Physis (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #4)

by Michelle Irwin

  “When were you planning on telling me?”

  “When you asked. Unless you did, I was told to treat it as a normal trip.”

  I shrank away from her. “So you’re trying to make me do stuff I don’t want to.”

  “Never. If you’d protested leaving the house early, we would have stayed. If you’d argued about coming across here before the appointment, we wouldn’t have.”

  Even though I could see the sense in her words, they still sent a cold shiver through me.

  “We want to support you until you find your new normal,” she said.

  It had been a long time since they’d said the more dreaded words: “We just want you back.” Not only were they a reminder of the way Xavier had spoken to me, triggers in their own right, but they were a reminder that I was gone.

  Broken.

  Unfixable until I became her again. Until I became who I was before.

  And I could never do that.

  I was irrevocably changed.

  Finding a new normal and being free of the fear were within my reach. At least, eventually. They gave me something I could work toward and maybe a possibly attainable goal.

  To avoid eye contact with everyone in the café, I stared at the entrance to Dr Bradshaw’s building. The slowly spinning revolving door gave me a point to focus on that was benign. My gaze continued to dart around, watching in terror and waiting for someone to step out of the wings, but it would land back on that door to allow me a moment of calm.

  At least until a familiar figure approached it from within the building. I watched, transfixed, as the guy moved through the revolving door at the agonisingly slow speed set by the motors. The blue jeans, cowboy boots, and plain white T-shirt—reminders of better days—looked too damn good on him. I couldn’t turn away.

  “What’s he doing here?” I muttered, barely realising I’d spoken aloud until Mum replied.

  “Same thing as you, I’d imagine.”

  I spun to glare at her. “Seeing a shrink?”

  “Yeah. At least, he asked Dad for recommendations and considering where he is, I imagine he followed it.”

  “Is she telling him about me?” In my mind, I could see it all. Dr Bradshaw and Beau talking about the poor girl who’d lost her way—and her mind. Would they be laughing? Would he enjoy the stories of my torture the way Bee had enjoyed torturing me?

  How dare he talk about me!

  How could he come here, to one of the few safe spaces I had left, and invade it?

  Without waiting for Mum to respond, and before I could think it through, I was out the door of the coffee shop. Another few steps and I’d left the kerb and was onto the road. I barely glanced for cars before running across.

  “Beau!”

  His step faltered at the sound of my voice, but he didn’t stop completely or turn around, so I called again. I raced to him, unwilling to let him out of my sight even though I had no idea what I would say to him when we were face-to-face.

  With a look on his face that suggested he thought he was going crazy, he cast a glimpse over his shoulder. His eyes widened when he spotted me. He stopped and spun on the spot almost too fast, and my legs carried me straight into him. Despite hitting him at full speed, he managed to keep us both upright by wrapping his arms around my shoulders and steadying me on my feet.

  Time stopped just long enough for me to feel his hard chest against me and for me to be rendered unable to focus on anything but the feeling of comfort I felt in his fleeting embrace. I drew in a deep breath of his musk, the scent that had always had an uncanny effect on me.

  Almost the moment I was stable—far too soon—his arms were back at his sides and he took a half step away from me.

  “Phoebe? What are ya doin’ here?” His eyes cut to the building beside us as a guilty look crossed his face.

  If I had to guess, he hadn’t intended for me to see him. It seemed impossible given the timing, but the world didn’t revolve around me—as much as my parents might have allowed theirs to in the last few months.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in reply. Why should I make my admissions when he hadn’t made any himself?

  He looked at his hands. “I was seein’ Dr Bradshaw.”

  It was an admission not only that he was seeing her, but that he knew I’d know the name.

  “Why? It’s not like you were the one who—” I couldn’t even say it, but even if I’d been able to make it through the words, Beau’s expression would have stopped me.

  He seemed almost cross with me. I sank away, expecting him to lash out.

  “I ain’t gonna try to take away anythin’ you’ve suffered, darlin’, but ya ain’t the only one hurt in all of this.”

  “What do you mean?” They were words I wouldn’t have uttered to anyone else. As soon as they were free, I flinched and retreated further away from Beau.

  Questions led to punishments.

  He lifted his hand and indicated toward me, no doubt trying to highlight my response. I flinched away again.

  “That’s what I mean, darlin’. See, I had this girl once. She smiled and laughed. She challenged me and wasn’t ever afraid to tell me off. She didn’t skitter like a foal every time anyone looked at her.”

  I could barely swallow around the lump in my throat. Even the back of my mouth ached. “She’s gone. She . . . went away.”

  He shook his head and frowned. “No.”

  I was about to argue. He didn’t know the truth—my truth. He didn’t know that I was gone.

  My arguments died when he continued. “She didn’t go away, she was stolen. And the same bastards who took her murdered our baby.”

  His words stole my lungs, and not only for how out of character the swear word was for him. I clutched my chest, trying to fill the gaps left by his harsh comment.

  “It was my fault,” I whispered on the last of my breath. “If I hadn’t—” I clutched at my stomach, as though guarding that precious space now would somehow change the past.

  “It ain’t your fault. That’s the one thing I know in all o’ this.”

