Everything is whirring, whooshing, and beeping in the far corners of my mind.  I don’t want to wake up due to the sounds because that will mean I’ll have to face my situation again.  I’ll wake up and be with Charlie and his gun again, and I don’t want that.  I was having too much fun dreaming about Sam during one of her good moments away from him...her smile and her laugh...

But now the beeping is getting so loud, I just can’t take it anymore.

My eyes flutter open, then slam shut again.  I realize how hard my head is pounding, too hard for me to even focus on where I might be, and I try so fucking hard to get it together.  I have to be ready to fight again, because I know Alex is dead...and I’m all alone.

I try again.

My eyes open a little bit easier this time, but the surroundings are new.  It’s all white, everywhere I look...so fucking bright.  And there are machines, lots of machines and tubes, causing the whirring, whooshing and beeping.  I try to open my mouth to say something, to ask if there is somebody around who can help me, but I find that there is something preventing me from doing that.  It’s like...I can move my mouth but there is something in the way of letting the sound out.  I struggle to sit up, but it hurts...everything hurts...

Shoot. Him.  Now.

I hear the voice loud and clear, and in that instant, the painful memories of what happened just before I passed out come rushing back to me.  Charlie and his choke hold on me, the blood pouring out of me, and Sam...Sam and her gun.

Where the hell is she now?

My eyes scan the room frantically for her...but she’s not here.  In fact, nobody is.  Nobody is here and I’m alone.  I start to break down, freak out.  Try to call out for help through this thing covering part of my face.  

Help doesn’t come...

At least not right away.

Then a door opens, voices come in urgent tones, shouting for people to hurry, that “he’s awake”.  Christ, how long was I out for? How long has it been since....everything?  I try to remember, but I find the thoughts quickly slipping away from me when I see somebody familiar standing in the doorway.  She’s smiling and crying at the same time as she rushes over to me.

Momma.

“Oh Jesus.”
 
She’s here.  How?  Damn, I’m so fucking confused right now...

“Baby...” she trails off, and I know she’s trying to get her crying under control for me.  I think I manage to smile, even though my lips are completely numb right now.  That’s momma at her best.  My strong momma, and I know this is real now...it’s not like before, when she was only far away in my dreams.  Her hand is touching my face, caressing it gently, and she kisses my forehead.  It helps me to calm down, slowly.  I wish I could ask her about a thousand questions, but all I can seem to do right now is stare at her and smile like some doped up idiot.

“You just rest now.  Everything is okay....everything will be fine, baby.”  

I nod at her.

A nurse brings a comfortable looking chair into the room a few minutes later and momma sits down in it, taking my hand in hers and pressing her lips against it.  I look down and realize there’s about five tubes plugged into my arm.  Shit, what the hell happened to me?  A doctor comes in minutes later, removes the thing covering my face, which I realize is an oxygen mask.  Then he shines a light in my eyes before nodding positively at my mom and telling her that I should be able to talk to her in a while...that the effects of the sedative are wearing off.

And I’d like to ask him some questions, I really would.  I’d like some answers now rather than later.

But I pass out again.
************
“Hey boy.”

I smile as Buckley rests his head on top of my leg, savoring the moment as I give him a good scratch on the top of his head and behind his ears. It’s his favorite thing.  Brennan...she likes the tummy rub more, but Rachael decided to take her running so I can’t have the best of both worlds right now.  I’ve missed this simple moment, maybe even more than Buckley has.  They don’t allow you to have animals come visit at the hospital.  They said too many outside germs can be brought in, which fucking blew, because I was stuck there for almost a month before they let me come home for bed rest.  My dogs freaked out the second I came through the door, but still, Rachael had to hold them back with the leash so they wouldn’t jump on me and tear my stitches open.  It took days for them to calm down, and for my mom to stop being so paranoid about them hurting me any worse than I was.  Then finally, after about a week, they were allowed to lay in the bed with me, one of them on either side of my body, refusing to go away.  It’s the strangest thing, I think they could tell I’d been through some serious shit.  They were so protective those first couple of weeks.  If somebody came into my house that they didn’t recognize they’d spring to their feet, get real stiff, and even growl a little.  I love them.  Besides my alarm system, and Eric, they’re probably the only other thing that can make me feel completely safe inside my own house these days.

