Page 71 of Won't Back Down
“No, I’m not an invalid. I can shower on my own. I’m just… tired.” Which was absurd, really, given how long I’d slept. But whatever had happened last night had clearly taken a lot out of me.
“Okay.” Sawyer kissed me again, a gentle brush of his lips to my cheek. “We’ll all be downstairs.”
“We? Who all is here?”
“Jace is still here. Bree, Gabi, and Daniel stayed the night. They were worried about you.”
Of course they were, because apparently I’d totally lost it in front of all our friends. They’d be wanting explanations, and I didn’t know how I could get out of it. Not without leaning into the idea that I was fragile and couldn’t handle anything else. I’d worked too hard to prove I was stronger. I wouldn’t undermine that simply because I was ashamed of my trauma.
I took my time in the shower, letting the spray wash away the lingering mental fog, along with all traces of sand and salt. Then I dragged on yoga pants and a comfortable T-shirt and made my way down to the kitchen.
“Hey. You’re up.” Bree crossed over and wrapped me in a tight hug. “You doing okay?”
“Better.”
As soon as she stepped back, Jace pulled me in. “Good to see you up and around.”
“Shouldn’t you have left already?” His original plan had involved heading out early this morning.
“I didn’t want to go until I knew you were okay.”
“But won’t you get into trouble if you’re late?”
“I’ve got a buddy, owes me a favor,” Daniel explained. “We’re gonna take him by helo to the airport. That’ll save him the ferry ride and the drive.”
“As long as I’m gone in the next hour, I’m fine.”
“C’mon. Sit. Eat.” Sawyer extracted me from my brother’s hug and nudged me toward the table, passing a huge mug of coffee.
I inhaled deeply, feeling more of my synapses come online with the rich scent of roasted beans. A moment later, he slid a plate with two grilled cheeses in front of me. The sight made me remember that night in the kitchen, and I smiled.
Roy and Keeley stretched out under the table. Everyone chatted easily about nothing much while I worked my way through the first sandwich. Feeling a bit steadier with food, I began pinching off pieces of the second. “I guess I owe y’all an explanation.”
“Yeah.” Gabi dropped into a chair beside me. “You don’t get to scare us all to death and pretend it didn’t happen.”
Daniel lifted his palms. “Hey now, you don’t know me from Adam’s house cat. You don’t owe me nothin’ at all. I can take myself on outside, find somethin’ to get into, and come back ’round for Jace and Gabi later if that suits you better.”
I glanced at my friend. If she trusted him, I supposed I could, too. “No, that’s okay.” I swallowed down the bite of grilled cheese, feeling it stick in my throat. I chased it down with more water and took a deep breath. “For the two years I was off-island, I was institutionalized.”
I kept the explanation as brief as I could, focusing on the sandwich instead of looking at any of their faces. It wasn’t as much as I’d told Sawyer. I didn’t think I could bare my soul to that degree. But it was as much a reason as I could manage for my seemingly irrational behavior.
“It didn’t seem to matter what treatment they tried, I’ve never gotten any more clarity on what happened that night. And any time I’ve come anywhere close to it, I… well, you saw. Usually I can head it off before it gets too bad, but it came on too fast last night.”
“Lot of similarities.” Sawyer’s fingers stroked along the tension in my nape. “Beach bonfire. Some of the same people. Playing with a dog, just like you did back then. Maybe it started to trigger a memory.”
“I…” I tried to reach for last night, but my brain seemed to bounce off it as if I’d hit a rubber wall. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Jace’s jaw was set like granite. “Exactly what kind of treatments were you put through?”
“A lot of medications. Hypnosis. Electroshock therapy. Some other stuff. None of it worked. I still can’t remember.”
Gabi knit her hands together. “I’ll admit this isn’t my area, but none of this sounds right. I did a rotation in psychiatric, and I never saw anything like this. And there was absolutely zero reason they should’ve kept you for that long.”
“I want to do some digging into that hospital and that doctor,” my brother growled.
“To what end?” I didn’t want to drag all of this back up again. I’d made my explanation, and now I wanted it all to go away again.
“Because what I saw last night wasn’t just a normal panic attack. It wasn’t just a PTSD flashback from whatever trauma you experienced. Every time you get anywhere close to whatever happened that night, you have a panic attack or fall into a migraine or get physically ill. Your reactions don’t look like normal trauma.”