Snared(70)

“I think his father should be there when he’s told.” Dr. Viola voiced his opinion. Natalie nodded, obviously in agreement. I needed to be there? What if he didn’t want me to be his father? After all, I’d freaked out in front of him. God, what if he knew I tried to kill myself? What did that teach him?

“I need to get out of here,” I said. I remembered being nine years old and confused. While I hadn’t been in foster care then, it would’ve been better if I had been. At least then the verbal abuse my mother subjected me to daily would’ve made less of an impact.

“Not yet.” Dr. Viola shook his head.

“Come on! You have me on a ton of meds. I’ll come and do visits daily if you want me to. I need to take care of my . . .”

“Your son.” Natalie reached out and touched my fingers. “Your beautiful, amazing child.”

“A few more days, at the least,” he said. “I’m not comfortable with releasing you yet. You’re making good progress, but what happened was severe, Beau.”

“I know it was.”

“You still don’t remember all the details,” he continued.

“I remember enough to know I freaked my girlfriend the hell out and tried to kill myself. Yet, I’m still standing here.”

“April wants to see you. She’s dying, Beau. I swear she’s lost ten pounds in the last few days, and she doesn’t have it to lose. I don’t think she’s sleeping.” Natalie looked at Dr. Viola. “Can we make an exception and let her see him? Please?”

“No.” My heart broke as the words left my lips. Natalie’s eyes snapped to mine, confusion written on her face. “She doesn’t need to see me.”

“Beau.” Her tone was stern. Dr. Viola was quiet, listening.

“Natalie, I don’t deserve her. Tell her to go home. She might think she cares about me now, but she can move on. She needs to move on. She will find someone who is whole and doesn’t have the baggage of mental issues and a child he never knew about . . .”

“Beau.” Natalie stood, crossing her arms in front of her chest. I knew that look, but she wasn’t going to convince me this time. “Stop it. April . . . loves you.”

I gasped. There was no way. April didn’t love me. Not after what I did. She couldn’t. “Don’t say that, Natalie.”

“She does, Beau. She’d probably kill me for saying that because this is not how it’s supposed to go, but you need to get your head out of your ass. Don’t push her away because you think you don’t deserve this. You deserve it more than anyone I know. Your whole life, you’ve been waiting for someone to validate you and make you feel like you were worthy. April does that for you. You are a different person around her, Beau, and you know it.” She stopped, wiping a tear from her eye as she glanced over at Dr. Viola. “Help me.”

Dr. Viola cleared his throat. “Why do you want April to go, Beau? Is it because you don’t care for her and don’t want to be with her?”

I closed my eyes, thinking about the time I’d spent with April. I remembered the first night we met and me being so intimidated and tongue-tied, all the way to the other day when we’d hugged, kissed, and made love like we were meant for each other. The way she looked at me . . . it was like nothing I’d ever felt before.

But then Robbie’s face took her place, and I saw him, throwing chairs and screaming. I saw his sad face while he clutched the picture of his mother and then his happy face while we’d been driving go-karts.

I’d never been more confused in my life. “I care about her, but that doesn’t mean I should be with her.”

“Don’t you think you should let her make that decision?” Dr. Viola asked.

Natalie nodded. Of course she agreed with him.

“You’re scared, Beau. That’s understandable. Before April, you had your life contained in this little box you could control. Once you met her, your life was turned upside down, and the contents of your box were spilled, but you liked it. You started to think maybe you could open yourself up to someone again. But now Robbie has smashed your comfort into smithereens, and you think the only way to put it back together again is to stuff yourself back inside the box where you started.”

I stared at Dr. Viola, hating that the damn shrink was right. Every fucking word he said was true, and it made me want to scream.

“Let’s let him rest,” he said to Natalie. “You can come back later.”

“Can I bring April?”

Dr. Viola sat quietly for a moment. “Only if Beau says he wants her here.”