Page 110 of Resilience

Sam’s phone alerted a text. He was waiting for it and got the message he expected: Here with your order. Where is your room?

Second floor, he replied. 210.

Got it. On my way up.

Moving carefully, Sam slipped his arm from under Athena’s sleeping head and tried to shift the pillows to make up for the space his arm had left. As he stood, she made the stunted sound that was her unconscious moan and drew the covers up tight under her chin.

She had cried herself to sleep in his arms—and freaked Sam out completely in the process. Never before in his life had he seen Athena cry like she had this afternoon: great, heaving sobs, fat tears, drool and snot, all of it. Mostly unvoiced, but still dramatic and heartbreaking.

Repeatedly she’d tried to stop and failed, and then apologized and cried harder. The whole thing had gone on for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, until she’d simply worn herself out. For the past hour or so, he’d sat up in the motel bed with her half on him and half off, sleeping under his arm.

Blanche sat up and focused on the door, and two seconds later, just as Sam got to it, there was a hard knock.

He opened the door. “Hey.”

The delivery guy smiled. “Hi. Order from Spin Pizza?”

“That’s us, yep.” He took the pizza and the bag of extras. “Thanks, bruh.”

“No prob. Have a good night.”

“You, too.”

His arms full, Sam kicked the door closed. He had Blanche’s dedicated interest as he cleared a place on the cheap desk and set everything down. “We’ll have to talk later about whether you get scraps. But I’ll make you a nice bowl of kibble now. How’s that sound?”

The dog sniffed lovingly at the pizza box. Kibble apparently did not sound like a great idea at this time.

Too bad. Sam turned to grab Blanche’s bowl from the floor—and discovered Athena sitting up in bed, looking rumpled and swollen and bleary-eyed. And absolutely beautiful.

“Sorry I woke you,” he signed when she blinked at him. “I ordered pizza for dinner and it just came. How do you feel?”

He watched her do a systems check. “Crampy,” she answered. “But not awful. My eyes are sore. I’m sorry I was such a baby about it all.”

“Stop,” he told her and sat on the bed to face her. “You’re not a baby. I totally understand why you’d need to let all that out.”

Her brow wrinkled up. “You do? Could you explain it to me? Because I don’t know what my problem is. I should be jumping for joy, and instead I feel ... I don’t even know.”

She’d dropped her head as she finished signing. Sam lifted her chin so she looked at him. “Athena. Babe. I want you to take this like I mean it, okay?”

Still frowning, she nodded slowly. Warily.

“It’s trauma,” he told her.

Her head shook wildly. “No it is not. I’m not traumatized by any of it. Just pissed off. And anyway, even if I was, it’s over. If I was going to puke tears all over everything, I should have done it up at the cabin, when it was fresh.”

Maybe she’d forgotten (or erased) that she had cried up at the cabin, while they’d sat together at the end of the dock. Sam didn’t remind her; that wasn’t important. He had been thinking about this very thing while she’d slept. For real, he’d been thinking about this very thing for weeks.

“You know,” he began, “in Laughlin, when all that shit went down, I don’t think I was scared in the moment. I mean, my heart was definitely racing, and I was definitely thinking ‘Oh shit, oh shit,’ but I wasn’t actively scared. I was focused on figuring out the trouble and finding a way out of it.”

Nodding impatiently, she signed. “I know. You told me.”

“I’m not done. Remember how I also told you that when I woke up in the hospital, that was when I started shaking and freaking out? That was when all the feelings really hit me. When it was over, and I was safe.”

“Not safe. You almost died, Sam. If you’re trying to say that’s the same as this, you’re wrong. What Hunter did was shitty, but I didn’t almost die. I barely got hurt.”

“Not true—about the hurting, I mean. He hurt you bad, Frosie. Not just physically. I’ve seen it every day since. He hurt you, and he scared you. Maybe worst of all, he shook your trust in yourself. That’s why you’ve been so angry. He traumatized you.”

For a moment, she glared at him, so furiously he almost backed away from the point he’d just made. Then she tossed the covers away and scooted off the bed. Without another look at him or any sign, she stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door.

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