Page 129 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

“She was right,” I murmur into the thick, soft fur around his neck, burying my nose deeper into it. Grey howls like he’s adding music to my grief. Again, I smile and cry at the same time. Crazy. Lou told me no love in the world could heal me. I think it’s only now that I understand what she meant. I have the boy’s experiences, but too much has broken inside me. No, love alone won’t heal me. I can only do that myself.

Carefully, I detach myself from Grey and stand. Lou would have wanted me to take care of myself, so I’ll do what I should have done a long time ago.

Chapter

Thirty-Four

Dr. India Lee, Psychotherapist, is written in dark green letters on the antique sign next to the door. She’s the only psychologist within a hundred miles and I’m lucky her office is four blocks from me. I knock the snow off my winter boots and ring the bell.

Not a second later, the door swings open. “I saw you coming.” The woman in front of me is no taller than my belly button. For her to have seen me coming, she must have been standing on a chair by the window. Calmly, she stretches out her hand to me, very far up. “I’m Dr. Lee.”

I awkwardly grab her fingers and shake them. “Brendan Connor.” She has a firm handshake, which I didn’t expect given her size.

She smiles as she invites me in, and with a sinking feeling, I follow her into a lime-green-painted room. By the window is a desk with a chaotic hodgepodge of documents with several chairs spread out in front of it and there is a flowered couch in the corner. On the table in front of the sofa are two glasses and a carafe of water, and an incense stick on the windowsill exudes an earthy smell. Cedar.

“Sit wherever you feel comfortable.”

I eye India Lee with a mixture of suspicion and nervousness. She is different from Dr. Watts. Dr. Watts looked like a typical doctor, Dr. Lee, in her wide orange trousers, lambskin slippers, colorful felt jacket, and feather necklace, looks like an aging flower child. Her brown hair curls around round cheeks, and in a weird way, I like her.

I sit in the back corner of the room on the sofa. Without comment, Dr. Lee sinks into her desk chair and turns to me.

“Did you leave your wolf at home?”

I must seem puzzled because she’s laughing.

“It’s a small town, Mr. Connor. Strangers attract attention.”

I bet India Lee also stands out in Faro. That makes her even more likable to me. “I barely left the house.”

She is silent for a moment, studying me carefully. “Is that why you’re here?”

“No. Perhaps…I don’t know.” I slump my shoulders, discouraged. I didn’t say much to her on the phone. Suddenly, it all seems wrong to me. How do I dare tell a total stranger my story? Have I gone insane? “I should leave…”

“Back to your house, to your wolf?”

Back to solitude? She doesn’t say that, but she suspects it, I can tell by the penetrating look she gives me. I was shocked when I peered into the mirror this morning. My cheeks are sunken, eyes dull, skin sallow, almost gray—like Delsin. If I leave now, nothing will change. However, Lou would have liked it, that’s the only reason I’m sitting here.

“Call me Brendan,” I reply, licking dry lips.

“Okay, Brendan. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

“You’re bound by confidentiality,” I state.

She nods without changing her expression.

“You don’t go to the police if your patients tell you things that…made them criminals.”

Relaxed, India Lee folds her hands on her lap. I immediately notice how tense I am sitting on the corner sofa and breathe deeply into my stomach. Like in a fight. I don’t even know why confidentiality is so important to me. A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have given a damn, but now I want to be free. I have to take care of Grey.

“I’ll lose my license if I make public what my patients tell me,” Dr. Lee explains kindly. “Unless you tell me you plan to murder your neighbor, I would have to report that to the police. Imminent danger.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “I don’t mind old Mrs. Campbell,” I try to joke.

India Lee smiles. “What do you want to start with, Brendan?”

I’m glad she’s letting me decide.

“I’ve had… I have flashbacks… But I’m not sure if they’re actually flashbacks.” I’ve since googled the phenomenon. “They last longer than a few seconds. Sometimes even hours, and they don’t start abruptly either, instead, I feel myself drifting off.”

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