My injuries included multiple contusions to my face and body, two broken ribs, an infected cut on my arm, and a severe gunshot wound, not to mention a killer case of bronchitis.  The bullet had penetrated my body in such a way, that it nearly hit a part of my spinal cord.  A quarter of an inch more and I would be paralyzed right now.  That’s what the doctors told me anyway.  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just lied there and stared at the ceiling.  They told me I was lucky but I didn’t feel that way.  Seven days.  I was in that fucking hell for seven days.  I saw things and felt things that nobody should ever have to, and I did it alone.  I guess I was supposed to feel vindicated because I survived, but the more I tried to the more horrible I felt inside.

So I just stopped caring.

Alexander Samuels had been an undercover narcotics agent with the FBI for almost ten years.  Busting Adrian’s drug ring had been an ongoing project of his for almost six years, and once he brought the son of a bitch to jail, he was supposed to be promoted...get a nice cushy desk job so he could be around more for his wife and son.

But he never got that chance.

I feel responsible even though they tell me there was nothing I could have done.  But the reality is, if I hadn’t gone chasing after Samantha that night, maybe I never would have been taken.  Maybe then Alex would have had more time to finish his work and bring Adrian into custody.  Nothing would have happened.  His young son would still have his father and his wife wouldn’t be the emotional mess I know she is.  

The FBI brought them by to see me.  She wanted to shake my hand and ask me how her husband died.  It was the first time I really allowed myself to talk about that night in the forest, and how brave Alex was.  I was glad to do it for the right reasons.  Tessa is a really sweet lady, and her son, Alex Junior, is a good kid.  I almost want to help them out somehow.  Maybe if I do, I’ll feel a little less guilty about getting her husband killed simply so I could escape.  It was a horrible way for him to go, being shot in the head like that with no way to defend himself.

There’s a special place in hell for Charlie.

The first few days of my recovery went pretty much the same.  I’d be awake one second, then passed out the next.  When I was awake, I was usually in such a daze because of all the shit I was doped up on that I could barely focus on whoever else was in the room with me.  I didn’t hold my first real conversation with somebody until nearly a week later, and although I love my mom, and the fact that she still to this day doesn’t like to leave my side for more than five minutes, I’m really really glad the first person I was able to talk to was Trace.

“You gonna make it buddy?”  He sat down in my mom’s chair.  She’d been persuaded to take a breather from my bedside, thanks to a helpful nurse that Trace had been pouring his heart and soul out to in the hallway.  I came to learn through casual small talk with her when she would bring me some water and Jell-O in the mornings how distraught my best friend really was in the moments he couldn’t talk to me, and how good of a job he was doing at hiding it.  

Trace had always been like that though.  Always serious when it came to business, always professional around me when he needed to be.  I was always the nutcase, usually paranoid about how a single would do or if I would put on a shitty performance at an awards show.  He’d always be there to give me a boost or to tell me to suck it up and quit acting like a pussy.  He never showed that other side to me...the weaker side.  The side that could be afraid, and I guess...I guess I never had an interest in seeing that side of him either.  Our whole lives, he was always the strong one with the level head, and I was the basket case.  I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

“I think so,” I’d told him weakly as he lightly slapped my hand that I held out for him.  “As soon as I can get up out of this bed again, anyway.”

He just nodded, looked into the other direction for a few minutes, before turning back to me.  “Justin I’m...I’m sorry I told you to go after her.”

He meant Sam, and I guess I should have figured he would blame himself, but I didn’t want him to.  Nothing that happened could have been prevented, and I wanted him to know that.  “You didn’t make me follow her, and you didn’t make me tell Eric and Tiny to stay away from the club that night,” I explained to him.  “The whole fucking thing happened because I was too ignorant to protect myself.  After all this time, I should have known better.”

He just shrugged.  

“I’ll beat your ass.” I tried to smile, but ending up in a fit of coughing instead.  He stared at me while I was doing it, as if he was so helpless...like he didn’t know what to do for me.  “Trace,” I continued, when I was able to.  “I’ll be okay.”

