And I hadn’t told Abi—or anyone else—that I was still seeing Dr. Tillman. I needed this to be something that was just mine. I didn’t want their opinions or their encouragement for better mental health. I had fallen into a pit of mistrust, especially with those closest to me. And no matter how hard I tried to climb out, my hands were too weak to grab hold. I felt smothered coddled by Abi, and my only defense was to push her away—not because I didn’t want her to love me, but because I didn’t want to be here. With her, or with anyone.
CHAPTER | FOUR
DR. MARLENE TILLMAN pushed her thinning gray hair behind her ears as I sat across from her. Neatly framed psychology degrees hung on the ivory-colored wall behind her desk. Pamphlets detailing various mental-health disorders were sprawled on the end table adjacent to the oak double doors. Dr. Tillman crossed her legs at the knee, her plaid skirt draped loosely around her thigh, as she twirled a pen in her hands.
She brought a certain sense comfort whenever I talked to her. It was more than her psychobabble that made me feel at ease—I actually trusted her. Maybe that was because our relationship didn’t go any further than these four walls. Only her pen and pad knew what was in my head. She was my personal diary in a way, a shoebox filled with memories that only opened when I wanted it to.
The oversized chair creaked as I sank into the cushion. A soft scent of sage permeated her office as I waited for our session to begin. The heat from the sun through her large office window soaked into my skin. It convinced my muscles to relax. Throughout the day, I’m stiff and on guard, like an attack dog waiting for the command to strike. The pressure on my chest and shoulders feels insurmountable, as if I’m going to crumble at any moment.
“How are you?” Dr. Tillman asked.
“It’s Friday,” I said with a shrug.
“How have you been since the last time we spoke?” She stopped twirling the pen as she sat quietly in her chair.
“The same.”
“No changes at all?”
I shook my head and bit down on my lower lip as I gazed out the window. The cloudless blue sky created a brilliant backdrop for the adjacent two-story buildings that stood across from Dr. Tillman’s office window. A small silhouette of an airplane soared above, its stream of white smoke trailing across the sky.
I envied the passengers in a way, the way I envied birds or any other being that could take flight. Whether the passengers were coming or going, they weren’t here in this town. At this moment, and for as long as the flight stayed suspended in air, they were free.
I knew that if I really wanted to leave, I could. Abi never said it, but I knew she would leave in a heartbeat—if I made the suggestion first. There was something holding me back, though. I was somehow anchored to this town. I had never been one to run from my demons, but this time I wanted to.
I hoped Dr. Tillman would be able to help me figure out why.
“How are you sleeping?” Dr. Tillman asked, which brought me back to the conversation.
“A little better.” I sighed. “I’m able to sleep for about five hours a night… sometimes for two hours straight.”
“And your dreams?”
“Normal,” I said. “Until last night, I’d been dreaming about fire a lot. Either I’m trapped by it, or people are trapped in a building with fire all around it. And I can’t get past it to save them.”
“Why do you want to save them?”
“Because that’s what I do,” I said. “It’s my job to save people.”
“Fire has several meanings,” Dr. Tillman said. “Depending on the context of the dream, fire can mean destruction, passion, anger, desire. What does it feel like to you?”
“Hot,” I mocked—which was met with a disapproved look from Dr. Tillman. “The fire is chasing me,” I conceded. “Not like it has legs or anything… but like my footprints are soaked in gasoline, and it follows me. It’s destroying where I’ve been. I’m in a building, just trying to get away, turning corner after corner… and then I run into a dead end. The fire is still there, racing toward me. But before I’m engulfed in its flames, I wake up.”
“You said ‘until last night.’” Dr. Tillman paused. “Did you dream of something different last night?”
“Him,” I answered. “I dreamt about that night again.”
“It’s approaching the one-year anniversary,” Dr. Tillman said as she wrote in her notepad. “What happened in the dream?”
“It was a replay of everything that happened. I could hear him. I could smell him. I could feel him.”
Dr. Tillman continued to write in her notepad. “How’s your mood in general?” she asked. “The last time we spoke, you said you felt a lot of pressure—and were easily angered.”
“The same. But I’m not angry, I’m… irritable.”
Dr. Tillman raised one eyebrow as she looked at me, giving her pen a break from feverishly writing. “Are you downplaying your emotions?”
“Maybe?” I smirked. “Okay, I’m angry.” Anger had become an intuitive reaction to anything I couldn’t control. Whether it was at work or at home, if the situation wouldn’t allow me to control it, my body tensed, and a surge of rage coursed through my veins. I knew how to control my anger—usually by leaving the situation. But sometimes it stuck with me, like a leech sucking the blood from my skin.
“Your relationship? How’s that going?”
“Oh,” I said and sighed louder than intended. “She’s going to visit her brother this weekend.”
“Are you going with her?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“What do you think of this time spent apart?”
