Veiled Innocence

Chapter Twenty-Five

Present…

Today’s session was draining.

Reliving memories from the past is not something I enjoy. It’s actually the one thing I’ll do anything to avoid under normal circumstances—but nothing about this situation can be called normal.

Sitting on my temporary bed, I pull the black-and-white photo from the wall and study Psyche.

Maybe it would have been easier to be taken by the monster in the long run.

Closing my eyes, I bring the picture to my chest and lie down, thinking of the man who’d given this to me. It’s the first time I have given myself permission to remember. Every other memory has been a rude flash of what everyone is calling wrong.

But what we had wasn’t wrong. Was it?

They are so busy trying to fix the problem, to calm the turbulent waters that we stirred—but what they don’t realize is he was the calming force, and without him, the waters will always be rough.

How do I move on and accept that he is—no longer?

They want me to close the book and be done with this chapter in my life, and while I agree I need to forget…it is to protect, not to banish.

The hurt, it never goes away. I can tuck it into a part of myself, the part where Daniel hides and hope I don’t ever lose it. But if I stay here, if I stay broken, I will eventually forget him. They will make me.

Sitting up in my bed, I reach for the nightstand beside me and touch the pen. Then I glance at the watch around my wrist.

Maybe? Just maybe…

I unfasten the timepiece and lay it on the stand before picking up the pen and tucking it into my nightgown pocket.

No counting, no ticking, no anxiety.

God. What I wouldn’t give for a minute, just one more minute, with him.

He was always the one who grounded me, who made everything seem…right. How can it ever be again?

What gave him the right to escape this life and leave me behind?

Doc is trying to tell me something, and I’m trying to understand. He’s prompting me to remember the good. He’s encouraging acceptance of what we did.

But why?

Yes, there were moments of madness, but what is love without some madness?

It wasn’t wrong.

No—it was just misunderstood.

Past…

“What are you thinking about?” I asked as I studied the man lying beside me.

Grayson and I had moved from the dining room to his bedroom and were now stretched out on his stark white sheets. He had the arm closest to me bent back and angled behind his head and the other was resting so his palm was over his chest.

He shifted his head on the pillow, and instead of answering me, he asked, “What are we doing here?”

I sat up beside him, bringing the sheet with me and holding it over my chest. I didn’t have an answer for him, not the one he wanted.

He seemed so unlike himself. Not only in appearance, but emotionally as well.

“I just don’t know where you think this can go,” he stated, seemingly surprised at his own words.

He was ending things. The tone of his voice felt final.

When he turned away, I heard myself ask softly, “Do you want me to leave?”

“I should.”

His answer wasn’t a yes, but it certainly wasn’t a no. I knew he was conflicted, and at that moment, I would have done anything to ease him. I’d never known this need to reach out and unburden another. But how could I help him when he seemed so tormented?

Clutching the sheet to my chest, I stood and looked back to where he’d reached out an arm across the empty mattress.

“I don’t know what you want, Grayson.”

With a humorless laugh, he placed his other arm over his eyes. “Yes, you do. But you should walk through that door, put your clothes back on, and get the hell out of here. You should have done that the first time.”

“Why would I do that when everything I’ve done has been to get closer to you?”

Dropping the sheet and proving my willingness to be there, I walked over to the large photo of Cupid and his love, and then I glanced back at Grayson.

Was he my love? Would I do anything to follow him like Psyche had?

“We both know that I never do what I should.”

Grayson’s eyes found me where I’d stopped and then he placed both of hands behind his head. “That’s true. You don’t, do you?”

He wasn’t giving away anything, only offering up what he needed to in order to act civil. Deciding it was up to me to keep him engaged, I pointed to the black-and-white image hanging on the wall.

“You really love this one, don’t you?”

Nodding, he looked to the three on the opposite side of the room. “I like those too. But something about Psyche calls to me. Do you like it?”

“Yes,” I replied wholeheartedly. “You’re really good. Those are amazing, but this one…”

“Yes?”

I faced the photo once again. “It’s the way he’s looking at her, as if—”

“—there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to save her?” Grayson ended my thought.

“Yes. She’s hanging onto him as if her life depends on it.”

“It did. She just didn’t know it…”

The final word trailed off to a whisper and had me returning naked and unashamed to the end of his bed. “Maybe that’s why she’s hanging on so tight, because she knows more than he thinks?”

“Maybe she needs to learn to let go,” he suggested unflinchingly.

I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. If he wanted to end this, he would have to be the one to do it. He’d have to say the words.

“So where’s your camera, or are you just a lucky shot with a phone?”

“No, no phone. Old-school, Addison. It’s in the cabinet behind my desk.”

I walked around to the wooden cabinet, opened the doors, and saw the Nikon camera sitting there with a zoom lens beside it. Feeling a grin tug the corners of my mouth, I picked it up and looped the strap over my head so the camera was sitting between my breasts, then turned to face him.

