Page 79 of Shattering

No air of menace. No cruel smirk. Just quiet understanding.

"So," Dr. Sloan began, pen in hand. "Where do you want to start?"

Gray exhaled slowly. "I suppose... the beginning."

The words came reluctantly at first, but soon, the floodgates cracked open.

He spoke about his childhood.

The fear.

The bruises hidden under clothes.

The way his mother would shield him, her body between him and David's fists. How Finn had been just as bad—maybe worse.

How the entire house had been a cage.

Dr. Sloan nodded. "When you think about them—David and Finn—what emotions come up?"

Gray clenched his jaw. His stomach turned.

Anger.

Fear.

A sickening kind of disgust that sat in his chest like a weight, pressing down, filling every empty space.

"They're both dead," he muttered. "One from drinkin' himself into an early grave, the other from cancer." His lips curled. "An' I still feel like they're watchin' me.That I'll never be free of 'em."

Dr. Sloan scribbled something down. "Do you believe that?"

Gray hesitated.

Then, quietly, "Some days... yeah."

Dr. Sloan's voice was calm, measured. "And what do you think they would say to you now, if they were here?"

Gray barked out a humourless laugh. "That I was nothin'. That I was weak. That I'd never measure up to 'em." His hands curled into fists. "An' maybe that's the one thing they'd be right about."

Dr. Sloan looked at him steadily. "Have you ever been afraid that you'd turn into them?"

Gray's throat tightened.

His fingers curled harder against his knees, knuckles white.

The answer sat on his tongue like acid.

But still, it came.

Yes.

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Gray and Cadi had made a promise—to have at least one meal together each day.

Cadi talked about her clinic, her patients, small things about her day that made her feel like herself again.

Tomos had returned to normal, running around the house like a storm of energy, dragging his blanket behind him, yelling about Lightning McQueen and rugby and all things that mattered in his small world.

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