“It’s for the best.” I shrugged. “Maybe I’m holding onto something that no longer fits.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know.” I sighed again. “I… we….” My voice shook. A bout of nerves quivered in my chest and flowed through my fingers as my hands clenched into fists. A shallow pool of tears welled behind my eyes as my throat tightened and an army of chills ran up my spine. I lowered my head. “It’s like, I’m surrounded by a sea of familiar faces, but I have no idea who they are or who I am.” I took a deep breath and held it in. My lungs burned under the pressure as I kept myself from crying. I counted to five—something Dr. Tillman had suggested to do when I found myself in an uncomfortable situation—and then I slowly breathed out.
“I could recommend someone for couple’s therapy,” she offered.
I shook my head almost immediately. “No more therapists. I don’t even know if we can be fixed.”
“Couple’s therapy isn’t always about fixing. Sometimes it’s to help break a relationship into as many little pieces as possible,” Dr. Tillman explained. “What seems to be the main problem between you two?”
“I’m pushing her away, and I don’t know why.”
“Just her?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Everyone. I don’t trust anyone.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said, laughing through the tears that yearned to fall, and then I glanced out the window again. The plane, and its trail of smoke, had vanished. “I can’t be who this town wants me to be.”
“Who do they want you to be?”
“The hero,” I answered. “The way the other officers look at me, and the way I’m treated, like I’m royalty or something. Like, I have all the answers and could walk on water if I wanted to.” I sighed. “I’m not walking… I’m drowning.”
“From?”
“Their expectations,” I snapped. “You said I had posttraumatic stress disorder… from what happened that night with Lathan.” A rotten taste, like spoiled meat, filled my mouth whenever I said his name. “I don’t understand how I could have PTSD when I beat him? I won.”
“It’s the events that are traumatic, not the outcome. Although, taking a life doesn’t sit well with most people either.”
She had a point. Lathan Collins deserved to be dead, but that didn’t bring comfort w
hen I remembered I was the one who did it. “I’ve been doing the breathing exercises you suggested, and they’re working,” I informed her. “I was called to Mirror Woods yesterday. I hadn’t been there since that night.” I swallowed back the bile produced by thinking of that night. “And I could feel myself getting worked up. I was anxious and felt crushed, like I was having a panic attack. So I counted backwards from ten. And it worked. I was fine.”
“I’m glad it worked,” she said. “Have you given any more thought to In Vivo Exposure?”
“I’m ready to try. If you think it will work.”
“I do,” Dr. Tillman said. “In Vivo Exposure isn’t as easy as counting to ten.” She locked eyes with me. “In Vivo is a form of cognitive behavior therapy, and it’s the most effective treatment for PTSD, along with medication.”
“I don’t want to be on meds,” I said firmly. “Not with my job.”
“In Vivo is used to reduce the fear and triggers associated with the traumatic event,” she explained. “In your case, you have a series of traumatic events with a climactic end. There are two types of exposure therapy: ‘flooding’ and ‘prolonged exposure.’ Flooding involves flooding the mind with triggering memories, and prolonged exposure gradually introduces triggering memories coupled with relaxation exercises when the anxiety becomes too intense.”
“So, diving-in versus an-inch-at-a-time?”
“Yes,” Dr. Tillman laughed.
“Are you going to hypnotize me?”
“No, nothing like that.” She smiled. “We’ll come up with a scale from one to one hundred that measures your distress. Zero is relaxed… no distressing emotions. One hundred is the most distressed… you see red and are more upset than you’ve even been. Fifty is the halfway point, halfway between relaxed and distressed… manageable, but you still know the distress is there.”
“Is fifty the goal?”
“Fifty or less is considered successful, yes.” Dr. Tillman paused to write in her notepad. “If this is something you want to try, I would recommend coming in once a week instead of once of a month. We’ve spent a lot of time processing your trauma in order for you to understand your negative thoughts and feelings. The next step is to break the negative thoughts—by identifying them as they happen and then changing them to be less distressing.”
I felt guilty enough withholding a monthly appointment with Dr. Tillman from Abi, let alone having to withhold weekly visits. Abi never pried, so I knew I could easily cover my appointment by saying I had to work late. But the omission was the lie—and I wasn’t a liar. I knew what it felt like to be the fool in a relationship, and I didn’t want to do that to Abi.
But I also didn’t want to continue feeling this way.
“What would we do for prolonged exposure?” I asked.
“Talk about the trauma.”
“We do that now.”
“Repeatedly talk about the trauma,” Dr. Tillman elaborated. “We would start each session talking it out, piece by piece, until the memories were no longer upsetting.”
The nightmares, irritability, and loneliness were enough to warrant a change. I wanted more than a change, though. I wanted to feel like myself. I wanted my life back. I was tired of being so withdrawn from the people I cared about.
“If this doesn’t work?” I asked.
“There are other treatments. But, for now, let’s see how you do with prolonged exposure,” she said. “We can start next week,” she added.
“Okay,” I finally agreed. “Once a week,” I mumbled as I massaged my temple with my fingertips.
“In the meantime, think about what you want from your relationship with Abi,” she said, “and whether you can be honest with her about your feelings. A relationship isn’t going to work if both people aren’t working toward the same goal.”
Before I left, I made another appointment with Dr. Tillman for next week. I knew I would eventually tell Abi, but I wasn’t ready. She would have questions that I didn’t have the answers to yet. I needed to see how the exposure treatment went. Then I would tell her.