Walking over to his side of the bed, I trailed my fingers along the sheets and watched as he brought one of his hands down from behind his head. I put my knee on the mattress and when it dipped, I shifted my other leg up and over his waist until I was straddled above him.

“How old are you, again?”

As his eyebrow winged up, I wondered if maybe I should have broached that question differently.

“Thirty-two, why?”

“Who doesn’t have a digital camera?”

Grayson rolled his eyes and shook his head against the pillow. “I do own a digital camera. I just own a film camera too.”

Kneeling up, I brought the Nikon in front of my face until I was looking through the viewfinder at him.

“Don’t,” he said in a voice that was soft but adamant. His troubled expression reminded me that I was not the calming force in his life.

I was the exact opposite.

Moving the bulky camera aside, I asked, “Don’t..?”

“Don’t look too close.”

Lowering the Nikon, I touched the stubble on his jaw. “What are you afraid I’ll see?”

Without touching any part of my naked body, he still managed to slay me.

“Everything I’ve become.”

Present…

“So, Addy, what are we going to talk about today?”

I raise my brows and point to myself. “I get to choose?”

“Sure. I’ve asked a lot of questions the past few days.”

“So have I,” I remind him.

“How are your studies coming along?”

I shrug. “They’re coming.”

“So you think you’ll be ready for the test?”

The minute I’d been dropped off here at Pine Groves like an unwanted thing, I swore I’d never let anyone dispose of me again. Plus, even though it feels like a lifetime ago now, I’d once made a promise to graduate. This was the closest I could come to fulfilling that promise.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I never asked, what made you want to complete your GED here? Why not just go back to school? They would have allowed it.”

My mouth falls open with incredulity. “You’re kidding, right? It’s bad enough I have to see my parents again when it’s pretty clear by the zero visits they’ve made that they don’t give a shit about me. Why would I ever go back to that school?”

“Well, there are people there who clearly care about you.”

Getting pissed off, I can see now that I should’ve taken advantage of his offer to ask the questions.

“Such as?”

I know who he’s going to say. In all the time I’ve been seeing Doc, the one thing I’ve learned is—he isn’t a pussy. I have to give him credit for that.

If he wants to know something, he asks, no matter how uncomfortable it might make you.

“Helene.”

“Don’t you mean, Miss Shrieve?” I ask him, reaching up to twirl my hair around my finger.

“What do you think of her?”

I give him a pointed look that tells him exactly what I think.

“Okay. Let’s go back to the polite way to think of her.”

“Why do I have to think about her at all?” I can hear my petulant, bratty tone, and I detest it instantly. Pulling myself together, I ask, “What about her?”

“You tell me.”

Looking away from him, I bite my top lip and then answer honestly. “I don’t ever want to see her again.”

“But—”

“But nothing.”

“You’ve been through so much together.”

I feel the ugly curl of my lip as memories of my coach hit me. “No, she just always turns up when my life is falling apart.”

“Is that how you see it?”

I stand up, done answering his questions. “That is how it was.”

I turn, fully intending to leave when he says my name—bringing me to a stop. “What?”

“Where’s your watch?”

I reach down to touch my wrist. “In my room.”

“So there’s hope?”

I step through the door and before I shut it, I tell him, “Yes. It’s in my pocket.”

Past…

After several tense moments of silence, I finally broke the ice.

“I’m sorry about your father.”

He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t stand to look at me. “So am I.”

“Were you close?”

“Yes.”

I slid off of him to kneel by his side and confided, “I was close to my father too.”

Grayson sat up and touched my cheek. He brushed a thumb over my lip, and even though I knew he was conflicted about having me there, right then he couldn’t deny his need to comfort me.

“Then why does he hit you?”

My eyes closed as I leaned into his palm. “Because I’m there.”

“Have you told anyone?” Letting out a deep sigh, Grayson scooted back until he was sitting up against the headboard. “I can’t just let it go, Addison.”

“Doc knows.”

“Doc?”

I laugh a little and then twist the curl hanging over my shoulder.

“Yeah, he’s the therapist my parents have been making me see. His actual name is Dr. Wolinski, but I told him he looks more like a Doc.”

Grayson’s brows furrowed as if he was pondering my description. “As in Back to the Future, Doc?”

I beamed at him, and for a moment he seemed to forget his worries and smiled back. It was magical.

“Yes, exactly. Slightly balding on top with wild, grey hair on the sides. He’s just like Doc. Kind of acts like him too.”

Grayson’s mouth returned to a serious line. I interlaced our fingers, not even caring that I was so extremely vulnerable when it came to this man.

“Why can’t I do this for you?”

“Do what?”

“Chase the monsters away.”

“Is that what I do?” he questioned, and I crawled on his lap.

Looping my arms around his neck, I kissed his cheek and whispered, “It’s okay. I understand.”

Pulling back slightly, he asked, “What’s okay? What do you understand?”

“That I’m your monster.”

He neither agreed nor disagreed with my words as he tumbled me back on the bed. We rolled over his sheets, and I quietly devoured my teacher, determined to have all of him—like any monster would.