‘God, I’m dreading it,’ I sighed, covering my face with my hands. ‘It’s going to be awful, isn’t it?’
‘You’re tough, Alex. You survived him, you can get through therapy.’
‘You really believe that?’ I dropped my hands to try and read the response on his face. How could he see me as strong when I felt anything but?
‘I do,’ he said firmly. We held each other’s gaze, only breaking it when his watch rang. He quickly moved to decline the call, but not fast enough to stop me seeing that it was Angel again. I bit down on my lower lip to stop myself from asking about her again. I had no right to be jealous, he hadn’t promised me anything, nor me him. ‘I’m sorry. I need to get going, I have some work to do. Go and enjoy some free time.’
‘I understand, I don’t expect you to entertain me all day. Besides, when my supplies arrive I’ll be busy working, too. Thanks again for breakfast and showing me around, you have a beautiful home here.’
‘You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow, Alex.’
‘Okay.’ I nodded and gave him a smile, trying to mask my disappointment that I wouldn’t be having dinner with him. I was enjoying his company. He turned and took the path that led up the hill towards his house. ‘What’s tiger?’ I called, as I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t had an answer.
‘You.’ He spun to face me, but continued walking backwards as he spoke. ‘It’s your code name for the security team.’
‘Why tiger?’
‘Because they’re beautiful and graceful, but they’re also fierce and deadly when anyone threatens them or their young. They have an inner strength inside that soft looking exterior. I thought it was appropriate for you.’
‘You chose it?’
‘I did.’ He gave me that smile, the one that made my stomach do strange somersaults. I loved that he saw me as a tiger, but I really doubted that I actually was one.
‘What’s your code name?’ I yelled as he moved further away.
‘Elephant.’
‘Elephant? Why elephant?’
‘I have a very big trunk.’ He winked and spun around before jogging away. I burst out laughing, not sure if he was being serious or not, before doing as I was told and taking the path down the hill towards the seaplane dock. His trunk was the one thing I’d resisted ogling. But I wasn’t sure how much longer I could resist for. I might be a woman riddled with issues, but I was still a woman who’d been alone for far too long.
‘Take a seat, Alex.’ Ester gestured towards a comfortable looking armchair in her lounge. She was older than I’d expected, possibly in her late fifties, sporting a short brown bob with some grey streaks in it. Her green eyes were warm and friendly and she’d put me at ease the moment she’d greeted me at the door. Once we were both seated she ran through how the sessions would work and her obligations to me, before asking why I was here.
‘Where do you want me to start?’ I asked, twisting my fingers together in my lap. My nerves were battling to come back to the surface as the inevitable moment had arrived.
‘Where do you want to start?’
‘I’m not sure I even want to.’
‘Yet you’re here.’ She smiled at me and sat patiently watching me. I chewed on my lower lip as I tried to decide what was the most important issue to tackle first.
‘I’m worried that there’s something wrong with me.’
‘Why do you think there’s something wrong with you?’
‘I’m attracted to confident, dominant men, who like to take charge.’
‘Why does liking these men mean there’s something wrong with you?’
‘Because the only man like that I dated, literally beat me into submission. I became a domestic abuse victim.’
‘You’re a domestic abuse survivor, Alex. We’ll talk about this man, and that relationship, in great detail over the coming days, I’m sure. But first, I want to ask you if you believe that all men with these traits that you’re attracted to will also “beat you into submission.”’
‘No, I guess not. I just drew the short straw and picked one with sadistic traits too.’
‘So, if all men with those traits that you admire, that attract you to the opposite sex, aren’t sadistic, does that mean they could treat you with kindness and respect?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And if they did treat you with kindness and respect, would there be something wrong with you for liking that?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then why do you feel that there’s something wrong with you for not liking the way you were treated by a sadist?’
‘Because I should have stopped him sooner,’ I whispered as I hung my head. Tears were needling my eyes as I tried to understand how I’d let him control and abuse me for so long.
