Page 61 of A Second Chance

“You were doing your best to get me well. It wasn’t your fault I spiraled.”

“I didn’t have the right to be angry with you. You didn’t hurt me, your illness did.”

“Are you human?” He could take her unwavering support at face value, but in reality, she had to have been livid with him.

“What?”

“Anger is a human emotion. It exists regardless of its rights. Stuffing it down and pretending it doesn’t isn’t good for you in the long term.”

She stopped pacing and stared at him. “I see someone paid attention at the psychologist’s office.”

Jason remained silent, staring at her. Silence, a technique the shrink used on him, to get him talking. Yeah, he’d paid attention and knew if Autumn didn’t deal with her emotions about what happened it’d eventually come out in some other way at a random time. He didn’t want that for her.

“I’ve always known you wouldn’t have done such a thing in your right mind.”

“But I wasn’t, and I did.”

“Stop,” she sighed. “I don’t want to do this.”

“The reality is that you had him early, breach, and nearly died because of me.”

“Placental abruptions just happen,” she whispered.

“The timing wasn’t a coincidence.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I can put two and two together.”

“Fine,” she said, facing him from the other side of the coffee table. “I was mad… I was mad you went into the military. It upset me you kept going on tours of duty long after you had the choice to get out. The brilliant electrical engineer who kept going into war zones and risking his life when he could have a cushy job here; one didn’t involve the possibility of losing life and limb.” She paused, dragging a finger under one eye. “But I never thought you’d come home a shell of a person. And I’m angry that stupid-ass war has taken such a toll. Your body was home, but you weren’t, and Dan deployed back over there and I was alone and pregnant…and terrified.”

Jason stood, rounded the table between them and wrapped his arms around his sister. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” She sobbed into his shirt.

“Of course, I had my moments of being angry at what happened,” she said without looking up. “But taking it out on you wouldn’t help anything.”

“It’d help you.”

“Maybe you should be a shrink now.”

“Oh god, no,” he said. “Listening to people like me whine on and on.” He almost joked that it would make him put a gun to his head. But that wouldn’t go over with Autumn, on that fateful day she’d been talking a gun out of his hands.

Autumn laughed. “I think you’d make a good shrink.”

“I’m better with electricity… Are we good?”

“You’re the one that made me admit old buried feelings. So, are you satisfied that I’m properly dealing with my emotions?”

“I’d recommend therapy,” he said with a smile. Autumn smacked his shoulder.

“Talk to Gwen.” He groaned and she put up a hand. “You like her, and don’t try to deny it. She’s obviously gotten past you not remembering ya’ll slept together, so she knows about the TBI. Be honest.”

“And if she walks?”

“Better to know now, right?”

“Or we can end it now, and save everyone the drama.”

Autumn stared at him for a beat. “It’s your life. Only you can answer that. But I’m going to suggest to stop being an idiot and let yourself be happy.”

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