m not concerned about them. Broken bones heal easily, but not broken souls.”
“You should come to the center,” I suggest.
“Call me if you need me,” she whispers before hanging up.
I check my phone and quiet time is almost over. Before I leave my room, I send an email to Seth.
To: SI Brad
From: Phillis
Subject: Piper
She’s back home but she sounds like something broke her.
If you can reach out to your family, let them know that she needs more help than she wants to admit.
Let’s talk soon,
Teddy
PS I hope you’re having fun with the cows and not on a dangerous mission.
Chapter Fourteen
Teddy
While growing up, I always believed there were monsters under my bed.
Dad would search my entire room several times to show me it was safe to sleep. He’d call my older brothers to verify he was correct. King and Myles played along. Sometimes even Burke and Zach would join on the expedition. If by any chance Dad and the older boys were out for the weekend, Archer would sleep on the floor—protecting me.
It wasn’t until I was ten that I grew out of that stage.
Twenty years later, the fear is back. I’m afraid of the monsters inside my head. The demons taunt me every night. They tease me with memories that are impossible to forget.
Whoever said this center would help me is wrong.
Lately, it’s been harder and harder to push through the terror and the pain. Anxiety cloaks my body, burying me deeper into the darkness of despair. Awful thoughts burst into my brain, dragging me to hell.
Every night is bad. Yesterday was the worst. I ended up on the floor, grabbing my knees to my chest and crying. Thoughts bounced around my head until I couldn’t see anything. All was black, and I faded out.
When I woke up, I was on the floor, drenched in tears. I don’t remember what happened at all and that scares me too.
My case manager took me to the medical facilities. They didn’t find anything wrong with me. However, the doctor believed my anxiety was what made me pass out. Despite my best efforts, I’m not making any progress.
“Have you ever remodeled a room?”
“Several times, including my brother’s kitchen.”
“Was it fast and clean?”
“I tried my best to be efficient. It was messy to pull out the cabinets and old appliances.”
“How did the kitchen look before you hauled them out of the house?”
“Messy.”
“Did you feel like it would be impossible to improve it?”
“Yes, but once everything was out, we were able to—”
She lifts her pen. “So, you’re telling me that before you had a gorgeous state-of-the-art kitchen, it looked worse than before?”
“Isn’t that how every remodel goes?”
She smiles. “Exactly. This isn’t something you can just erase. There’s no special whiteout to delete the painful memories. You can’t custom order a new refrigerator to replace the old one.”
“Then I keep the broken parts?”
She shakes her head. “We find them and glue them together. They won’t look the same, but they’ll be built by you—with love.”
“This is too much to take. I doubt I can manage it.”
“On your own, it is hard and overwhelming, but if you lean on everyone who loves you, it might get easier. One task at a time.”
I remember what Seth told me, one breath, one hour, one day.
The buzzer announces my time is over. I rise from my seat, immediately wanting to leave.