Page 83 of Fractured

Saint handed me a glass of water, and I ended up chugging almost the whole thing before handing it back to him. It made a small clink against the nightstand when he set it down.

Bracing his elbows on his knees, Atticus leaned forward, his serious gaze pinning me in place. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“What? You’re not trying to tell me I’m not crazy anymore?” I said with a scoff, partly in humor, partly from hurt feelings.

He shook his head one time. “I think you are suffering from something, but I don’t think you’re flat out insane. Look at you now. You’re able to carry on a normal conversation. You’re lucid. What happened this morning was an episode. We just need to figure out what caused it so we can manage it. It’s not the end of the world. People live with mental illness every day.”

People who had mild mental illness. I had… I didn’t know what I had, but given my parents and family history, I didn’t know that it would be safe for me to wander the streets unsupervised. Especially not after this morning.

“Those people don’t have the genetics I do. They’ve been working against me my whole life.” I cast my gaze down to my knees, not able to hold his eye contact any longer. He wasn’t judging me, none of the guys seemed to be. Still, I didn’t like seeing the truth of my mental state in their eyes.

“Listen to what he’s saying,” Kenzo added from his position at the door. At some point, he had taken that step inside the room and now leaned back against the door. “We’re trying to help you, Lilith. We just want you to be safe and happy.”

I smiled ruefully, although there was nothing funny about this situation. “Why? So you can get me better and leave me, knowing that you did everything you could to save me? That way you won’t have a guilty conscience, right? You have to know, I would never blame you for anything that happened to me.”

Saint huffed like I was missing the point. “We aren’t going to leave you. From the beginning, you’ve been upfront about your history. This has just been a bump in the road. That’s all. We can all work together to help you. This doesn’t mean the end of life as you know it.”

Didn’t it?

“I hate that look on your face.” Ambrose walked over to the bed and climbed in on the other side of me. “There is hope, and we’re going to help you find it. Now, the first step is figuring out what kind of help will be the most beneficial.”

“If I knew, I would have been doing it a long time ago.” My shoulders bunched up from an unwanted bout of defensiveness.

“I don’t think that’s true.” Atticus shook his head. “I think you resigned yourself long ago that your life was going to be short, whether by your doing or some unknown outside factor, and you hold people at arm’s length so they don’t feel guilt when you’re gone.”

I pushed back against the headboard. That was true, but how did he know?

“Come on, Lilith.” He gave me a knowing look. “I suffer from a strong phobia. I can relate more than anyone else on how it preys on your mental state. That’s normal, but if you’re going to get past this, you have to accept it first.”

“I—I know that.”

Ambrose squeezed my calf. “Then what do you think you should do? You’ve watched your mom struggle with illness all her life. What do you wish she would have done for herself?”

That was too deep. Too much. Everything was clear in hindsight, but my situation was much different, wasn’t it?

Casting my mind back, I tried to remember when she had her breaks with reality. The immediate and expected rush of fear crashed through me, but I made myself breathe. What could have helped her?

Acknowledging her illness would have helped a lot. To this day, Lauren’s mind was warped, and she thought she was the only sane person and that the world had conspired against her. I guessed I already had that going for me. I could recognize quite easily there was something wrong.

But that clearly wasn’t enough.

I must have been lost in thought for a while, because Kenzo cleared his throat. When I glanced at him, he grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you were still with us.”

Atticus tossed a stray pillow at him, but otherwise, they remained quiet.

Was this their grand plan? To make me take ownership of my own treatment?

There were tons of doubts trying to creep in, but if they were willing to try and help me, I couldn’t spit on their efforts.

Sighing, I rested my head on the headboard and stared at the ceiling. “I guess the first step is taking ownership.”

Their joy was so palpable, it warmed me from the inside out. To keep that feeling a little longer, I continued, “I can also come clean with Harper. She’s been my therapist for so long, but I never really did everything I could have to ensure I was healthy. I held back things. About my past, about how I felt, about you guys. I just wanted to spare her the pain of failure, you know?”

When they didn’t immediately answer, I dipped my head down to see what they were doing. Atticus looked proud, Kenzo encouraging, Ambrose somber, and Saint understanding.

“That’s what she does for a living,” Saint tightened his hold until I was snug against his side. “She’s a trained professional. If there’s one thing Harper knows how to deal with, it’s mental issues.”

“Yeah, look at Atticus, her star patient,” Kenzo interjected, and a laugh bubbled up my throat. I felt bad when Atticus cut his eyes at him, clearly miffed.

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