A Brutal Betrayal(5)

“I see the world around me, Declan. I know what I’m missing out on. I don’t want that anymore. I have family and friends who experience all that we’ve both discussed, and I think it’s worth it. I want to be romantic. I want to fight with my boyfriend about how unromantic he is. I want to melt into his hand when he touches my cheek instead of waging an internal war as to whether I can even hold his hand. No, forget that. I don’t want it, I need it. I can’t live in this stupid bubble; it isn’t doing me any good. I need out. I need air to breathe. I need to be normal.”

“Then we’ll get you there,” he said with a genuine smile. Not a bad first day, not a bad first session at all.





Chapter 3

Declan was sitting on his couch, his head thrown back against the cushions while loosely holding a glass filled with scotch on top of his thigh. What a day. It was one of the most hectic ones he’d had in quite a while. One patient after another had come in, not that he was complaining. He was helping patients, and the more he helped, the more he felt like he was doing something right. And that was all he really wanted. Sure, making a living would be great, but he had lived in horrible conditions for most of his adult life; he didn’t need fancy things, he didn’t need comfort. He just needed the basics, and scotch. Definitely scotch.

He couldn’t help but thank his lucky stars that Megan had been one of his first patients that day, only to be followed by a busy day, leaving him little time to stop and think. And now, here he was—sitting in his living room, enjoying the quiet moment—and his mind was wandering to her. She was something else. He hadn’t gotten the details of her trauma, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to, but he knew he would have to at some point. As young as she was, he couldn’t imagine how old she was when she was raped. It had to have been awful. Some things never ceased to amaze him, and not in a good way.

Her arguments, her position in the whole relationship matter had been so well thought out, kind of profound actually. Being single and never having a real relationship at twenty-three wasn’t unheard of at all. Heck, it wasn’t uncommon at forty even, but every point he threw at her, she nailed him right back. He had to admit she brought up some ideas he hadn’t even thought of. Why would someone choose to be single at the age of forty? They really were just excuses—they were recently single, not ready to jump into something yet, they hadn’t found the right one, they weren’t the commitment type, etc. Just simple reasons, that was all those were. Even someone who didn’t want to be in a serious relationship generally found companionship with short-lived partners. It was just the way humans were designed. They didn’t like solitude.

However, that wasn’t even her issue. It went deeper, some underlying agenda her mind and body were fighting over when she got near someone who could be break through her walls. And she knew it. Of course, it was the trauma of what she went through. They would just have to work through her issues, figure out just what it was together.

Declan sipped his scotch, allowing the cool, smooth liquid to burn lightly as it flowed down his throat. He focused on that long enough to allow his mind to stray from thoughts of Megan. He thought about his last patient of the day—Kevin, an Army Ranger. A former Ranger, technically. He was suffering from PTSD, and Declan was helping him cope with it. At the end of their last meeting, he had given him an assignment. Kevin was to come back with at least one story from his time spent overseas that was positive. It could have been anything ranging from helping someone to a memory of his fellow Rangers.

Declan smiled as he remembered Kevin’s story. Kevin reminisced about sitting around on a slow day telling jokes, even regaling him with some of them; most were crude, some long, some short. But, the fact that he remembered them said something about the impact of that day, and how much something as simple as hanging with the guys meant to him.

His mind drifted again, this time to his own memories.

“Hey, Briggs, what the fuck are you doing over there? Stop being a pansy ass and get over here,” James called out. James was a big guy, he was fucking huge. If you got into a fight with someone, you’d want him there to back you up, if only just to intimidate the others. But, under his big guy exterior, he was all heart.

“What the fuck do you want, Bear?” Briggs called back. The guys all called James “Bear” since he was, well, huge.

“Come on, how often do we get to shoot the shit? Get over here,” James called back.

“I’m writing to my wife, you jackass.”

“Like I said, stop being a pansy ass.” Briggs just snorted and kept typing away.