Elliot

by Dale Mayer

  He appreciated the thought. He appreciated that she cared. But she needed to find some other way to help. That was the one thing he couldn’t do. Yet something nagged at him … He couldn’t remember the details of the accident. But it had been traumatizing … And the last thing he needed was more stress …

  So no way in hell was he getting on a horse. Therapy be damned. He didn’t know if he should talk to Dani about it or wait and see what happened. He had enough to deal with now. He didn’t want the trauma of worrying about being on a horse to work its way into his head too. It made him feel like a coward, and he didn’t need that. He didn’t want to feel worse than he did already. Yet here he had one more thing on his plate to contend with. Plus he was afraid he’d hurt Sicily’s feelings. At the very least he’d disappointed her, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. He liked her, and it was hard knowing she’d now see him in a different light. Weak, cowardly.

  Shane walked over to him. “Hey, man. You’re up early again.”

  Elliot glanced up at Shane. “Did you hear they are bringing in horse therapy?”

  Shane sat down in the seat Sicily had vacated. “I’d heard some discussion about it. I think it’s a great idea.”

  Of course he did. He was a therapist. Why wouldn’t he be happy about horse therapy? Elliot could see the benefits for others, if not himself. Moodily Elliot stared down at his now-empty coffee cup, turning it around in his hand.

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Shane said.

  “Good, because no way am I getting on the back of a horse,” Elliot snapped. He narrowed his gaze and added, “But apparently Sicily arranged it because she thought it would be good for me.”

  Shane settled into his seat. “So you don’t want to disappoint her, but at the same time, you don’t want to do something you don’t want to do.”

  “Something I can’t do,” he stressed, his voice hard and angry. He hated even having to explain himself.

  “The last thing we need is for you to be under more stress. So forget about the horse therapy. I can talk to her and tell her you’re not ready.”

  “That sounds workable.” Elliot’s face eased back with relief. He lifted his coffee cup. “Maybe I’ll get a second cup.”

  Shane smiled. “Let me.” He stood, and ignoring Elliot’s protests, walked over and refilled their cups.

  Elliot shifted carefully in the chair to study the crowd slowly filtering in for an early shift, grabbing a coffee and leaving while others came in for a bite to eat. He couldn’t imagine working in a kitchen like this. There were a lot of people to keep track of, and of course, the cooking would continue all day long.

  Shane brought back the coffee and placed one cup in front of Elliot. “I’m heading to a meeting, so I will see you later this morning.” Shane turned and walked over to the other side of the dining area where a number of other therapists were already seated at a table.

  Elliot had to admit that one of the things bothering him was his lack of purpose, a job, a reason to get up every day. He had a lot of healing to do. Inside, a lot was happening, but until he could get some optimal rest and then deal with the nightmares, it was hard to heal.

  Just that Shane was being so amiable about it all, pissed him off more and made him ashamed. Like a coward. They just didn’t know … they didn’t understand what he’d been through …

  He stared at the hot coffee and realized he didn’t want it. Right now all he wanted to do was hide in his room.

  A room where he understood what was expected of him and where he wasn’t pressured or stressed to go outside of his comfort zone. He already knew how that could be disastrous. So why go there?

  It was good he’d told her he wasn’t interested from the get-go, and she could deal with the fallout. If she wanted to do this for him, then she should have spoken to him first. And made sure he heard her, not talk to him when he was almost asleep.

  He’d have told her the truth then—no way in hell was he getting on a horse. That one time had been more than enough.

  Chapter 9

  Treading lightly, Sicily headed to the coffee station in the dining hall. She plugged in the small teakettle on the side, and while she waited for the water to boil, her eyes wandered around the large space, empty at this time of the night. Only running lights shone around the coffee station—a soft glowing ambient light. When the kettle was ready, she made herself a hot cup of tea, snagged a cookie and slowly made her way back to the office.

  There was always work for her to do, always medicines to check, inventory to update and an ongoing order list she kept track of. Some suppliers only sent certain drugs, and other suppliers sent others. She tried to focus on the files that needed updating, but for some reason today, it was hard to even figure out what she needed to do. She closed the database so she wouldn’t make any foolish errors that would impact their supply.

  Sicily settled into her chair and closed her eyes. She’d been so focused on making something special happen for Elliot that maybe she hadn’t done enough for the others. Instantly she was ashamed of herself. Had she overlooked somebody else who was more in need of her attention? She didn’t think that was the case, but she quickly went through her case files to make sure. Often she had nights where nobody needed her at all.

  Elliot was the only one with nighttime problems now. Lots of the others took pills to sleep better while some pushed themselves to exhaustion through their physiotherapy and exercise. But even if they woke up, they usually got up, went to the bathroom and returned to roll over and fall asleep again. Then there was Elliot. Reassured that she hadn’t overlooked anybody, she still found it difficult to focus on anything else.

