Page 2 of Twisted Salvation
“For what?” he asks again.
“For almost spiraling for no reason.”
“Ah, I doubt it was for no reason,” he says. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to make you?”
“You can certainly try to make me,” I laugh and wipe my eyes. When I put my arm down, he immediately sighs and closes his eyes.
“Myra,” Dominic says gently, opening his eyes to look at me.
“What? What did I do?” I ask as I start to panic again. Instead of talking, he grabs my wrist. “No. Wait. Dominic. Hold on.”
He gives me a look that makes me stop resisting him as he gently pushes the sleeve of my arm up. The blood soaked through the gauze and reached my white shirt. Maybe it was worse than I thought. He takes off the bandage and sighs again when he pulls off the bloody gauze to reveal the cut I made less than an hour ago. “Don’t move,” he says as he stands.
“I’m sorry,” I say as tears roll down my face. I drop my head in shame, and he walks out of the office. I have no idea what he is doing. Maybe he is about to tranquilize me with a shot in the butt so I can be hauled off to a psych ward. Maybe I could find peace there, or maybe it will give me the push I need to finally jump off a bridge.
When Dominic returns, he has a duffel bag. When he sets it on the table in front of the couch and opens it, I realize it’s a first aid kit. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and I need you to be honest with me, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Are you having thoughts of suicide?” he asks as he pulls items out of the bag.
“Not… active thoughts,” I say.
“Explain.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t jump out of the way of a car that runs a red light, but I’m not going to throw myself into traffic,” I explain.
“Okay. Any thoughts of harming anyone else?” he asks.
“No.”
“Any voices, sounds, or visuals that aren’t real or you might suspect aren’t real?”
“You ask me that a lot. No,” I say, and he smiles as he turns his attention to my arm. I love his smile way more than I should. His entire presence brings me peace, really. “Is this the moment where you finally lock me away for being crazy?”
“No, Myra,” he says. “If you were trying to kill yourself, you wouldn’t have come here. I think something set you off, and this is how you chose to cope. I have known for six years that you self-harm, but I don’t think you are a danger to yourself right now.”
“Right now?” I ask.
“Why don’t we start with the reason you were crying?” he asks.
“See… There is a problem with that,” I say.
“Oh?” he asks, glancing up at me. He is cleaning my arm, and I suspect he is about to put butterfly sutures on the cut to close it.
“If I tell you, it’s going to lead to me having to say a lot more, because I know you’ll ask,” I say.
“I think that isn’t the worst idea, considering I am currently tending to a self-inflicted cut on your arm,” he says as he works on my arm.
“Fuck,” I sigh. “Okay… I had a nightmare last night. It was a bad one… Leon woke me up by screaming at me because I woke him with my crying. He told me everyone would be better off if I killed myself like Mom did.”
Dominic stops and looks up at me with an eyebrow raised. “How often does he say that?”
“Every time we fight… Well, he fights. I just cry,” I admit.
“How bad are the fights?” he asks.
“Define bad…” I say slowly. He looks up and narrows his eyes at me, understanding I’m being evasive. “It’s… I feel like you’re going to judge me.”