‘How could you have stopped him, Alex?’
‘I could have killed him and prevented it all. What if deep down I’m a masochist? Someone who craves pain? I let him torture me for years.’
‘Letting someone torture you for sexual gratification, and enduring the uninvited pain that they inflict on you are very different things, Alex. You said that you should have killed him to prevent what happened?’
‘I should, I should have stopped him. But I didn’t, because I’m weak,’ I cried as I curled my hand up into a tight fist and banged my chest. ‘I’m weak. He took one look at me and he knew he could get away with it. Why didn’t I kill him? Everything could have been so different if I’d had the courage to do that. I don’t want to be weak anymore. I don’t ever want to be a victim again. I should have killed him when I had the chance. I could have and I didn’t. I want to be a tiger, I do, I really do, but the truth is that I’m just a weak, sickly kitten.’
My vision was cloudy, more salt water in my eyes than had been in my lungs in the ocean. So why did it feel like I was drowning now, suffocating on the knowledge that part of me had admitted defeat and let him get away with it for so long. It didn’t help to hear Shaz’s voice in my ear whispering “shoulda, coulda, woulda.”
‘It’s all my fault.’ I heard my voice crack as I began to sob red-hot tears of frustration and regret. ‘It’s all my fault,’ I whispered. ‘I want to be a tiger.’
I sat on the sun lounger watching the spectacular sunset turn the sky into hues of orange, pink, purple, and red, suspended over the turquoise water. I hugged my knees to my chest as I marvelled at the beauty of nature. I needed to paint again, the supplies that I’d ordered couldn’t come soon enough.
I felt drained. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, and emotional after my first session with Ester. We’d agreed that I needed daily sessions for now. It wasn’t just ten years of pain from my life with Richard that I was holding on to, but also the eighteen years before that, when I’d lost my family and my best friend, and my hope for the future I’d dreamed of. If I was going to drag up all of that, and experience those heart-breaking and deeply painful, private moments, I needed some light in my life to balance out the dark. Painting would definitely help. As would more laughter with Castle. Seeing him so relaxed this morning had rubbed off on me, until the therapy session turned me into this ball of anxiety and regret again.
I glanced down as my mobile rang and managed a small smile to see he was calling.
‘Hi, Castle.’
‘Hi, Alex,’ he said softly. ‘I’m just ringing to see how you’re doing after your session today? I know the first one can be rough.’
‘Is it normal to feel so much worse before you feel better?’ I asked, thinking that rough didn’t convey just how bad I felt when I left the session, or for hours afterwards.
‘Yes. Anyone who says therapy is easy is lying. But if you put in the work, in time you’ll see the benefits.’
‘How much time though?’ I wanted a quick fix, a Band-Aid to conceal the damage until it had healed, but deep in my heart I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
‘I can’t answer that, Alex. I have long periods when I think I don’t need Est
er anymore, then something small happens that triggers feelings inside of me, which has me calling on her services.’
‘How many years has it been since you first started seeing her?’
‘Nearly three.’
‘So, what you’re saying is you’ll never be healed, part of you will always carry the scars.’
‘As you well know, Alex, the very nature of scars is that they never disappear, but they fade into something less noticeable, like white noise. We might even have days when we forget that they exist, but they’re always there if you choose to go looking for them.’
‘So, I just won’t look,’ I stated stubbornly.
‘That’s called avoidance. And how has that been working out for you so far?’ he replied with a gentle chuckle.
‘Urgh, I hate that you’re right. I hate that he did this to me, and that his sentence is over and mine might never be.’
‘Survivors of trauma always have it the worst. The ones that die, or don’t have empathy, they’re the only true unburdened parties.’
‘Castle–’ I began to say something then shook my head, rubbing my aching temples.
‘What, Alex?’
‘You’ll think I’m crazy if I say this.’
