Page 3 of Spring Rains

Our new home.

It needed a breath of life, a new beginning, but with the apartment above, this could be what we needed. The U-Haul wouldn’t be here until Thursday, so, in the meantime, we were booked into Ridge Hotel, which, if I remembered right, had barely more than eight rooms on a good day. Plenty of time to roll my sleeves up and get the apartment in shape for Fox and me. Time to get the electricity back on because this place needed to be loved again. And maybe, just maybe, Fox and I would be the ones to bring it back to life.

And fix us in the process.

ChapterTwo

Chris

Sitting facinga counselor had been a regular thing for me over the past decade and a half. The scents, the furniture, the diplomas on the wall, the warmth and security—they evoked a sense of déjà vu, because it didn’t matter what counselor I saw; everything else was the same. The sameness was supposed to make patients feel calm, but I didn’t feel relaxed. Instead, I sat across from Doctor Susan Trent. I’d randomly picked her from a list of recommended therapists and she looked at me with the same understanding gaze as every other person who had seen me. Her hands rested in her lap, she wore a gentle smile, and she chose not to point out that I was tapping the armrest.

Still, today felt different because I hadn’t been ordered to see a counselor after attempting to take my own life—I’d chosen this for myself.

The moment where Laurie had gotten ahead of me and fallen into a well on my brother-in-law’s property was a nightmare I couldn’t shake. My fucking prosthetic, my inability to help him, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to rescue him. All I’d been able to do was try to hold on, but even then, the rope had been slippery.

Sometimes in my sleep, when I couldn’t stop the fears, the rope unraveled and Laurie dropped into the darkness, and it was those nightmares that had sent me here today. My choice. Not mandated. Just me and my need to get ahold of myself and call a halt to the self-sabotaging.

The sweeping views of the city from the window were nothing but a temporary distraction from the knots in my stomach as I sat facing Susan in my neatest slacks, a button-down, and tie—every inch the professional high school English teacher that I was, waiting for any words of wisdom that would make everything better.

Susan, in her more casual jeans and shirt, kept on smiling, and something about her reminded me of my mother in that caring—I understand—kind of way. The last thing I wanted to be thinking about was my mom, who would hug me to death and worry if she had even the tiniest idea of how much I was struggling. Not to mention there would be a family intervention, and I’d seen that firsthand and didn’t want it for myself.

I knew Susan was waiting for me to get settled and, probably stop staring out of the window. I focused back on her, steadied my breathing, noted her blonde hair—slightly tousled, settled around her shoulders—and the glasses perched on her nose, adding a touch of wisdom to her gaze.

Stay in the moment.

Be present in the moment.

I shifted in my seat.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

I held back a snort of self-derision. Was I comfortable sitting in a room with someone who could dissect my every word and assign meaning to the most random thing? Hell no. But I needed to be here.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

She leaned forward, encouraging, understanding. “So, what brings you to my office today?”

“I don’t know how to explain,” I replied with hesitation, taking a deep breath.

“There’s no rush,” she reassured me, something else I was used to hearing.We don’t need answers straight away, your life has changed, everything is different. Don’t rush into thinking you’ll be okay all the time.

After a deep breath, I began. “So, you have this on the intake form, but basically, I lost my leg below the knee in a car accident when I was nineteen. 2006,” I explained and lifted my pants leg to show her the prosthetic, as if she needed to see it to verify that I was telling the truth. “This is another remnant of that same accident.” I touched my face, gesturing at the scar from my temple to my chin, burns that had never healed as they should and a constant reminder of a desperate moment of terror. “The scars go down my left-hand side as well, but I think it gives me an edge. Makes me look sexy.” I tried to make light of the situation with a smirk, something I’d learned in a hundred counseling sessions way back when.

She smiled along with me, but then waited for more, and boy, did I have more I needed to say.

“I don’t really know why I’m here, except I’ve had therapy after the accident, tons of it, and I know when I’m struggling. I’ve dealt with the physical loss as best I can. I have a job. I love teaching high school English, and I coach baseball, and sometimes football. I have a bunch of really cool student and players who respect me.” I sighed. “But now, I feel I’m in a holding pattern. Frozen. I couldn’t… help this kid who could have died.”

“One of your pupils?”

“No, my brother-in-law’s sister’s kid. Micah married my brother, but it’s Micah’s sister’s kid, Laurie…”

“A child who means something to you.”

“Yeah, Laurie is a good kid, and he’s like a nephew, and… it all went wrong, and now, I’m teetering on the edge of all this self-pity that I don’t want or need. Only, I canseethat I’m allowing myself to wallow in it, and that isn’t good. And that is why I’m here.”

She inclined her head as if she understood. “Can you explain what happened with Laurie?”

I blinked at her, the image of Laurie clinging to a wall, pleading with me to help, when all I could do was lean there, not able to do anything.Useless. Until his uncle, Quinn, stepped in and rescued him.Useless.

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