Wet Part 3 (40 page)
Authors: S Jackson Rivera
Bonus Scene:
P
aul pulled the slip of paper from his pocket, the paper Dr. Quiñones had given him, with Dr. Keene’s number. He stared at the paper with three phone numbers and wished there were more. He wanted to call Rhees but he’d smashed up the office. He specifically remembered throwing the phone out the window. He couldn’t email her either, after demolishing every computer in sight.
“Damn cell phones.”
His curse carried a double meaning, not just that the hijackers had smashed his, but at the moment, he hated the way they made it too easy to keep contact information without having to think about it. The false sense of safekeeping that having a phone had given him was the only reason he didn’t now have a whole file of email addresses and phone numbers stored in his head.
“Super-stupor brain.” He laughed at himself. Rhees’ gift for wording things was wearing off on him.
“Juicy crisis!” He ran his hand through his hair and frowned at the memory of her. It had been less than three days, and he missed her so much, he ached. “Love
sucks
!”
Falling in love had messed up his plan to live out the rest of his life, carefree and guilt-free. He’d bought the shop and made a pact with himself to, from that moment on, refuse to let family, relationships,
anything
, complicate his days . . . and nights, ever again.
He sighed, picked up the phone in his hotel room, and dialed.
“Keene here.”
“Hey, it’s Paul Weaver.” Paul paused. He hadn’t planned out this conversation very well, but he just now realized that. “I’m in Texas. I need to talk to you. I should have called sooner, but, well, but I’m leaving today. We talked once about your retreat, I need your help to convince Rhees to visit.”
“Well, I’m booked today, but I’m headed out there tomorrow.” Keene’s voice sounded annoyingly calm, as usual, and Paul wondered if there was a required class in psychiatry school to teach it.
“I have an idea,” Keene went on. “Can you postpone your return one more day?”
“Uh . . .” Paul didn’t want to. He’d been gone so long already, waiting around, driving himself insane about those blasted tests. He thought about Rhees, wondering where he was, worrying about him. He scrubbed his face, wishing he could rub the dilemma away along with the tension in his muscles.
“Yeah,” his voice rasped. “One more day, in the scheme of things, won’t be any worse than they already are.”
She’ll forgive me—she always does—damn it. She’ll give me hell, but I’ll get her to look me in the eye
. . . he didn’t finish the thought, hating what a conniving, self-serving manipulator he could be, even to the woman he loved.
“Great.” Keene interrupted Paul’s internal tirade of self-abuse. “Why don’t you head out to the ranch, spend the night, and we’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll call Sheryl, she’s the resident director out there. I’ll let her know you’re coming, and she’ll give you the tour, and get you all set up. You can look around, sit in on a few group sessions if you’d like. You’ll have to sign some paperwork first, just like you’re really checking in—just to protect the other guests, but there’s no better way to see for yourself what we do there.”
Paul had to think about it for a second. He had the strange feeling he was being set up, but his concern about Rhees outweighed his distrust.
“Okay. I have to run down to Galveston first. I found out today that the bastard isn’t even in Corpus Christi, but that’s actually better. Galveston is closer. He won’t know what hit him.”
“You’ll have to check in by five,” Keene said, after a long, silent pause.
Paul regretted his short burst of a temper rant to Keene of all people. He suspected Keene already thought he needed therapy more than Rhees did. He wondered why he kept coming back to the same doctor when Paul’s confidence in the man’s ability to diagnose a person’s mental health was so off.
oOo
Paul woke the fourth morning away from the island, the shop, and Rhees, snuggled up to the pillow in his arms. He’d slept well, considering he’d been alone. He laughed at himself, thinking he should invest in one of those long, body pillows. Maybe he could get one specially printed with Rhees’ face on it.
He hopped out of bed and headed toward the shower since the thought of Rhees had caught
He’s
attention.
“Anyone would eventually become exhausted enough to sleep,” he mumbled on his way to the bathroom.