  “But it is. If I hadn’t said . . .” I couldn’t breathe as the memory flowed over me. “Or if I’d just stood up and taken the punishment like I should have . . .” Even as the words choked out of me, the scene played in my mind.

  Calling Cora crazy.

  Telling her there’d be no wedding.

  Her running out of the room.

  There’d be a punishment. I knew Bee would come.

  Hiding beside the bed, hoping he wouldn’t . . .

  Resisting when he tried to drag me to the hook.

  My wrist slipping free of the cuff.

  The rage on his face that I could get loose.

  His fist across my face.

  His boot, kicking my stomach.

  Smashing into my chest.

  The chain and cuffs across my legs.

  Against my stomach.

  Over.

  And over.

  Again.

  And again.

  Sobbing for him to stop. Please stop!

  The relief when he did that lasted only as long as it took for him to re-secure the cuffs almost cruelly tight.

  Climbing onto the bed as the darkness enveloped me again.

  Clutching my beaten stomach as cramps overtook me.

  The agony that overtook me for hours.

  The blood.

  The baby.

  Tiny.

  Too small to be possible but somehow almost fully formed.

  I fell to the ground, clutching at my stomach and trying to breathe. Beau was there to catch me. He didn’t stop the fall or hold me tightly. Instead, he sank slowly down beside me so I fell in a controlled descent.

  He sat beside me on the footpath, not caring who was around or whether we were in their way. I sobbed against his shoulder.

  “It ain’t your fault,” he repeated.

  “How can you say that?”

  His finger drew a line on his
jeans-covered thigh as he spoke. My eyes focused on the subtle movements. “Ever since I knew ya were missin’, I blamed myself. Still do. If I’d a just taken ya up to your shoot. If I’d pushed harder rather than believing the lies he told me. If I hadn’t believed what Max said to me. So many mistakes that led to you gettin’ hurt. I know ya wanted me to forget ya. Your dad told me to walk away. And for you, I tried. I tried to not need ya. I tried to find myself back in Georgia. But you were everywhere there. You were in my bedroom. You haunted the pier. You were lodged in between every beat of my heart and it all twisted me up so much I couldn’t breathe.

  “So I flew to Australia, to see if I could see ya. But your dad said ya still wouldn’t meet me. I caught up with Angel and she told me about your fight. Everything was so different. So wrong. I needed to talk to someone ’bout it. To soothe the beasts that snapped at my heart. Your daddy suggested I come to Dr Bradshaw.” He held his hand out like he had at the track, palm up in invitation without pushing for anything I didn’t want to give. “She’s been helpin’ me understand your decisions to not see me no more and teachin’ me techniques to not startle ya just in case ya changed your mind.”

  “She has no right talking about me.” I poked his chest. “And neither do you.”

  When I glanced up, Beau was smiling. It was the first smile I’d seen reach his eyes since Xavier had taken me. I didn’t see anything remotely smile-worthy in the situation though.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “There’s a little o’ the spark.”

  I blinked as he said the words, trying to figure out what he meant. Then it smashed into me. I’d challenged him. I’d even touched him. It wouldn’t have been unusual before, but now . . . not so much.

  It wasn’t the breakthrough he seemed to think it was though. “I’m not her anymore.”

  “I know, darlin’, but it’s nice to see anyways.”

  A ghost of a smile worked its way onto my lips. “Are you saying you like me telling you off?”

  “Darlin’, if I weren’t terrified it would be the worst thing for ya right now, I’d take you in my arms and give ya the biggest hug for mouthin’ off at me.”

  I chuckled and he joined me.

  Behind me, something dropped onto the pavement. The warm liquid splashed against the ground. Some of the droplets splattered up onto my back. With my heart in my throat, I twisted away from Beau to see what it was. My instincts were to collapse inward and make myself as small as possible, but I resisted as long as I could.

  “Sorry, that was my fault,” Mum said. “I dropped my hot chocolate. Um, we should probably be heading off now if you don’t want to be late, Phoebe.”

  I turned back to Beau to see he’d stood while I glanced in Mum’s direction. He offered me his hand to help me up too. Grabbing hold and letting him help me should’ve been the easiest thing in the world, but it represented something I wasn’t sure I could hand over.

  Trust.

  It wasn’t just putting my hand in his; it was putting my faith in him.

  He crouched back down but left his hands out. My gaze remained locked on the callouses along the ridges of his palm.

  “What are ya scared of, darlin’?”

  I lifted my eyes from his long fingers to his chocolate and amber irises.

  You.

  He licked his lips as he stared into my eyes. Time passed far too slowly. Each second dragging on into what felt like an eternity. And yet, I didn’t want a single one to end.

  With all the speed of a tortoise, I lifted my hand and slipped it over his palm. I felt every inch of his hand slide beneath my skin until I clasped my fingers around his wrist. He stood, using the hold to draw me up as well.

  “Thank you,” he whispered before shifting forward.

  He stopped when his lips were less than a centimetre away from one of my cheeks. His gaze implored me, asking for permission without him uttering a word. I closed my eyes and nodded before holding my breath as his lips brushed across my cheek, feather-light in reality but with an emotional weight I wasn’t sure I could bear.

