Page 63 of Save Me

For a split second everything pauses, and I’m thrown by the question.

“It’s cold, and hard.” I sniffle as the tears continue to fall freely, my world spinning around me as I freefall through it.

“Good girl. What do your pajamas feel like?”

Everything pauses again, as my attention is drawn out of my panic and to myself in this moment. Up until now I forgot I was even wearing pajamas. I glance at myself and my eyes land on the dark green fabric covering my skin. I pause, trying to think how to describe what these clothes feel like before I try to explain it to Jax.

We continue like this for what feels like forever, as he asks me seemingly mundane questions about everything around me until my sobs subside and my tears dry up, my body no longer trembling from fear but instead from with aftershocks as exhaustion consumes me.

“Can I touch you, love?” His voice is calm and steady, the opposite of me right now, and I nod. Strong arms scoop me up as he carries me out of the bathroom, placing me gently on the bed. He leaves me for a second, returning with an extra blanket.

He wraps me up so I’m snug, the blankets covering every inch of my body.

“You are here. You are safe. And you are whole. There is nothing you could have done differently, nothing you should have done differently. I love you more than life itself and I will make sure that anyone who was involved in this, anyone who caused these tears to fall down your perfect face, dies.”

*

I wake tothe sound of Jax talking quietly on the phone, his voice melodic as the sound of rain against the windows fills the room.The raindrops strike the glass loudly, like the tears that battered my body last night.

I feel hungover; my body is tired and sore from vomiting and crying, my energy depleted.

Jax notices me looking at him and ambles over, standing beside the bed while still talking to someone on the other end of the line. After a few more seconds of speaking, he puts his phone down on the nightside table.

“Hi,” I say tentatively, looking away, embarrassed by what he witnessed last night.

“How are you feeling?” His voice is laced with concern, and I meet his gaze. Where I expect to find pity, I find none. Instead he’s looking at me with love, with affection, and with concern.

“I don’t really know how I feel… there’s a lot I’m feeling right now. But I think I’m mainly embarrassed and tired, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, love, nothing at all.”

“I lost it last night… I don’t know why, but I lost it. I was drifting off to sleep one second and then I woke up from this dream and I went full-blown nuts. The way I acted was… I don’t even know. It was crazy and I’m sorry.”

The bed sinks beside me as Jax sits down, his thigh brushing up against my own. I can’t help but lean into him, once again feeling safe by his side, his presence and the familiar smell of leather and warm citrus that feels like home.

I meet Jax’s gaze, his green eyes focused on me as he lifts his left hand off the bed. He pauses before he touches me and as I nod, he brings it to my leg, gently stroking my thigh over the soft pajamas I’m wearing.

“You had a panic attack, love. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he replies calmly.

“You want to be with someone like this? Someone as broken as me right now?” I huff a sad laugh. “I was inconsolable. I vomited everywhere. Ibityou.”

“If you think that crying and vomit is going to scare me away from you, think again, love. I’m in this for the long haul. And as for the biting… my body is your canvas to paint whatever you want on it; cover me in kisses, scratch me, bite me, do your worst, love… nothing will make me leave you.”

“This can’t be normal,” I counter.

“I think that given what happened, the trauma you’re facing, your reactions, everything you’re thinking and doing is normal. You’ve held it together for so long, forced down all these emotions, to survive what you went through. But you’ve pushed everything down for so long that all these emotions, all of this trauma, needs somewhere to go, and I think some of it has come to the surface, and I think it’s best that you work through everything.”

“I am working through it, I’m trying to work through it, I just don’t know what more to do.” I sigh. “I just don’t know why I’m not feeling better. It happened. Shit happens. Other people have it way worse than me. But no matter what I do, no matter how much I try to paint, how much I talk to you, nothing is taking the bite of the pain away. It’s like this constant hurricane inside of me, and it feels like nails down a chalkboard. I just can’t get the noise of everything that happened to stop. I can’t get rid of the memories, I can’t stop the suffocating feeling that threatens me every day.”

He wipes the tears from my cheek. “I don’t expect you to know what to do, and I don’t know what to do either. And that’s why I think you should talk to someone who knows what to do.”

I raise an eyebrow at him.

“I booked you in for a session with the best psychologist in the city today at one. You don’t have to go, and I won’t make you, but I think you should consider it,” he says earnestly.

I think over what he’s said, and how I’ve been feeling. Growing up, there were two kinds of people: those that went to therapy every week to talk about everything that bothered them, seeming to flaunt everything they learned about themselves, and those that wouldn’t be caught dead in a shrink’s office. My family belonged to the latter group.

“Is it okay if I think about it?” I pick up my phone on the side table, the screen is bright against my eyes, as the cloudy sky refuses to let much natural light into the room. It’s 9:12a.m., which gives me a couple of hours to decide.

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