As I drove home, I couldn’t help but project my problems onto passersby. A muscular man wearing jogging pants and a tank top waited at the corner for the light to change. Did he have a recent traumatic experience? Is that why he was out running? Two women walked close to one another as they traveled down the opposite sidewalk. What devastating life event had they gone through? Did they see a psychologist once a week?
Dr. Tillman’s words about Abi were something I needed to hear. Stringing her along was crueler than ending the relationship. Maybe Abi was waiting for the right time to break up with me?
I pulled into the driveway and walked up the short walkway to the front door. The hard metal key pushed into the grooves of my thumb as I turned the lock. The tumbler clicked as the dead bolt slid back into the door, and I turned the handle, the brass knob cool to the touch from soaking in the shade. The waning sunlight seeped into the living room, and my shadow stretched across the floor like a trail of black tar. I plopped my house keys and 9mm onto the table underneath the front window.
My shadow vanished as I shut the door. The drapes had been closed all day, which made the house stuffy with stale air. I pulled the curtains back and opened the window. The screen was splotched with dust that had collected between the tiny squares. Fresh air trickled into the house, and a gust of cool wind rolled in through the open window. I locked the front door. A soft neon glow from the setting sun now filled the lifeless room.
Abi left a small note taped to the inside part of the front door. The ink faded as she neared the end of the sentence. I’ll call you tonight. Abi was old fashioned in the sense that she preferred handwritten notes over text messages. I pulled the note off the door and crumpled it in my hand before stuffing it into my pocket. I preferred text messages.
Without Abi, the quiet inside the house was almost haunting. It lingered from room to room and amplified the somber sounds of a settling house. The living room seemed to expand, creating an abandoned abyss, like a lonely ghost lurking in the open air. It was invisible to the naked eye, but dark and sinister to the mind.
I walked the six feet from the front door to the couch and fell face-forward onto the cushions. A loud puff of exasperation escaped my lips, and I swept my hands under the throw pillow. The soft fabric felt silky against my cheek as I rolled over and stretched my legs down the couch. Before I could fall into a daydream—or a day terror as they usually were—a mechanical melody chirped from my front pocket. I would have let the call go to voicemail if I didn’t recognize the tune assigned to Abi.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hi,” Abi greeted. “Were you sleeping?”
“No.” I sat up straight on the couch. “I just got home. How was your drive?”
“Good,” she said.
Normally, Abi was rather talkative and would go into great detail about her day. But I could tell there was something holding her back. It was more than the quick answer followed by dead silence on the other end. This conversation felt different. Before, even with Abi being hundreds of miles away, I still felt close to her. This time, she felt farther away than Pittsburgh. She might as well have been on the moon.
A soft hum of dead air swept through the phone. There was so much we needed to say to each other, but I couldn’t find the words to tell her how I was feeling. The once-comfortable silences between us had turned into an agonizing lack of conversation. It felt like the end of us. I didn’t want it to be, but there was no other reason for the wall of despondency that had been built between us.
“My brother says hello,” she said after a few moments of silence. “And the kids. Everyone says hello. They miss you.”
“Tell them I said hello too.”
I remained tight-lipped, mostly because I didn’t want to talk about my day. I could tell her about the new case. But without being able to go into detail, there wasn’t much to talk about. I would be forced to tell her about my session
s with Dr. Tillman, and I wasn’t ready yet. I needed more time to wrap my head around it.
“I’ll let you go,” Abi said. “You sound tired.”
“I am. Tell the kids….” My voice trailed off. I wasn’t tired enough to end the conversation, but what was the point? If I couldn’t honestly tell Abi that I missed her and that I loved her, what was the point? Our relationship had been reduced to using familial bystanders as a way to convey our feelings.
A thin coat of tears rose from the brim of my eyes, and I held my breath. I couldn’t let myself cry. If I did, I didn’t know when I would stop.
“We aren’t good, are we?” Abi quietly asked.
“No,” I said as tears rose in my throat. “We aren’t.”
“I thought this was going to be temporary.” Her voice cracked.
“So did I.”
“But it isn’t, is it?” Abi cleared her throat. I could only assume she must’ve had a long chat with her brother when she got to his house. He was the kind of guy who always advised ripping off the Band-Aid. Given Abi’s burst of bravery to say the thing I couldn’t, I didn’t know whether to smack him or thank him.
I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know if this was temporary. But the truth was, I did know. We weren’t good. This wasn’t temporary.
“I don’t think it is,” I finally answered. With that sudden confirmation, I had ripped the bandage off myself—and slapped her in the face with it. “I’m sorry, Abi. I don’t know what else to say.”
“That’s the problem, Lena.” She paused and sniffled softly. “You can say anything you want to me. But you choose not to.” With that last sentence, her voice filled with anger. Not that blamed her. She was right.
Abi was right, and Fluellen was right. Everyone was right but me.
“I want to. I just can’t,” I said. I heard a low, distant sigh from Abi—as if she had brought the phone away from her mouth, possibly debating whether to hang up on me.
“We’ll sort this out when I get back,” she quickly said.
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