Page 77 of Forever Found
“My heart’s beating so hard,” I marveled as I just clung to him. Never wanting him to let me go. I wondered if there was some way the three of them - Kane, Jordan, and Adam – couldjust hold me between them and carry me around with them everywhere they went. Maybe I could face a life with the three of them always surrounding me and sheltering me from life.
“Do you feel okay? Did you take your meds yesterday?” Kane asked with panic as he looked to me.
“I’m fine, Kane. Just enjoy this moment with me, okay. We can go back to panic and worry when we have to go back out there,” I said as I nodded to the bedroom door again.
“Why does it have to be bad out there? Why can’t things stay just like they are right now, in here?” he asked.
“Because in here I can get lost in this…in us. I can block out all of the bad stuff and just focus on you and the way I feel when you touch me,” I sighed.
“You don’t feel like that when I’m close, or the others, but we’re not having sex?”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” I agreed. “Yesterday holding onto Adam and Jordan was the only thing stopping me from just drowning in all the madness in my head, but it’s different. I can’t seem to shut everything out as easily as I can when we’re like this. Out there the world is in my face. Does that make sense? All of my fears seem so much more real and the darkness, it just takes over. Like this, with you, and when I was with Jord, it just disappeared.”
“Well we’ll just have to stay like this all of the time then,” he joked. “We can switch out. We’ll make it work and I don’t think any of us are gonna complain.”
“Not sure that’s gonna work for Asher and Eli,” I laughed.
“No, probably not,” he agreed with a smile. He ran his fingers over my cheek, brushing away some wild, wet strands of hair ashe studied me. “Really though, if you can make your head quiet in here, then we can work with that. We can find a way to make it quieter at least, out there too. One of us can always be with you. If you feel like you’re starting to struggle, you tell us and we can find some privacy. It doesn’t always have to be sexual. We can just strip off and hold you, like this, or maybe we’ll find other things that work. We can find a way to make things better, Addy, but you have to give us a chance to do that.”
“I know,” I agreed quietly. “I will. You asked me to fight, and I…I’m going to try, okay? I can’t fight for myself anymore. I’m too damned tired, but I’ll try for you and the others.”
“I want you to fight for yourself, but I’ll take what I can get for now,” he told me. “We need to talk with Adam and Jordan. Whatever we do, we’re going to do it together, okay?”
“I agree and maybe you can help me deal with the mess in here,” I said as I tapped my temple. “But there’s still the threat and me testifying.”
“You let Ash and I deal with that. Right now you’re going to stay safe in this house and we’re all going to help you find new ways to feel better. That’s what I need you to do. Can you give me that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Good enough for now,” Kane agreed and a warmth spread through me as he smiled a little and reached up to kiss me. I didn’t want to let him down, even if doing what he asked of me seemed completely insurmountable right then.
CHAPTER 25
ADDY
“Okay, Addy. We need to leave it there for today. Thank you for coming into the office,” Laura, my therapist, said, wrapping up the one hour session I’d travelled into the city for. We had been back home for two days, and when I had my online session with Laura the day before, I’d been such a mess. My bubble of peace, calm, and contentment with Kane had broken as soon as I left my room to go downstairs. My anxiety had been right where I’d left it and just the challenge of eating the breakfast Adam had lovingly cooked for me, seemed too overwhelming to deal with. I had zero appetite and I had worked myself up even more by the fact I had so easily destroyed what Kane and I had in the shower, in just a matter of minutes. I hated myself and I was already regretting the promises I’d made to Kane to keep trying, to fight. I just couldn’t do it.
By the time of my scheduled video session with my therapist, I had found myself in Adam’s arms again, unable to let him go for fear of the darkness that was once again fighting to consume me and drown me in the terror of so many nightmare like flashbacks. As soon as I tried to explain things to Laura, I burst into tears and barely made a word of sense. In minutes I had pressed my face to Adam’s chest, and just fallen apart. In the end Adam had carried me back upstairs, Jordan, and Kane right behind us, and Asher had spoken with Laura.
I didn’t know what had been said, and I didn’t much care either. I’d begged for Ashe’s sleeping pills as soon as my guys got me to my room and I had slept for hours in the drug induced peace.
That morning, when I awoke feeling hung over once again, Asher and Eli had come into my room and pleaded with me to attend an actual session with my therapist at her offices in the city. It was the last thing I wanted to do – leave the relative safety of my home, my guys, and my brothers to go into the overcrowded, intimidating as hell city, but when Eli turned his glassy eyes on me and told me he was terrified for me, I had to give in. I couldn’t hurt my brothers any more than I could see I already was. And my guys too – they were stressed to breaking point. It was easy to see. I was letting them all down with my breakdown and I knew it.
So I’d forced myself not to grip on to one of my guys as I wanted to and instead found the energy and numbness I needed to shower and dress. Kane had driven me into the city, and wrapped himself around me as we walked the crowded streets to the office. I’d asked him to come into the session with me, on edge of crumbling again after dealing wit the bustle of the city, and he’d happily agreed.
Now I was clutching his hand in both of mine, so hard I had to be hurting him, but I hadn’t been able to let him go as I tried hard to hold myself together for the last hour. There had been tears and panic as I tried hard to explain to Laura the chaos going on within. She’d been patient and listened. We talked about the breathing techniques I had used successfully before to calm my anxiety and I told her how useless they were now in the face of such overwhelming and uncontrollable fear that was haunting me.
“I…I can’t come again. Not for now. I…it’s too much,” I panicked. I still wasn’t sure how Kane had managed to get me from the car to the office building, as freaked out and scared as I’d been. I was already dreading the walk back to the car and the idea of doing it all, everyday - as Laura insisted on our sessions being daily – was just unthinkable.
“It’s okay, angel. We already discussed it, remember? You’re going to do video sessions with Laura, and she’ll come out to our place once a week too until you’re feeling stronger,” Kane soothed as he leaned in to kiss the top of my head gently.
“That’s right. You have my number too, and I want you to use it if you need to, no matter the time of day or night,” Laura went on. “Here’s the prescription for the pills we discussed. I know you’re unsure, but it really would help if you could try them. The anti-anxiety meds will help you feel calmer, and the sleeping pills will meld better with your heart medications than you taking your brothers prescription, which you never should have done.”
“I’ll try,” I uttered shakily. I hated the idea of putting more drugs in my body. All I could picture was my mom, and all of the pills, injections, and many other daily medical rituals I had to pump her full of, all to no avail, because she was always still in pain anyway. I didn’t want to become her. I really would rather just end things now.
“I’ll collect them on the drive home and Addy can talk it over with the rest of our family,” Kane assured her.
“Good. I already have the signed consent to discuss things with your older brother, so I’ll be in contact about you testifying too, if you could just give him a heads up?” That was the best thing to come from the session. I had told Laura my terror about testifying in court against Max, and she had explained that shecould file paperwork with the court stating that I wasn’t up to doing so. She had fears that me being forced to stand up in court would endanger my mental health, so she could work with the attorney Asher hired to try and get me out of the duty.