Page 6 of Finding Limits

I just see the pity on Josie’s face whenever she walks through the door now. She spends most of the time she’s here on the porch speaking to her friends on the phone but constantly checks on me with that same sad smile that tells me how grateful she is not to be me.

Times like this I wish I was better at the whole conversation thing. I’m confused by what happened this morning. Making breakfast is my job, and like all the chores I do around here, I do it to be useful and show my appreciation. If Mitch starts to take that away from me I don’t know what my purpose would be.

Every day I’m starting to feel a little stronger physically, the portion sizes of food I can manage get larger and I’ve already grown out of the clothes Jimmer sent me here with. The clothes Josie bought for me a few weeks ago fit much nicer and I feel better when I look in the mirror and see my hair growing back.

It’s nowhere near as long as it used to be, but I can braid it now. Braiding it reminds me of Moma and how she used to be when Dad wasn’t around. She’d hum to herself while she did mine and Addison’s hair. It’s a happy memory and one of very few I have with her. It also makes me think about Addison, my beautiful, big sister who I adored. The vision of her is clouded now, darkened by his sinister, cruel eyes. I remember how they used to come alive when he’d serve me one of her punishments.

“Everleigh?” Samantha, my therapist, lets herself in and I abandon the potatoes I’m peeling for dinner, moving to join her in the living area.

“I’m sorry I’m late. My little boy’s sick, I had to arrange child care.”

Josie knocks on the window from outside, waving at me with the phone still attached to her ear as she leaves. I nod gratefully, knowing that coming out here every day to babysit me must be a burden to her.

“How are you, Everleigh?” I focus my attention on Samantha when she asks, and take a seat on the couch beside her.

I take a breath and prepare myself for the attempts she’ll make to claw inside my head and stir up all the misery inside it.

“Did you write anymore in that journal I gave you?” she asks.

I shake my head, knowing my answer will disappoint her. I don’t want to go back there and let those thoughts loose. I don’t want them to follow me here. This place is fresh and new. I’m safe here, and I know that because Mitch promised me. I’d much rather spend my evenings listening to him strum his guitar, or watching the way he cleans his rifles than write down my painful memories.

“That's fine. How about the letter your sister sent? Have you had the chance to read it?”

I shake my head at that too, feeling guilty for all the hatred I feel toward her. It’s not how I want to feel, it’s something that got planted inside me and was given all the resources to grow. If I could, I’d cut it out and love her the way I used to, but its roots are far too deep and I know that seeing her words on a piece of paper would be a trigger for me.

“That's okay, too. It's a goal we can work toward. It’s very important that you have goals, Everleigh,” she reminds me.

She’s right of course, and each night I set my goal and I fail. All I want is just to get through a night without being dragged back into that bunker. But it doesn’t matter how hard I try, he still manages to summon me in my sleep.

“I’ll try and use the journal.” I make her the same half-hearted promise that I made three days ago and hope she buys it.

“Okay.” She seems to accept it, though I’m sure she’s fully aware that I’m lying.

“Today I want to talk to you about?—”

“Samantha, I’m really tired. I was up a lot last night. I think I should catch up on some sleep.” I fake a yawn, relying on the fact that she constantly tells me how important it is that I make up for the lack of sleep I get at night.

“Everleigh, I know how hard this is, but we have to start somewhere. You can’t heal if you won’t talk about?—”

“I don’t want to talk about it because it feels like a disease, one that if I share will infest you too,” I blurt out angrily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

Samantha nods her head back at me forgivingly.

“I promise that whatever you tell me, I can handle. I’m trained?—”

“I wasn’t. I had no training for what I went through. I thought that everything was right with the world I lived in, that you got chosen by your husband, and that you were taken care of by him. I thought I would be loved and that I’d have beautiful children.” Samantha pulls that same sorry face that Josie greets me with every day and I realize that even trying to explain is hopeless.

“I’d like you to leave now.” I stand up, trying my best to be assertive.

“Okay.” I can see how disappointed she is, and I feel guilty for wasting her time but I can’t deal with this today. Not while I’m worrying about what happened with Mitch this morning. “I can’t force you to do anything. I wouldn’t, even if I could. That's not how therapy works, but I can tell you that the only way to get better is to let those memories and those thoughts free from your mind. Speak to someone, write them down, head outside, and scream it out to the mountains, but don’t keep it inside. If you do, you're only letting that disease eat away at you.” She smiles as she picks up her bag, heads for the door, and leaves.

I stare around the empty cabin as I hear her car pull away, and instead of messaging Josie and asking her to come back, I decide to brave being alone.

I look at the chair that Mitch sits in to eat the meals I cook for him and smile fondly when I think of the enjoyment he gets from eating them. It’s a really good feeling making someone happy and I wish there was more I could do for him. He never talks about it, but I’m fully aware that his life has changed because of me. He used to live on the ranch with all the other cowboys that work for the Carsons, no doubt it was much more fun there than it is here. Me being here, and relying on that promise he made me the night I came, has confined him to this cabin with just me and my nightmares.

Something happened between us the night his nephew died, he came home sad and covered in blood, and right from the second he walked through the door, I could see he needed somebody. The strong, sometimes grumpy, man that I’d come to know looked vulnerable. Maybe that's why when he touched his hand to my cheek I didn’t flinch away. I allowed his fingertips to linger on my skin and ever since, I’ve thought about letting them do it again. Sometimes, when I wake from one of my dreams, I imagine being wrapped up in those big, strong arms of his. They look as if they could hold off the whole world.

He hasn’t attempted to touch me again and I know why. During my first few weeks here he looked so hurt when I flinched at him. Maybe if he knew what I’d been through he’d understand, but I’m too ashamed to tell him, and something tells me that despite me being an inconvenience, he cares for me. He wouldn’t want to hear the horrors of my past any more than I’d want to tell them.

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