He shook his head.  “Your coping skills are amazing.”

They really are.  I couldn’t deny him that, and I still can’t to this day.  I mean, I have my moments, usually when I’m in an unfamiliar place I’ll get really tense, really quiet, and usually somebody will know better and help me to snap out of it.  But if I’m alone sometimes I’ll back myself into a corner and just...shrink up, cry.  Other than that I’ve gotten pretty good at pushing most of what happened completely out of my mind.  My mom and the rest of them really want me to go see a psychiatrist, but I disagree.  I hate that kind of shit.  I’m too private for it, and so...I just cope.

I cope everyday.

But I still...I still think about her.

All the time.

My mom has been really strong through this whole thing, never letting me get down on myself too much when she’s around.  She’s tried to keep her dignity as much as possible, not allowing me to talk to anybody in the press or in the business besides Johnny and the people immediately involved with my career.  She told me US Magazine and all the other vultures were dying to get a piece of the story, and she wouldn’t allow it to become a media spectacle.  I know she didn’t want me to think about what I’d been through, which was good, because I didn’t want to dwell on it all then.  I was still having nightmares in the hospital during the night when nobody was there.  I would wake up calling out for Sam, and then the nurses would come and sedate me with something.  That freaked me out too.  I would think that Charlie told them to do it, and after a while I started to fight against their needles.  The information was passed on to my family, and it took a few days of gentle coaxing from Trace, Rachael and my mom before I would finally admit that I’d constantly been drugged while I was kidnapped, and I was terrified of the nurses when they came in the night with their syringes.  My family put a stop to that.  I took sleeping pills from then on, and my mom made it a point to be there nightly, just so everything ran smoothly.  I felt like a five year old, but knew there was no chance in talking her out of it.

Bill is the agent who ran the task force that saved my life.  I’ve never taken the time to get to know his last name, and in fact, I don’t really care what it is.  He started coming to visit me a few days after I’d been taken out of intensive care.  Since my entire family was there for the initial first meeting, I forced a smile and acted grateful to him for all of his hard work on the outside.  On the inside though...I was screaming.

Screaming because I knew he was the one person who probably knew what happened to Sam and where she was currently being held.  

It took two weeks to get him completely alone with me in the hospital.  My family and friends were constantly around when he visited, questioning him as he questioned me about what happened.  The last thing I wanted was have them hear all the gory details about my kidnapping, but they simply refused to leave.  Bill tried to reassure me, tell me it was okay that they knew and I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable talking about it.  Yeah, that was really easy for him to say.  I had to hold so much shit back about Sam, which I knew could effect her charges.  It’s sick, really.  Part of me wanted to fight so hard to keep her out of jail.  It made no sense.  She was just as much a part of my captivity as Charlie was, but still, something inside of me was forcing me to think back...remember how I felt about her...

How we kissed, and how she tried to help me the only way she knew how.

“Hey kid,” Bill smiled as he knocked on the side of my open doorway.  “You up to talking?”

“Hey,” I forced a smile and sat up in the bed, turning down the volume on the television as he took my moms usual place at my bedside.  “Yeah, absolutely.”

My mom, Dad, Trace and Rachael had been forced away from my bedside for a long weekend with Trace’s mom and sister.  They’d flown up from Memphis that week, determined to get them away for some much needed R&R.  I couldn’t have been happier the moment they were gone.  I loved them, yeah, but I hadn’t been able to get a moments peace since I’d woken up.  At times, I felt like I was the one entertaining them, when all I really wanted to do was curl up and crawl back inside myself where I didn’t have to remember anything anymore.  Naturally, Bills sudden presence prevented me from doing that, but it slowly began to dawn on me that I was now alone with him...

That I could talk to him about anything I wanted.

“I heard your family went on a little Justin free retreat this weekend,” he chuckled.  “I’m not sure who’s going to benefit more from it, you or them?”

“It’s terrible,” I laughed lightly.  “But it’s probably gonna be me.”

“I don’t blame you.”  He laughed again and patted my shoulder.  “They’ve been in your face a little bit too much.”

