Page 66 of Saving Shepperd

“Look, Law. I don’t want you to feel like you have to account for every minute of your day. I don’t want to bethatgirl, you know? Is it a bit concerning that you met with my brother-in-law? I can’t lie and say it’s not. But only tell me about the conversation if you want to. I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

That all came at me in one long run-on sentence. I could tell she was trying to be mature and brave about the situation, but it wasn’t her natural inclination.

“I appreciate you saying all of that. I just didn’t want to feel like I did something behind your back, knowing you don’t get along with your sister, aka his wife.”

“Well, that’s exactly what you did. But like I said, you don’t have to account to me how you spend your time.”

“But I want to be respectful, Shepperd. I don’t want you to feel betrayed. Ever.”

“Betrayed? What the hell did the two of you talk about that the wordbetrayedwould even pop into your head? God, the more you talk right now, the more concerned I’m feeling. Maybe we should just call it here.” She stood abruptly from the lounge chair.

I intercepted her escape and wrapped my arms around her. I wanted her to calm down so she would just listen. I was fucking this up by tiptoeing around the issue even though I had been very careful not to expose any details that she wouldn’t want her family to know.

“There’s nothing to be concerned about, baby. We just talked about what happened yesterday. I thought he might be a good person to shed some light on what we’re dealing with, you know?”

She planted her fists on her hips and glared at me. “And what exactly are we dealing with, Law?”

“I shouldn’t have said it like that. That came out wrong,” I tried to amend, but she was already madder than a nest of hornets. “Please,” I begged and tried to tug her hands away from her hips and hold them in mine.

She was having none of the touchy-feely stuff, and I didn’t blame her. She yanked her hands from mine and put some distance between us.

I sank back down on the end of the lounge chair and buried my face in my hands. This was turning into a train wreck, and we’d barely gotten into the heart of the conversation.

“Oh, don’t look so defeated,” she bit.

“I just don’t want to screw this up. Pissing you off was the last thing I wanted.”

“Well, I can’t imagine what you did want, going behind my back to have a little pow-wow with my family. What next, Law? You’ll be on their side and ship me off to rehab?”

Okay, this was getting out of hand. I shot to my feet and crowded into her personal space. “That’s not fair, and you know it,” I told her in a low voice. My neighbors didn’t need to hear every word between us.

I took a deep breath, hoping to calm down before trying one more time to get her to actually hear what I was saying instead of letting her insecurities run away with the conversation.

“I’m worried about you. That experience yesterday scared the shit out of me, and if there’s something I can do to help you never go through something like that again, then I want to do it. I’m just so far outside my wheelhouse on all of this. So I reached out to someone I thought might be able to shed some light on the topic. Why is that such a bad thing?”

Why was she freaking out? When I explained my thought process, it sounded perfectly reasonable.

“Because no matter what you said to him, what you told him, it will all get back to my sister. And then the rest of my family. Do you really not see that?” she asked, her voice even louder than before.

“Please calm down,” I said. “The entire neighborhood doesn’t need to hear our disagreement.”

As her eyes bulged out of her head, I knew that was the wrong choice of words. Again.

Damn it. I couldn’t win here.

“So appearances are more important than my feelings? You’re just like my parents!”

“No. That’s not true at all. And stop putting words in my mouth. The only motivation behind the get-together was wanting to understand your PTSD better. Do you not realize how much I care about you? How watching that episode yesterday turned my heart inside out, Shepperd? I want to help you. However I can…I just want to help.”

“My PTSD? What are you talking about?”

We stared at each other for a while before either one of us said anything else. The tears in her big blue eyes gutted me. I didn’t want to hurt her. At all. Everything I was afraid of happening was happening. No matter what I said, she was masterfully twisting around to align with her perception.

What a clusterfuck.

“Shepperd,” I began, but she held her flat hand up to my face.

“Just stop. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.Especiallyafter everything yesterday.” Her tone was acidic and nasty, and I didn’t particularly care to be spoken to that way. I didn’t do anything wrong.

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