Aaron (34 page)

“You never put the ownership of my recovery on yourself. You always put it on me. You didn’t try to hide my problems behind a regimen of drugs. I’m still all kinds of fucked up, but I think the difference now is I have hope,” Aaron explained. Dr. Thomas nodded with a small smile, and then sat back in the chair. His expression changed to something more serious as he spoke.

“I want to try something different with you today. I was thinking about using a mind mapping diagram to chart out a memory and some of

the things that might trigger it. It’s pretty much a free association exercise.”

Dr. Thomas wheeled out an impressive whiteboard from where it had been sitting along the back wall, waiting for their attention. In the center of the board he drew a lopsided oval, underneath which he wrote “memory.” From the oval, he drew three lines, each in different directions. At the end of each line he added more ovals.

“I want you to think of a memory, and we’re going to put it in the center oval. Then, we’re going to map out things you associate with that memory. If we find a trigger, we can document it.”

“That sounds easy enough,” Aaron said and grimaced as Dr. Thomas shook his head and laughed.

 

“It may sound easy, but it’s going to be very hard for you. It could also trigger a panic attack, but we know how to deal with those.”

“Okay, so where do we start?” Aaron asked, even as his body tensed with the idea of remembering something from that night, purposefully, and with painful detail. As much as he wanted to forget every moment, he understood that working through the fear and the anger would be the only way to move on and have any kind of life.

“Think of a memory from that night, but let’s start out with something manageable, like the abduction or the riding in the van. I want for us to be more comfortable with the process before we move on to something harder.” Dr. Thomas stood next to the whiteboard and picked up one of the markers. “Just sit back on the couch, close your eyes if you want, and pick a memory to work with.”

Aaron suddenly wished Spencer were down in the rec room rather than up in his room studying for his calculus final. In addition, he also had a paper due in freshman composition and another one in psychology. The only class he seemed to breeze through was programming. Aaron, having only taken the programming course, didn’t have as much academic work. His therapy homework ended up being far more painful. Dr. Thomas waited patiently for him to come up with a memory, so he closed his eyes and waited for one to come.

“Open your mouth,” the taller man said as he stood in front of Aaron, who had been driven painfully to his knees on the oil-stained floor.

 

Aaron

 

His hands massaged the front of his dirty, faded jeans, and Aaron blanched. He could feel every bit of the blood leave his face, and soon his entire body felt as cold as the concrete beneath him. Turning his head, he bit his lips together and shook his head.

“Pete, get him to open his fucking mouth.” He opened the fly on his jeans and pulled out his semi-hard cock. The other man, the one not on top of Juliette, held a lit cigarette within inches of his chest.

“Do it now,” he said and pressed the tip against Aaron’s flesh. The white-hot pain ripped through his skin, and Aaron opened his mouth to scream. The first man choked off the sound, muting it by shoving his cock into Aaron’s wide open mouth.

“Okay, I have it,” Aaron told Dr. Thomas as he pulled his feet up onto the couch and wrapped trembling arms around them.

 

“Can you sum up the subject of the memory into a few words?” The doctor popped the cap off a marker and turned toward the board.

“Burns,” Aaron said, summarizing the entire horrific event into a single word so he didn’t have to go into the excruciating detail. Dr. Thomas turned to look at Aaron for a long moment, concern written into his slight frown.

“Are you sure that’s where you want to start?”

“It’s less horrible than the other things they did to me, and it’s the first thing that popped into my head. Go ahead and write it up there.” Aaron shrugged and hugged his knees a little tighter to his chest. Dr. Thomas turned slowly, almost as if he were reluctant to do so, and wrote the word
burns
on the board in the center oval. Then, he drew a line up and to the right, away from the oval. He drew a circle at the end of that line and wrote the word
senses
.

“Put yourself back into that memory, experience it, and tell me what your senses are telling you: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.” The words sounded as if they came out only by sheer force.

What Dr. Thomas didn’t understand was that Aaron needed to do it. He needed to get that shit out of his head, for his mother and for Spencer. Heart slamming against his rib cage, he closed his eyes and let himself go back, back on his knees for the sadists who nearly destroyed him.

“My knees hurt,” Aaron started as the memory took shape in his mind. “It’s cold in the garage. I’m still dressed, but the floor is like ice. I’m on my knees, and they are standing over me.” He cracked one of his eyes open and watched Dr. Thomas drawing more little circles around
senses
, blurred through the wetness in his eyes. He filled them in with other words: cold, pain, and fear. Aaron closed his eyes again, forcing the hot tears that had welled in them to fall. “I can hear Juliette’s clothes tearing. I can hear her pleading with the man on top of her. She’s just out of my line of sight, but if I turn my head, I can see her. The guy in front of me is touching himself through his jeans. I know what he wants. He smells like piss and sweat, and I’m trying not to gag. My teeth are biting down hard on the insides of my lips to keep them closed as he’s trying to nudge them open.”

Aaron began to rock back and forth on the couch.
The burns… the burns are coming.

 

“His dick is out now, and he’s telling the other guy to make me open my mouth—”

 

“What the hell is going on here?”

Aaron’s eyes flew open, and he looked around wildly at the sound of his mother’s voice. Out of instinct, he kept himself wrapped in the ball as he found her face, which was red, shocked, and livid. Spencer stood next to her, looking confused and wary.

“Mom, I….” Aaron started as he wiped the wetness from his face and stood up. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His mother would be so hurt when she found out he’d been in therapy and hadn’t told her. The last thing on earth he wanted was to hurt his mother. She’d been everything to him for so long.

“Aaron and I are in the middle of a session, but by your reaction, I’m guessing Aaron didn’t tell you he started working with me,” Dr. Thomas said quietly, and Aaron admired his calm confidence. At that moment, Aaron had neither calm nor confidence, but then Spencer’s father hadn’t just broken his mother’s heart.

“Who are you?” she demanded, and strode into the room to put her five-foot-two frame between himself and Dr. Thomas, as if she were shielding Aaron from him.
Ever his protector.

Aaron

 

“My name is Dr. Henry Thomas. I’m a clinical psychologist specializing in severe trauma. I met Aaron when he came to spend time with my son,” he explained and turned the whiteboard around to push it back against the wall. At that moment Aaron saw the other circles Dr. Thomas had drawn. Shame welled up inside him as he wondered how much his mother heard.

“Aaron, we’re leaving. Let’s go,” his mother said with a venom that he rarely heard from her. It rang of disgust, anger, and contempt.

“Aaron is an adult, capable of making his own decisions. You can’t force him to leave,” Dr. Thomas said quietly, and Aaron’s mother spun around with raw fury in her eyes. Aaron stood up with every intention of getting between them and reasoning with his mother, but her next sentence stopped him cold.

“I know all about you, Dr. Thomas. We researched you thoroughly when we were looking for a therapist for Aaron. I thought you were a savior until I found out you’re an alcoholic and your practice closed because your partner was having sex with an underage patient. That’s not the kind of help my son needed or deserved. Now I find out you’ve been treating him without my knowledge or consent. How are you getting paid, Dr. Thomas? I haven’t gotten any kind of statement from the insurance company. Was that part of the plan to hide it from his family? What are you doing with my son?”