I nodded and licked my bottom lip.  “So...what’s going on?”

“Just wanted to update you on the legal stuff,” he nodded.  “If you’re up to it.”

My eyes widened a little bit.  “What about Charlie?”

“Well he’s been indicted. Kidnapping and murder in the first degree,” Bill explained.  “He’s trying to plead down to a lesser charge...accessory.”

I wouldn’t look at him.  It terrified me that Charlie could possible get less jail time for all the shit he’d done to me...to her.  “Do you think he’ll get his way?”

Bill sighed.  “It’s hard to say.  He’s trying to pin most of this on that girlfriend of his...Samantha Albertson.  It depends on his lawyer, really.”

He was staring at me, and I refused to look at him.  “He did this,” I finally managed to say, although my voice was hoarse and whispery.  “He forced her to do what she did.”

“I know that.”

I slowly looked up at him.  I knew what I had to do.  I had to make things right for Sam, and there was only one solution.  Whether it terrified me or not to see Charlie DeRoy again, wasn’t the issue.  “I want to testify,” I whispered.

“Actually, that won’t be necessary.  That’s why I came.  I wanted to let you know that we worked it out, so you wouldn’t have to relive all of that.”

“But without my...”

Bill held his hand up.  “It’s been worked out.  We have another witness who we believe will take any doubt that Charlie isn’t anything more than a cold blooded criminal out of the jury’s mind.”

I knew who it was, but I didn’t want to believe it.

“The DA agreed to cut a deal with Ms. Albertson in exchange for her testimony,” Bill explained.  “It saves her the trouble of going through her own trial, and takes any chance of a life without parole sentence off the table.  Considering everything she helped put you through, I think she’s getting off pretty light.”

I shook my head roughly.  It just...it wasn’t right.  Call me crazy, but Sam didn’t belong in jail.  She just didn’t.  Life had dealt her a crappy hand, and yeah, she made shit choices, but she was a good person.  I wanted to do something.  I had to do something.  “No.” I blurted out.  “Bill, she...she doesn’t deserve that.”

“Thirty to life for nearly getting you killed?” He laughed.  “I think she deserves every hour she spends in that jail cell.”

“She doesn’t!”

I’d screamed it at him, and he stared back at me, seemingly deep in thought as he stroked the light stubble on his chin.  I know I must have sounded like a nutcase, but it was the first time in weeks I’d been able to talk about Sam with anybody.  I felt like I needed to take action, not just sit back and listen to how the feds were going to lock her away for thirty years.

“Justin, you’ve been put through something...something very traumatic,” Bill began softly.  “From speaking with Ms. Albertson...”

“Her name is Samantha,” I gritted.  

He nodded, gently, gazing at me with eyes that told me he knew something was seriously fucked up inside of my head.  “From speaking with Samantha, I know she...she tried to help you. That’s a big part of the reason the DA is showing her some compassion.”

“I care about her,” I croaked.  “She’s not like you’re making her out to be, and she doesn’t deserve to go to prison.”

The room became deathly silent for a while after that.

“Can I ask you something?”

I finally glanced back at him, and shrugged.

“Have you spoken with anybody yet?”

I knew he meant a shrink, and while I hadn’t personally sought out anybody from the outside, my family forced me to talk to the hospital psychiatrist a few times, and I was sure they had one lined up for me as soon as I was able to check out of the hospital.  “They made me talk to some shrink here.”

“Doctor Walker?”

I nodded.

“Well, I spoke with him too, Justin.  When we were trying to determine if you were going to have to testify or not.  At that point we weren’t sure if Samantha was going to accept a deal.”

“Yeah,” I muttered.  “So?”

“Has he told you about any sort of...condition, you may have developed because of what happened?”

“Yeah, they call it being fucking crazy.” I scoffed and rubbed my face with my hands.  “Which I’m...I’m not, you know?”

I was shaking.

It was bad.

“Well, as much as you’d like to believe that, they do have another term for it.  It’s called Stockholm Syndrome.  When a victim begins to...relate, or care for their captor.”

