Page 43 of The Truth in My Lies (Secrets of Suburbi 1)

He meant a dress. Like the gawkers wore. I would never be one of them. He couldn’t mold me into something I wasn’t meant to be.

“We’re leaving in ten minutes,” he added when I didn’t move. “And if you say one more word, I’ll make that phone call and we can put this conversation on hold for a few months.” He dumped my birth control pills in the trashcan.

He was trying to fire me up. He wanted to send me away again. But the joke was on him. I didn’t need those pills anymore. The shot I had gotten would prevent anything with his genes from growing inside of me.

I stood up, letting the ice fall from my ankle. He could go to hell. I’d tell my psychologist everything. He’d be in jail before dinner. He was fucking done. I was done holding onto his secrets. I was done protecting my past. Done. I didn’t care what happened to me. It was time to end him.

Chapter 22

My hands were fidgety. This woman brought out the worst in me. Our sessions usually ending in one of two ways. The first was with me screaming and getting kicked out. She pried and pried. The second was I just refused to talk to her about anything and she poked and prodded until our time was up. My life wasn’t her business. The only reason I came here was to appease my husband. I didn’t need a shrink to tell me about my problems when they were so abundantly clear. And I definitely didn’t need to rehash the past. It belonged buried.

“Please take a seat,” Dr. Nash said.

I sat down, eager to be able to hide my hands. I placed them between my thighs. She’d pounce on the movement and try to force more medicine down my throat. This whole session would be focused on a nervous tick when I needed it to be focused on my confession. It was time. I had the evidence I needed. This had to work. “I need to tell you something.”

“What made you miss your appointment earlier this week, Adeline?”

She never listened to me. She had so many questions, but never cared about my answers. Today she needed to care. “I didn’t think I needed to come anymore. I was feeling better. I’ve been great actually. Really great.”

“Better? Describe what that means to you.” She held her pen in her hand, ready to analyze me.

I didn’t have time for this. “I need to tell you something. I’m in danger. My husband…”

“Your husband told me that you went walking today and lost track of the time. You were wandering around in the woods for hours. How were you feeling then? Great? I feel like you must have been scared. Your hands are still shaking.”

I shook my head, pressing my thighs together to further hide my hands. Stop shaking. “That was a lie. I wasn’t walking. And that isn’t what I need to talk about. My husband…”

“He’s very concerned about you. I understand that you haven’t been taking your medicine. And I have to be honest with you Adeline, I’m concerned too.”

“Dr. Nash, please listen to me. I’m in terrible danger.”

“Your psychosis flares up when you abruptly stop your prescriptions. We’ve talked about this numerous times. And if you ever were to go off your meds, we’d need to wean you off slowly. Stopping like this wasn’t the right way. And in my opinion, you shouldn’t be stopping at all. This medicine makes you better. It’s been working so well. You’ve been happy.”

Happy? Was she high? And we had never talked about this before. Stopping my prescriptions had never been an option. Or I would have stopped ages ago. Every time I came here I seemed to get more and more pills, never less. “They’ve been numbing me. I’ve been having trouble remembering.”

She leaned forward in her seat. “Remembering what?”

I hated that I was giving her what she wanted. “Remembering that I have evidence.” I shook my head, trying to push aside the doubt on her face. “A whole box of it. It’s under my bed.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “It’s what you always say. But the pills don’t numb you. They help control your outbursts. And your rage.”

I don’t fucking have rage! I bit the inside of my lip. I didn’t. And why was she focused on that one thing? Didn’t she hear me? “The evidence is…”

She held up her hand to stop me. “I know. It’s under your bed. I’m doing my best to help you move on. But you don’t want to talk about that night. How do you want me to help you if you won’t talk about it.”

“It doesn’t matter!” It felt like I was choking on the air around me. Slowly suffocating in Dr. Nash’s stupid office.

“It does matter, Adeline. Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t! What’s done is done.” Why? Why couldn’t she move on? I had. “I need your help now. I don’t need to talk about the past. He’s hurting me now.”

She jotted something down in her notebook. “Who’s hurting you?”

“My husband. He’s been abusing me. Mentally and physically.”

She sighed. “Adeline.” She said my name like I was a child. “We’ve talked about this too. You know that…”

“We haven’t talked about this!”

---