‘To paraphrase something similar you said to me. Well, hello. It’s me, Tate Castle. My wife committed suicide, and I’ve been in therapy for years. I know crazy, Alex, you can say whatever you want to me without me judging you. Unless you tell me you’re still in love with the bastard.’
‘In love with him?! Jesus. Of course I’m not,’ I shot back. My brow furrowed as I was suddenly transported back in time to my old flat in Glasgow. I could hear Shaz yelling after me as I walked away from her, “You know you haven’t even said that you love him, Izzie.” I gasped, my fingers flying to my mouth to cover my lips, as if vocalising the realisation I’d just had, would make things worse.
‘Alex?’ Castle’s alarmed voice was full of concern.
‘I never said I loved him. I never said it … because I never actually did. I never loved him. Oh God, that makes it even more horrific.’
‘How?’
‘Because if I did love him, that somehow justifies me following him to another continent, for putting my trust in him, for hoping that he’d change when he first raised his hand to me. What does it say about me that I let this happen to myself for someone I didn’t even love?’
‘It says exactly what you told me yesterday, Alex. That you were young, impressionable, and naïve, and he took advantage of that. I don’t know your full story, just as you don’t know mine, but I do know that you weren’t lucky enough to experience much love in your early life. Anyone offering a chance at it, at a way for you to escape the life that had actually been forced on you, would have seemed like a golden opportunity to a child starved of affection.’
‘I was eighteen, hardly a child.’
‘You don’t miraculously become a mature adult at the stroke of midnight on your eighteenth birthday, Alex. You grow up and become an adult by your life experiences over time. I told you before, don’t lay the blame for this on your own doorstep. He did this to you. And if you could have fought back earlier, you would have done. You can’t change what’s happened, and that’s the point of therapy, helping you to accept that. It won’t obliterate the past.’
‘I wish it could.’
‘I think we all have parts of our past that we wish we could erase or develop amnesia for, but life’s harsh and unfair sometimes. That’s why it’s important to appreciate the moments in between. So, why would I think you’re crazy?’
‘You’re practically a stranger to me, we only just met, but …’ He really was going to think that I was crazy.
‘But?’ he gently coaxed.
‘I already feel like you know me better than anyone. I feel like I can talk to you, share things that I haven’t even been able to with Tom or Janice.’
‘Knowing that your trust isn’t something you’d give away lightly, that means a lot to me, Alex. You can talk to me about whatever you feel comfortable to share, whenever you want. And as a friend I can empathise to a certain degree, as long as you know that I can’t fix you.’
‘If only,’ I laughed. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to, and I know that Ester is the therapist, not you. I’m not, what’s the term, displacing. It’s just nice to know that I have a friend who gets what it’s like to be so broken inside you never think the pieces will fit back together. Tom and Janice are amazing friends, I’d have struggled without them, but they haven’t experienced things that we have, they just can’t relate the way we can.’
‘Lucky them,’ Castle sighed.
‘I’m not looking to be your therapist either, frankly I wouldn’t have the patience to put in the hours of training to become one. But I want you to know that what you said holds true for me, too. If you ever need to talk, to someone who sort of gets it, whatever “it” is, I’m here.’
‘Thank you, that means a lot, Alex. I’d better wish you goodnight, it’s late and I have some business calls to make to Australia, now that they’re awake.’
‘Thank you for taking the time to call and check on me, and for listening.’
‘You’re welcome. I’ll call on you at around midday tomorrow with your supplies from Tortola, and maybe we can have lunch together.’
‘I’d like that, very much. I’ll look forward to it,’ I breathed, sincerity radiating from my tone. I hung up and clutched the phone to my chest. My heart was unsteady in its beating and I felt a sense of excitement. It wasn’t a date, I knew it wasn’t, but part of me couldn’t wait to see him tomorrow.
I already knew in my heart that while Castle was the kind of man I was obviously attracted to, he’d also be the type to treat me with kindness and respect too.