  Then again, he’d barely been civil since she’d told him about the horses. She knew multitudes of people who would jump at the chance. She also knew several people who wouldn’t go near horses, thanks to fear. She lifted her gaze and stared blankly at the empty doorway. Was that Elliot’s case?

  Was he scared of the horses? He hadn’t said so. She’d assumed he was, but she’d only seen anger. Well, he’d very clearly and effectively gotten out of it. Not just the horseback-riding therapy, but now it felt like he was pushing her away too.

  If he was pushing her away to avoid spending any time with the horses, that wasn’t good either. She didn’t want him to be so threatened he felt he had to isolate himself to get out of this. If he didn’t want to do it, then he didn’t have to. But if fear was holding him back … maybe it was something he just should do.

  She considered her options and jotted down a few notes. The team would discuss this case in their upcoming meeting, and as she wouldn’t be there, her notes needed to speak for her. She attended one every second week but that wasn’t this week. When she was done, she felt better. She closed the file and shifted to sorting through the paper files.

  Because she often had a lot of time on her hands in the evening, the other staff left a lot of the paperwork to her. She got up and walked to the large wall cabinets and put away the patient files. Elliot’s was on her desk. She opened it to see if anything was new. Their online filing system showed her if any new notations had been made by any of the team members, but she’d yet to see his actual paper file. She flipped through, not seeing anything new or different. There were several notes from his intake and original interview, which she quickly read through. He had been a SEAL, badly injured on a mission and would never return to active duty—but again nothing that was new. Not once did it say he was terrified of horses, for example.

  There was no note saying he had been bitten by a horse or trampled by a horse or had anything against large animals. But then she didn’t expect a military man would allow his fears to become public. They were all about the big macho hero aspect. They wouldn’t let their insecurities and childhood fears be on written record somewhere. Still, she was stumped and disturbed. And if she were honest, hurt.

  Elliot found the next few days to be the hardest yet. His nights were com
pletely nonexistent in terms of sleep, and his body had worn down to the point where he could barely function. But he also knew the comfort coming from the nights of seeing Sicily wasn’t an option anymore. He’d killed that. “Not sure what to do anymore, but I can’t keep this up.”

  “You’re deteriorating from a lack of sleep. Without that rest …” Shane’s voice trailed off.

  Elliot nodded. “I need to sleep.”

  “That’s why I came to give you a massage. Maybe it will knock you out for a little bit, so your body can heal. This is an ugly cycle your system’s on, and we must shake it off.”

  Elliot rolled over at Shane’s instructions. He groaned when the strong fingers worked at the tension and knots in his back.

  “Hey, this is way worse than last time. Are you upset about something?”

  Elliot winced. He stayed quiet. This wasn’t a good place to be upset about anything. Everybody would know.

  “You don’t have to tell me the details, but we do need to know if something is upsetting you.”

  He shook his head but stayed quiet.

  “We’ve seen it all here. Heard it all too, so no one will judge you. That’s one thing you need to understand. It’s usually your ego, your pride, your vision of who you think you should be that comes into play every step of the way. When I put you on the spot, you expect to maintain or even achieve a certain level. It’s a day-to-day push, and slowly but surely, you see progress. So the sudden lack of progress … well, that’s a concern.”

  The words tumbled around in the back of his head. Elliot understood what Shane was doing, and in a way, it was working. The timbre of his voice slowly lured Elliot seductively toward sleep. If anything, he was exhausted. It was not about the nightmares. It wasn’t about the horse therapy. It was about having hurt Sicily. The divide that had opened between them. She’d come by, deliver his medicine and walk out. Rational, competent, cool. It was no longer the warm visits over tea, ensuring he ate or a little social stop to see how he was doing. He missed her.

  “Maybe you need to talk to the doctor again,” Shane said.

  “Won’t help,” Elliot mumbled.

  “Has something happened here? Because you can’t keep doing this. Since being here, your progress has been stalled. We must find a way to break through whatever is bothering you—even if it is only a little breakthrough.” After that, Shane didn’t say any more, but he continued working on Elliot’s back.

  Elliot lay there, shame and pain rolling through him. Everybody had such wonderful experiences at Hathaway, and here he was, unresponsive. The last thing he wanted to do was fail. It would be hard enough to accept that of himself. But to be Hathaway House’s latest failure …

  After Shane was done, Elliot lay in a quiet stupor, figuring out how to shut off his mind.

  “If there was any one single thing you could do right now, what would that be?” Shane’s question came out of the blue.

  Without thinking, Elliot murmured, “Apologize to Sicily.”

  A moment of shocked silence followed, but apparently Shane caught on quickly. “Here I thought you would say something like, return to the time before your accident. Or heal faster. But this is good. At least I know what’s bothering you.” He walked to the doorway and called back, “I’ll tell her you need to see her.” He let himself out.