  “I’ll see you next time, darlin’,” he whispered; a secret just for me. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I offered him what I could of a smile, hoping it wasn’t too twisted and grimace-like.

  “And, Phoebe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wanted to wish ya a happy birthday the other day, but I didn’t wanna intrude. You were in my thoughts all day.” His statement left me stunned. I should’ve known he’d remember, but it still stalled me for a moment. At my request, my birthday had been a non-event, but with the way Beau said those words, I almost wished he’d been there for it.

  “Thank you,” I muttered after he’d walked too far away from me to hear.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” Mum asked when I didn’t make a move to follow her—my gaze was locked on Beau’s back as he walked away into the crowd.

  I nodded absently. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I shook my head the moment he disappeared from view, trying to dislodge the things he’d left inside me. “Let’s go.”

  Even as I followed Mum into the building, I turned my head back one last time, just in case he’d turned around. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could’ve sworn I saw him at the end of the next building, leaning against the wall with his head thrown back against it and his hands over his face.

  “PHOEBE?”

  “Huh?” I jolted to attention. My mind had been a thousand miles away—spinning lazy circles in a boat on a lake in Georgia. Everything had changed so much since the night Beau had declared he wasn’t going to give up. And yet how much had changed for him? He was still fighting for me, even if the fight was a little different now. How easy would it be to give up and sink into his love?

  I couldn’t let myself give up though, even if I wanted to. There weren’t many pieces of me that weren’t hurting, and I wasn’t sure I could trust him with them. How many times would he be able to watch me fall to pieces before it got to be too much for him and he walked away?

  “Are you okay?” Dr Bradshaw asked. Her hair was different today, loose around her shoulders and curled at the ends. She had different make-up on too. Rather than the neutral pinks and browns she usually wore, a slick of red stained her lips. I tried not to imagine the worst reasons for the changes, and yet part of me reared up as the green-eyed monster took hold with a reminder that she’d seen Beau earlier. That perhaps her extra attention to her appearance was due to him. It was a ridiculous thought—and I knew it—but that didn’t stop it scratching along my brain.

  She asked another question, but all I could focus on was her red lips.

  Scratch. Scratch.

  “Phoebe, is there something wrong? Something you’d like to talk about?”

  Scratch.

  “Are you going out with . . . someone?” It wasn’t the question I’d wanted to ask, but I’d been able to stop myself from saying Beau’s name at the last second.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. It was the first time I’d asked a blunt question of her. Usually, I avoided asking any questions at all. Three months of retribution every time I dared ask anything was more than enough to wipe that instinct from me.

  And yet, instead of taking the question back, I stared at her while I tried to push the images that were assaulting me out of my mind. Had she and Beau been in here together minutes before I was due to arrive?

  It was a ridiculous thought. He was her patient, after all. Or was he? All I knew was that he’d come to see her and that apparently she was teaching him how to deal with my choices and how to not startle me. Was her technique for helping him to date him? Her pretty brown eyes staring attentively at him would certainly take away some of the sting.

  Those red lips covering . . .

  She pursed said lips and assessed me. “I’m not sure why you would ask that.”

  “It doesn’t matter why I’m asking. Are you?” I asked.

  “It’s my wedding anniversary
today. My husband is picking me up straight after our appointment.”

  All the worst-case scenarios running through my head evaporated in an instant. When they did, the heat that had kept me questioning her disappeared as well. I sank back into myself and wrapped my arms around my chest.

  She leant forward and rested her hands on her knees. “What’s up, Phoebe? You don’t seem like yourself today. Has something happened?”

  I wanted to laugh at the irony that in some ways I was closer to being myself than I had been for a long time. For a moment, I debated not telling her about Beau and our meetings since my last session, but I couldn’t. Therapy wouldn’t help if I wasn’t willing to be honest with her—and with myself.

  Slowly pulling myself to my feet, I crossed to the window. I might’ve been willing to be honest, but that didn’t mean I could do it while looking her in the eye.

  “My ex-boyfriend is here from the States.” My chest tightened as I said the words. The title was one I’d given to Xavier over and over in my mind, and it felt wrong to apply it to Beau. “Not . . . not that one,” I breathed to myself as my body shook. “He’s dead. He’s gone.” I said the words again and again, reassuring myself that Xavier wasn’t coming back. I was free. “Beau. Beau’s here. He—he wants to see me again.”

  I lifted my hands and flattened them against the glass before leaning my forehead into the space between. With my head against the glass, I focused on the coffee shop across the road.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Huh?” I watched the people come and go from the café.

  “About Beau wanting to see you again? About him being in Australia?”

  Closing my eyes, I let the cool touch of the glass soothe away the rising heat in my body. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “We can’t have what we used to have, and I think he wants that again.”

  She didn’t ask why I thought we couldn’t go back and I appreciated that. Few other people would have understood so readily. “What do you want?”

  “I want to not hurt anymore.” Opening my eyes again, I stared down at the café and saw Mum standing out the front with Nikki balanced on her hip. “And to not hurt those around me.”