For the first time in forever, I felt like the future I’d once dreamed of, that had seemed an impossible dream for so long, was actually something tangible again. Even if Castle wasn’t the man to offer it to me, he was the man who was currently opening my eyes to its possibility.
It had been a long time since I’d imagined a future filled with romance and maybe even children. But now I had hope for that future. Which was everything.
Chapter Nine
Castle
Wednesday
ESTER HAD DONE WHAT she always did, let me talk myself into a solution to one of my problems. Truth be told I always knew what I had to do, what I should do, but I’d become so accustomed to having her there, like a security blanket. Sometimes it was cathartic to just share your inner most thoughts with someone else and not be judged for them.
I barely knew Alex. I wanted to know more, but from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, a feeling had blossomed inside of me. A feeling I’d not had in so long, one I thought had died along with Imogen. The need to share my life with someone. The need to covet and protect. The need to love. A shiver, at the thought of making myself that vulnerable again, ran down my back. I quickly shook it off and made my way back up to the house to get ready for my training session with Jason. I had the sudden need to blow off some steam and release this pent-up frustration I’d felt ever since Alex Bishop had appeared in my life.
I helped Miguel unload the seaplane of our supplies. A fresh batch of fruit and vegetables from Tortola for Sarah to use for the rest of the week’s meals, essential supplies, and everything Alex had asked for in order to paint. Along with some other items Sarah had picked for her. I smiled as I saw sunglasses, a large wide-brimmed sun hat, sun tan lotion, and … I hesitated as I lifted the small scraps of bright turquoise material on the end of my finger and cast a look in her direction.
‘It’s called a bikini, an item you’d be more familiar with if you spent more time enjoying yourself instead of running your empire.’
‘This is for Alex?’ My voice came out in a raw croak and I cleared my throat as I eyed the tiny two-piece, trying not to imagine what her body would look like clad in such a revealing outfit, complete with ties on ea
ch hip and between the cups to allow for fast removal.
‘You’d have preferred me to purchase her a full-body wetsuit to swim in?’ Sarah’s lips twitched as she tried to contain her smile.
‘I’m thinking yes,’ I muttered gruffly. How the fuck was I supposed to concentrate now with those visuals in my mind.
‘She’s very attractive,’ Sarah added.
‘Hmmm,’ I agreed, as I pushed the bikini into the bag that Sarah was packing, and turned to help Miguel angle the easel out of the small plane. Her attractiveness was something I was trying very hard not to visualise right now.
‘Why don’t you ask her to dinner tonight? I’m doing your favourite Jerk chicken with peanut, chilli, and coconut rice. I can soon increase the recipe to accommodate one more person.’
‘She came here to paint, not to socialise with me,’ I replied, as I nodded to Miguel to load more items into my outstretched arms.
‘She can’t paint twenty-four-seven. The girl needs to eat, she could stand to put on a few pounds. Tell her to come up to the house for eight p.m.’
‘I don’t want her in the house, not yet, it’s too soon.’
‘I’ll make sure everything’s ship-shape. She won’t see anything that you don’t want her to see.’
‘Sarah.’ The single word was a warning, but it was one she seemed insistent on ignoring.
‘You can’t keep a whole side of your life hidden if you ever want to move on.’
‘Who said I want to move on, other than from this conversation?’ I rolled my eyes at Miguel as he flashed me a sympathetic look that said he didn’t fancy my chances once Sarah had set her mind on something.
‘You wouldn’t have invited her here if you didn’t. You never invite anyone here apart from your family. Tell her to come up for eight.’
‘Why don’t you tell her, as you seem so insistent on organising my life for me.’
‘It’s more personal if it comes from you. And it’s high time you prioritised your personal life.’
‘It’s already prioritised,’ I responded, feeling my muscles starting to tense at the implication that I hadn’t learned any lessons from Imogen’s death.
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