“I don’t have Stockholm anything!” I snapped at him.  “You don’t get it, okay? You don’t know what he did to her!”

“She’s been very open with me,” Bill gently replied.  “I know a lot more about her situation than you might think, and whatever may have been said between the two of you while everything was going on, was nothing more than a drug addict talking to the one person who had no choice but to listen to her problems.”

I just laughed and shook my head.  “That’s a lie.”

“It came from her mouth.”

I looked at him, searching his expression for any sign that he was lying to me.  But Bill’s face was stone cold, and his expression was a regretful one.  He knew it would fuck me up even more, but at the same time, I knew he, along with everybody else, wanted me to move past it.  “She said that?”

“Justin,” he sat up a little bit and stared right into my eyes.  “You can’t go on thinking that you could have possibly formed a relationship with this woman.”

I leaned back into my pillows, completely at a loss for words.  I didn’t think Sam could ever...say that.  That the bond we formed meant nothing to her.  But I knew Bill.  I’d gotten to know him very well over those few weeks in the hospital.  He wouldn’t lie to me.  

I sobbed.

“Your family is going to get you some help,” he told me softly as he rubbed my shoulder a little.  “You’re going to be okay.”

“I...I thought I loved her,” I moaned.  “I think I still do.”

He was silent for a very long time.  “I know.”  He rose up from the chair then, sighed a little, before plastering a fake smile on his face for me.  “I’ll let you know how the trial goes.  In the meant time just...work on getting yourself better so you can go home.”

I nodded, but didn’t say goodbye.  

I spent three more weeks in the hospital, being rehabilitated from my gunshot wound by a few world class physical therapists.  By the end of that third week I was finally out of that bed and on my feet, walking with the guide of a cane, and only then did the doctor tell me that it was okay for me to continue my rehabilitation from home.  I was thankful.  I think most of the reason I was so out of my mind was because I was cooped up in that room, confined to a bed for more than a month.  I was sure when I got home I would forget all about Sam, and about my “Syndrome”.  I looked forward to playing with my dogs, hanging out with my friends, and getting back to work as quickly as possible.

But going home was harder than I thought it would be.

“Hey!” Rachael smiles as she runs up the steps with Brennan hot on her heels.  “I got you the mail.”  She throws it on my lap, while Brennan proceeds to roll on her back so I can rub her belly.  I smile, forgetting about the mail and my cousin all at once as I focus on my hairy companion.  

“So...Trace and I were going to go for dinner tonight,” Rachael continues on.  “We thought you might want to come.”

I’ve been home for a month.  In that month, I’ve only gone out of my house twice.  Once for a meeting when my mom was in town, and again when Trace tried to get me out of the house to have lunch with him and Marty.  I made it five minutes past my house gate before I started to breathe all weird and cry in the car.  He brought me back and called my doctor, who then told him I probably had a panic attack.  Two days later my mom was back in town with a shrink at my door.  I see him every other day now.  We talk about anything except the kidnapping.  I don’t mind him so much because he’s a Lakers fan.  We talk about that.

He doesn't hesitate to remind me though, that I need to start talking about the other things on my mind, soon.

“I have some work I have to finish up,” I tell her quickly, not taking my focus off of Brennan.  “You guys go and have a good time.”

“Oh okay...well how about tomorrow?  We can do lunch.”

“I um...I think I have a thing.”

“What thing?”

“Just a work related thing.”

“Why can’t you just tell me that you’re scared, Justin?”

She says it with such impatience in her voice, like she’s fed up with me, that she wants me to just do what she says because she wants the old me back in her life.  Well things have changed.  They’ve changed and I...I can’t change them back to the way they were.  “I’m...I’m just...”

“You are,” she whispers.

I finally stop playing with my dog, so I can look up at her.  “I’m trying,” I mutter.  “I’m doing the best that I can.”

“You’re not trying, Justin,” she informs me.  “You’ve been seeing the shrink for weeks, and from what I’ve heard, you’ve barely said a thing about what happened to you.  That’s why he comes to the house, you know? You can talk to him.  That’s his job, to listen to you, since you can’t talk to us about it.”

