Page 71 of Fate Forever and Always

I looked down at my hands and then up at her. “You are always beautiful, Callie.”

She stared at me for a moment, and I could see her eyes getting glassy.

“You are too nice to me, Nick. I look like I’ve been run over and broken into a million pieces. I am surprised you’re not running away from how broken I am.”

I smirked, still trying to keep from crying, and looked down at my hands again. “I will always love every broken piece of you.” I looked up at her. My gaze took on a more serious look as I went to grab her hand, but I hesitated. She saw it and grabbed my hand. My body relaxed on contact. “I will spend every day helping glue you back together for the rest of my life if I have to,” I paused, “Forever and always.”

Chapter thirty

Callie

Mid-November

The next few weeks passed without much drama. Jake called once after I got out of the hospital, and I told him to stop contacting me. So far he’s listened. Honestly, it felt weird not hearing from him. Even though I only answered those few times over the almost five hundred times he called, it was still weird not to talk to him.

It was almost Thanksgiving. Soon we would be getting together with our friends and my mom. I couldn’t wait to be surrounded by all of my favorite people. We hadn’t seen much of each other lately since I basically just worked, went to therapy, and then came back home. I was afraid to go out of the house because I feared seeing Jake or other people I knew and having another flashback. My mom had pretty much covered my shifts at the restaurant, but Aubrey took anything she couldn’t cover if she wasn't busy.

Nick and I had some intimate moments that didn’t involve sex, mostly holding hands or a fleeting touch above our clothing, because it was still hard to be touched without flinching, butit seemed to be getting better over time. I hadn’t slept in bed with him since coming back from the hospital because I was still having nightmares and waking up every night. He said he didn’t care and came in whenever he heard me screaming. Most nights he slept in the chair in my room after I fell back to sleep. I really didn’t deserve him.

Most of my days were filled with my piano lessons. A few days a week, I also had my standing appointments to see my therapist. I was so glad my teaching schedule wasn’t affected too much, and I still got to see all the little ones. We still had a ton of time until the May concert, but so much was left to be done.

I sat in my therapist's office, waiting for her to come in. She was just doing some paperwork with her previous client in the foyer. I was wringing my hands together in my lap.

Though I had been here quite a few times over the past month, it still felt weird every time I walked in. The room was very cold-looking. It was a dark tan, almost brown color with a wall full of all of her framed degrees from school and a few small sculptures that I still hadn’t figured out what they were supposed to be. There was a weird stone lion in the corner. I swore the eyes followed me when I walked into the room. The smell was surprisingly pleasant. It smelled like we were back on a tropical island. She had one of those air fresheners that sent a puff of fragrance out every so often. That was probably my favorite part about being there.

“Sorry about that, Callie.” She smiled and sat across from me in one of the high-back chairs. Unlike the surroundings, my therapist was bright and bubbly. She wore thick-rimmed, brightly colored glasses and always had on some variation of an intricate dress. She looked more like an art teacher than atherapist to me, but who was I to judge? Lately, I have looked like a sloth who has forgotten how to coordinate colors because all I wear is my comfy sweats.

“So, what is new since your last session? Any current nightmares?”

“Only one this time,” I said, embarrassed.

“That is great, Callie. That makes,” she looked down at her papers. “Only three this week. That’s an improvement from the five last week.”

“Yeah. I am actually feeling a lot better. I even let Nick hold me while I came out of one of the nightmares. He has been helping me so much.”

“That is great. Have you thought any more about bringing him in to do a two-on-one session with us? Or are you still not ready?”

My heart raced, and my skin became clammy at the thought of him attending a session with me.

“I don’t think he should have to deal with this. He deals with it enough at home. Know what I mean?”

“I do.” She bit the tip of her pen while she stared at me for a second. She wrote something down and looked back up at me. “Why don’t we try to think of it as him coming to help? It’s basically him gaining the tools he needs to learn to best help you deal with them. Would that change your mind at all?”

“He probably won’t want to come,” I said curtly.

She leaned in, put her papers onto the table between us, and clasped her hands in her lap. “Callie, if you are not ready, that is okay. But let's not assume we know how Nick feels without asking him. It sounds like he really wants to help you through this.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I will think it over. What exactly would be involved?”

“Well, he can come to your next session, or you can have him come in on his own, and he can ask any questions he may have.”

I nodded my head. “Okay. I will ask.”

“That is great, Callie. This will be beneficial for you both. I promise.”

“How do I bring up being intimate again? I know I'm not ready for sex yet. Or maybe I am, but I want him to touch me without clothes on, and I think he's scared to.”

She smiled, picked up her papers, and wrote something down. “Callie, that is amazing. Nick sounds like he’s completely understanding. I think if you took the initiative and showed him what you wanted, he would follow your lead and do as much or as little as you wanted him to.”

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