Page 15 of Whenever You Call

“I know,” Logan said softly, his voice full of understanding, and I looked at him in confusion. “I know it’s hard for you to think about going back there after everything you’ve been through.”

“Then, don’t take me. I’ll get over this in a minute. It’s just another one of those panic attacks you told me about. I can handle it. Iwillhandle it. I just need to get used to looking for the signs or… something. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know isn’t good enough. You need help with these, Hannah. Shock is a response to trauma, and after seeing what you’ve just seen—”

“Logan, if you take me to the hospital, the press will find out, and I’ll be splashed across every website and newspaper you can imagine, probably with a headline declaring how unfit I am to be a mother now Cole’s…” I swallowed hard, not needing to finish.

Logan looked at me with an intensity that made me believe he was looking for something he had no hope of finding. My resilience had deserted me in my greatest hour of need again like the traitorous bastard it had become.

“Please,” I begged quietly. “Don’t insist on saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

He eyed me skeptically. “How many have you had since that day in the parking lot?”

“None.”

He raised a brow and waited.

“Fine, a couple, but only really mild ones. Usually, when I’m in bed alone at night, and they’ve never been anything like this.” The admission of being lonely at night slipped free like a slimy eel, and I hated that he’d heard it. “But I don’t need the hospital. I don’t need to waste anyone else’s time. I just need to go home.”

“What you need is to find a way to deal with them at the root before they’re allowed to grow each time.”

“No shit,” I said with a huff of humorless laughter. “Any ideas how I can do that, Mr. Lifesaver?”

He seemed to flinch at the name I gave him, and I opened my mouth to apologize for making him feel uncomfortable, but he cut me off before I could speak a word of it.

“You have to start by allowing people to help you,” he said.

“No, thanks. It’s embarrassing enough knowing that you, a total stranger, know about this.”

“Your mental health isn’t an embarrassment, Hannah. Especially not when it’s affecting you physically.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do it, Logan. I can’t talk to anyone else about it. I can’t let any more people in.”

“It’ll only get worse if you don’t.”

“It won’t. I’ll find a way.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” I said, out of ideas before even one had come to life. “I don’t suppose you offer therapy on the side, do you? You have a trustworthy face,” I asked teasingly. “Scrap that idea, though. I think your job is hard enough as it is without having to deal with someone as neurotic as me.”

“You should stop talking about yourself like that,” he said carefully, making my pale cheeks blush for the first time. “And if you needed someone to talk to, then yeah, I’d do it.”

The two of us stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, neither of us knowing if the other was bluffing or telling the truth, and suddenly the idea of having this man in my life as someone I could reach out to lit a tiny spark of something deep inside of me that lifted me up instead of dragging me down. Something I hadn’t felt in so long.

“Although it would be easier if you let me put you in touch with someone who can help professionally,” he said, breaking me from my thoughts. “A doctor, counselor, someone more qualified—”

“You,” I said with conviction, cutting him off. “Only you. No one else can know about this.”

“Right.” He nodded, swallowing down his own thoughts. “Then, it’s done. Just say the word, and I’m yours.”

Once home,exhausted and ready to fall asleep on my feet, Livia instantly knew what was wrong. She was so much more than a housekeeper to Bella and me. She’d become our best friend. Our family, actually. It was because of that family instinct that she’d insisted on taking Bella out to catch a movie straight after school to give me more alone time to rest.

I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t. Not when I had someone on their way to see me. A stranger I knew nothing about that I’d stupidly invited into my home like a prized idiot after telling him that I did, in fact, need his help…

And I needed it today.

I couldn’t go on like this.

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