Page 23 of Needing to Fall
His brow furrowed as he challenged, “Why not?”
“Do you think I want to hear about his happy life? His wife, kid, and how he’s got this perfect life going on? Do you think that will help me in any way?”
He shrugged. “You never know.”
“I think,” the doctor started, snapping my attention to him, “that before you talk with Drew, you need to find you—the woman you are inside. You may be surprised.” His cryptic words freaked me out.
“I have no idea who I am, doc, and I’m not sure I’ll ever find out,” I said honestly. I hadn’t ever known.
“That is why you need knowledge. It’ll give you power. The power will give you strength. In that strength, you can find you,” Lynx said.
I gaped at him in shock. Who the hell was this guy, and what planet had he beamed down from?
“How? Where do you propose I start on this information quest, oh knowledgeable one?” I asked.
He let out a surprised chuckle then covered it up. “Your mother, of course.”
I wanted to take what he had said as a smart-ass ‘duh,’ but it wasn’t that. He was being totally serious. Deep down, I could feel that he really wanted to help me, which was bizarre.
“You’re in luck. I’m a wiz at finding out information.”
I raised my brow in question, and he gave me a one-armed shrug.
“I wasn’t just killing guys in the Army. I picked up a few things.”
Surely, I had heard him wrong. “You’re telling me you’d help me?”
“As long as you don’t bitch too much,” he quipped, but I knew he was teasing me because his eyes were light-hearted.
I didn’t know what to make of it, but I knew that a favor always granted a favor, at least in my world.
“What do I have to do in return?” I demanded.
“Not a damn thing.”
I sat, my eyes glued to Lynx. “Answer me this.”
It was his turn to talk today, and I wanted to listen. I wanted to know more of why he was here. More to the point, I wanted to know why the hell he had been in here four times. Once would be enough for anyone.
“Why four times?”
He quirked his brow. “In here?”
I nodded as he sat back in his chair, relaxed as can be.
Last night, while I lay in my room, I replayed what I could remember of my time with my mother and father, which let’s be straight, wasn’t much. I remembered my mother’s gangly brown hair and eyes that were always cold. I remembered my father striking me on several occasions; that all kind of blended together. But something that got me, that stuck out in my head, was the sadness behind my mother’s cold eyes. I didn’t dare think it was sadness for me, but I remembered it being there.
I asked for a paper and pencil yet got a paper and crayon, instead. Whatever. It worked. I wrote down everything that popped into my head, even the smallest thing regardless whether I could remember if it was an actual memory or something I had made up in my head over the years. I would have to sort that out later.
I wouldn’t say I felt better falling asleep, but I did feel different and couldn’t put my finger on it.
As much as I wanted to ask Lynx what he thought about it, when we first got in here, the doctor started pulling Lynx into a conversation, and my curiosity had been piqued, so I had my own questions for him.
“The first time was about three months after I got back. My folks are good people, but they didn’t know how to ‘fix’ me. I couldn’t sleep for shit, didn’t get why I couldn’t carry my gun on me at all times, shit like that. It’s so fucking hard to be on your guard and alert twenty-four hours a day for fear that someone is going to come up and attack you and your brothers. Then to come here where it’s not like that is a mind fuck in and of itself. Anyway, my folks checked me in, thinking I could get help for it.” He shrugged noncommittally. “I did some time and got myself out.”
I knew he didn’t seem like the type of man without parents waiting for him, although I had started to wonder about his family.
I cut in. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