He didn’t vocalize the rest of the thought, but he mentally denied it had anything to do with being at Keene’s peaceful retreat. He’d arrived mid-afternoon, the day before. Sheryl had been very helpful, had answered all his questions, even applied first aid to his right hand. He’d told her he’d gone for a run and got knocked against a wall by a passing bicyclist.
He’d eaten dinner in the dining room that compared to a five-star restaurant, scoped out the facility, looking for breaches in security that might compromise Rhees’ safety, if he could get her there. He’d even decided to sit in on a couple of the sessions, after all, to observe.
He didn’t say a word, but listening to the patients talk about their own experiences with childhood sexual abuse had been very educational. It had given him a lot to think about—and not just how it applied to Rhees.
While some actions, and some of the emotional havoc of the aftermath seemed to fall into ranges that could be tracked statistically, each person’s experience was different, and each person’s coping skills toward his or her experience manifested differently.
He learned there were no set rules of behavior, no defined standards of dealing with the past. Everyone was different, and everyone had come to grips—or not come to grips, with their experiences in their own way.
oOo
“Why did Rhees have to goad you?” Keene asked, again in his too-calm tone.
Paul rolled his eyes. They’d been over this already.
“I didn’t want to traumatize her, all over again.”
“Is she traumatized? What behavior have you noticed? Is she withdrawn? Have the nightmares returned? Is she experiencing panic attacks?”
“No,” Paul exhaled. “But she should be. I told you about the similarities between the dressing room and the bathroom . . .”
Keene nodded, but didn’t look up from his tablet.
“I still don’t understand why she had to goad you.”
“Because she’s sick,” Paul said dryly. “I need your help to get her to accept that.”
“I don’t treat patients against their will. It never helps until they’re ready, on their own.”
“So tell me what to do.”
“Nothing.”
Paul stared at Keene, gritting his teeth. How did the man not understand?
“There’s nothing you can do unless, at some point, she decides she needs to talk to me again.” Keene seemed completely unfazed by Paul’s simmering irritation. “Look, you said yourself she wasn’t a statistic, and you’re right, none of my patients are. I was just trying to arm you, prepare you for the worst. I didn’t mean to come across like a fortune teller.
“I don’t have a magic cure for my patients. They have to do the work themselves. All I do is walk them through their own thoughts, if they can’t do that themselves, or if their thoughts aren’t producing good conclusions, I try to teach them how to think it through more effectively. I spent time with Rhees. Unlike most of the patients who end up here, she’s very good at self-reflection. If she says she’s thinking it through, working it out on her own, then she doesn’t need me.”
“But—” Paul couldn’t believe it. “She’s sick—she wanted me to . . .”
“Sounds to me like she wanted it any way you would have given it. If you’d have tried it in the hotel room, and not freaked out on her, it wouldn’t have gone down the way it did.”
“That’s not it at all. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I was there. She used her knowledge about my nature against me, acting all trusting and refusing to admit she knew what I was—
am
. She led me to believe she was perfect, but then, she turned on me, like she’d been counting on me to do it all along. She’s not perfect, she’s sick, do you hear me? She’s sick, and I love her too much, I can’t sit by and not do everything in my power to help her.”
Keene finally registered an expression. He looked blank—the good doctor actually appeared to be dumbfounded.
“Is perfection important to you?” he finally asked.
“No. Not at all.” Paul squirmed in his seat. “I hate perfection. My parents always expected . . .”
Paul deadpanned. A few seconds later, he dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. Next, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, and hid his face in his hands. He made a few growly noises and felt his mouth working overtime.
“Oh, God,” he finally huffed out and sat back again, looking up at the ceiling once more. After another minute, he sat up straight with a loud intake of air, staring at Keene when he exhaled, again loudly. “I pulled the ole’ Weaver family expectation card on her. I swore I’d never do that, be like that, and yet . . . oh, God.”
“Maybe you should stay a few more days.”
Paul looked at Keene, thinking the man had to be crazy. He had to get back to his beautiful bride. He had to apologize as soon as possible.
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