Her lips are quivering and I know the fact that I can’t sit her down and really talk to her about all this, hurts her more than anything.  While she’s my cousin, she’s really always been one of my best friends.  She knows mostly everything about me, except for the one or two things I’ve done that Trace will take with  him to his grave.  I should be talking to her about this.  I know...she could help me through it.

But I just... I just can’t.

The very thought of...being chained, blindfolded, told I was going to die...I can’t talk about it.  I hear his voice, and I hear her crying...begging him to let me live.  It keeps me up nights, so really, the daytime is my escape from all of that.  Talking about it...with anybody, will only drive me further and further away from reality.  

“I’m sorry, Rach,” I whisper.

She lets out a harsh sigh.  “Me too.  I’m...I’m gonna head out, okay?”

I just nod and she leans down...hugs me so tight.  I can feel her tears hitting my neck, and I feel like a horrible fucking person.

She’s in and out of my house within five minutes, and I find myself standing on my steps, waving to her as she honks and drives away.  The gate parts, and then she disappears back out into the world.

The world that I am no longer a part of.  

I head inside, my dogs right behind me.  Eric waves to me from his place on my couch.  He’s always here.  He never leaves.  My mother has ordered it, and I wouldn’t be able to bare being here alone anyway.  There’s too many sounds that will freak me out, too many ways for somebody to sneak in here and take me away again.

As it is, I’m sleeping in my closet at the moment.  It’s safe in there.  I have a blow up mattress, my iPod, laptop, and some magazines.  It’s a walk in closet....big enough that I’m comfortable and I’m able to put a chair up against the door, so if anybody tries to grab me in the night, they’ll be a little bit delayed.  I keep some pepper spray in a little box right behind me, so I can grab it in a flash.  My dogs sleep in there with me too.

We’re like one big happy family.

“You taking Rachael up on that dinner invitation?” He asks, as he raises the remote to change the station.

I hate that he’s such a good eavesdropper.  “I...I have some stuff to finish up,” I say it as I stare down at my sneakers.

“Chinese tonight then?”

I shrug.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’ll let you know when it’s here.”
I turn, ready to head upstairs to lock myself in the closet until Eric calls my cell to tell me dinner has arrived, but then a buzzing comes, telling me that somebody is at the gate.  I stare at Eric with wide eyes, and my breathing starts to become heavy.  There’s a weight on my chest that I can’t shake...

“Sit.”

He pulls me over to the couch and I sit down, paralyzed, as I feel my dogs sitting at my feet, whimpering because they know how terrified I am.

“Who’s this?” Eric buzzes back through the intercom.

“Um...it’s...it’s Shelly.”

I turn my head to look at him.  Eric is smiling at me, and I see his finger going back to the intercom, probably to tell her to come through.  But I can’t...I can’t see her.  Not like this.  “Eric, no.  Eric!”

“Sure, baby girl.  Come on through.”

He presses a second button.  The one that opens my gate.  

“Why the hell are you letting her in!”

“You need to talk to somebody,” he tells me gruffly.  “And if it isn’t gonna be your momma, or Trace, or Rachael, it sure as hell better be her.  She’s the best thing that ever happened to you man.”  He glares at me and goes back to sit on the opposite end of the couch.

“I’m not ready to talk to her!” I yell at him, my mind racing, terrified of seeing her.  I start to remember every dream I had about her when I was...gone.  How she got me through when I thought I was going to die.

But no.

That was then.

I’m not the same now.

“Man up then,” he mutters.

“You’re so fired, I swear to god,” I grumble.

He just laughs at me and changes the channel again.  “Remember to thank me later, all right?”

I shake my head roughly, ready to just...run away, lock myself in my closet and make Eric explain to her why I can’t see her.

But then there’s a knock at the door.

“Better get that so you don’t look like a fool.  Your momma’d probably kick your ass if she found out you wouldn’t see that girl.”

She would.

It’s the only reason why I drag myself over to the door, dreading who is on the other side.

“Um...”  She says it softly when I finally open the door.  “Hey Justin.”