  Elliot mumbled curses under his breath. If he hadn’t been so tired, he never would have said that. Maybe it was for the best. At least he could apologize for the way he had treated her and move on. Although she dealt with difficult patients all the time. He doubted he was any different. At the same time, that wasn’t how he wanted her to see him. It wasn’t how he wanted to leave here and to have people remember him. And it wasn’t how he wanted his relationship with Sicily to be. But he’d been the one who put a stop to their growing friendship, so he was the one who had to fix it. At least having made that step, or knowing it was coming, he could relax a little bit. As he did relax, sleep caught him sideways and took him out. Maybe confession was good for the soul after all.

  Chapter 10

  Sicily walked into the office that evening to find a note from Shane. She read his handwriting with one eyebrow raised.

  Elliot needs to see you. When asked if there was one single thing he could do right now, he said, “Apologize to you.” He’s been having a particularly difficult time and not sleeping these last few days. If you can do anything to help him make peace with you, it needs to happen. No point in having him here, taking up space, if he is caught up in turmoil and not progressing. Particularly if his progress is related to one of the staff.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” she mumbled to herself. She pulled out her phone. It was already past ten—too late to call Shane. She sent him a quick text instead. I’ll talk to Elliot.

  His response was immediate. Good. Go easy on him. He fell asleep after I was there today. He was exhausted to the point of a physical breakdown. As far as I’m concerned, he needs to be knocked out for the next five days. He’s not doing well.

  Worried and upset, Sicily put away her phone and set up the medications for her next rounds. She took care of everybody else first and then walked to Elliot’s room. The door was closed. She gave a small tap but got no response. She turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  Elliot was curled on his side, facing the window.

  “Elliot?”

  He twisted slightly at the sound of her voice.

  She walked in, quietly placed his medicine on the table. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine.” But his voice was hesitant.

  She waited a long moment. “Shane said you needed to speak with me about something?”

  He gave a strangled laugh, followed by a heavy, sad sigh. “I need to apologize. It’s been eating away at me. Stopping what little actual sleep I’ve been getting.”

  Ouch.

  “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You went through a lot of work to set up the horseback riding, and I was pretty harsh in my refusal.”

  “Care to explain?”

  “No,” he snapped. “Not at all.”

  “Do you think you are the only person who is afraid of horses?” she asked, taking a stab in the dark. “Everyone has fears to deal with, of one kind or another. If I’d known in the beginning, I wouldn’t have gone this far down this route.”

  He glared at her but stayed quiet.

  She groaned. “I get that pride is important. But …”

  His glare deepened. Then his words rushed out. “It’s not so much about pride or ego as much as it’s about admitting to having a weakness.”

  “I suppose, in the military, all weakness is frowned upon,” she guessed.

  He stared at her for a long moment, then gave a clipped nod.

  She didn’t know how to get through that wall. She’d seen aspects of this type of personality before. People came here with all kinds of issues. Showing weakness was one of them. Anything that pricked that pride and ego got a man’s back up against the wall. It made her want to do the exact opposite with a problem. She hadn’t come across anything like this.

  “I had no intention of forcing you,” she said calmly. “Would I have pursued it earlier if you’d told me the truth ahead of time?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure. So in this case, having this set up for at least one session, some of the other patients will get the benefit. However, I would at least like you to come out and maybe watch while the others do their therapy.”

  She watched his face shut down. She added, “I’m not saying touch the animals. I’m not saying be in the pasture with them. I’m saying be in the area outside the fence, so at least you can see the others go through the paces.”

  He tilted his head to the side, then gave a second sharp nod. “I can do that much.”

  She smiled. “Good. I’ll let you know ahead of time. No pressure.”

  “What did you think it would have done?” he asked her.

  �
��Hopefully strengthen your back muscles to help you sit up for longer periods of time. Yet maybe nothing. If it makes you feel better to see other people will be helped, that would be good too.”

  She walked to the door and as she was about to step through, he called out, “You forgive me?”

  Startled, she turned to look at him, and then walked back inside the room. “Of course. This isn’t something unforgivable. It was a lack of communication. You had a fear I didn’t know about. I pushed your button. You pushed mine.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s what friends are for.”

  He grinned. “Okay, so we’re back to being friends?”

  “We were never not friends. As with all relationships, there are ups and downs. If you are concerned about something, I’d much rather you told me about it before our communication got worse instead of better. It’s also a good lesson for me. Maybe I didn’t ask enough questions. I was looking to help you, but that doesn’t mean horse therapy won’t help other people. Maybe that’s where my priorities should’ve been, with everyone and not just you.”

  Elliot winced. “It’s not that I don’t like the fact you did this for me. I feel guilty as hell because I could use whatever therapy sessions are set up, but could they be with anything other than a horse?”

  She chuckled. “Speaking of which, maybe you need to spend some time downstairs again. Some smaller animals could use some love.”

  “I haven’t been down there on my own yet.”