I rub a hand over my head and down the back of my neck.  I can feel the sweat that’s formed in the short time since she rang my buzzer, and I know how scared I am right now.  Scared because she looks...she looks the same, and smiles the same, and when I get a little closer to her I find that she smells the same too.  It’s Shelly like I remember her, the Shelly I dreamed about.  “Hey.”  I don’t look at her.

“I...I know you’re...you’re probably not in the mood to see me,” she whispers.  “But Trace called and...”

“No...come in,” I nod.  “It’s okay.”

I move aside, and she steps through my doorway.  My dogs start to whimper and wag their tails when she closes the door behind her, and I know they still remember and most likely miss her.  I watch as she crouches down and lets them lick her face and jump on her a little bit.  “I guess they missed you,” I chuckle.

“I guess so,” she laughs.

I see Eric get up from the couch.  He says hi to her, before letting himself outside and shutting the door behind him.  He’s going to the guest house.  It was his intention for me to be alone with her.

This was planned.

I hate Trace.

I invite her out onto my back deck, fix us a tray with iced tea and potato chips, my hands shaking, my mind racing the entire time I’m away from her.  I have no idea what her intentions really are.  If she wants to catch up or if she’s going to try and pry my feelings out me.  If I know my friends, they probably told her exactly what they wanted her to say.  If that’s the case...I wont’ be able to deal with it.

I know this won’t end well.

“So um,” I begin as I walk back out and put the tray down on the table.  “You’ve been okay?”

“Oh...yeah,” she says, snapping her head up in surprise to look at me.  “I’ve been working, you know, doing the PR thing.”

“You get in with a good firm?”

I can’t believe I’m trying this hard to act like I give shit.

I want my closet.

She shrugs.  “Good enough.  Sonya got me in with somebody new.”

I smile at the mention of my publicist and good friend.  I’ve only talked to her once since I got out of the hospital.  I’m a shitty person for that.  “That’s great.”

“Yeah.”  She smiles and drinks her iced tea.

Awkward silence.

“Listen, Shel...I”m...I’m sorry about how things went down...”

She shakes her head roughly.  “Don’t be.”

“Yeah but...”r32;r32;

“If anything it was my fault, you know?” She says it quickly.  “I left you and...I guess you felt compelled to go looking for a good time.”

She blames this on herself.  Jesus.  It’s not her fault.  It has nothing to do with her.  We broke up, and that was it.  “It’s not about you,” I tell her.  

“It is...God...Justin...”  She pauses and sobs for a moment.  “I left you and then the next thing I know, I’m watching some video of you...kidnapped...”

She watched that.  

I feel sick to my stomach.  

I can’t do this.  “I...I can’t do this right now.”  I get up from the chair roughly, and stare down at her.  She’s looking back at me, her eyes wide, knowing she probably wasn’t supposed to bring any of it up.  

“Justin, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”  I force a smile.  “I’m...I’m actually right in the middle of a few things and...”

“Please don’t shut me out right now,” she whimpers.  “I don’t know what I was thinking.  It just slipped out...about the video...”

Now I’m going to hurl.  “I’m sorry.  I just...I gotta get back to work.”

The tears glide down her face, and I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet, but I can’t face her.  I can’t talk to her about this now, or ever.  She’s gone, out of my life, no matter how many times I dreamed about her, no matter how much I know I still care for her.  It doesn’t matter, because I’m not ready to face any of it.  

She stands up, wipes her eyes, and looks at me for a very long moment before reaching out and touching my face.  I don't want to let her, but something prevents me from stopping her.  My eyes close.  It feels good, calming, and I wish I could keep this feeling with me forever.

“It was good seeing you.”

I feel her lips brush against my cheek.

And when I open my eyes again, she’s gone.

The first thing I do is throw up my lunch in the bathroom.  The second thing I do is make sure Eric knows to come back into the house, and the third thing I do is head upstairs with my dogs, ushering them inside my walk in closet before I get in it myself.  I barricade myself inside with the desk chair, and inflate my air mattress.  Then I sit down, and take a few deep breaths.  I hadn’t realized I was hyperventilating.  I wrap my arms around my knees, close my eyes, and wait for the feeling to pass.  My dogs are whimpering.  They hate when I’m like this.  

I hate it too.