Page 26 of Rescuing Tobias

There was never going to be a time when she was going to be ready to talk about the ordeal she’d been through, so why was she pretending this was going to help?

Maybe it was because she’d run out of options.

Obviously, handling things on her own wasn't working. It had been almost a month since she’d been rescued, and she had indeed lost weight. Not that she’d gotten the courage to get on the scales yet, but the fact that the clothes Becca had brought for her had already barely fit at first, and now hung too loose told her just as effectively as any scale would anyway. She still couldn’t sleep, in fact, that one night when she’d slept in Tobias’ bed, surrounded by his scent, with his large body cocooned around her was the only night she had slept soundly.

She was spiraling.

No doubt about it.

That emotional rollercoaster she felt stuck on had more downs than ups. She kept finding herself taking everything anyone said so personally, she’d freak out about the smallest of things, and then once she calmed down, she’d realize she was overreacting. She’d said more sorries to Becca and Connor these last couple of days than she’d said in years.

Something had to change.

At first, she’d hoped that reaching out to Tobias might help, but she’d sent a couple of texts now and he hadn't replied to any of them, so she wasn't going to try that again. He’d moved on, been able to keep their interactions to one night without wishing for more. Unlike her. Isabella constantly found herself wanting to talk to him, to see him, to hear his voice.

But he didn't feel the same way. He’d meant it when he said he had nothing to offer, and while she couldn’t bring herself to regret their night together, she did acknowledge that it hadn't been her smartest decision.

When there was a knock on the door, she practically flew out of her seat.

This was it.

Becca and Connor had popped out for a while to give her privacy, and while she’d offered to go and meet Susanna somewhere else, they had all insisted—Susanna included—that she should do this somewhere she felt comfortable. Which meant doing it at Becca’s house.

Her hands shook when she opened the door, and she didn't relax even when she saw Susanna and her fiancé standing there. She remembered Cole from back when she, Becca, and Connor were in college. She’d met all of Connor’s family several times, and she liked all his brothers. Cole was the youngest, and he and Susanna got together just before Isabella was abducted. They’d been neighbors before that, animosity mostly on Cole’s part between them. But when Susanna had been attacked, they’d cleared the air and had gotten engaged around Christmas.

Susanna was a therapist, and she’d signed up to work for Prey as their other on-staff psychiatrist, Piper Hamilton-Eden—married to Alpha Team’s Antonio “Arrow” Eden—was pregnant with the couple’s second child and wanted to take a step back to spend more time with her family. According to Susanna, when they’d talked on the phone yesterday to set up this meeting, this was actually her first official Prey job.

“Hey,” Isabella said, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice, but pretty sure she failed. “Come in.”

“Just me, Cole’s going to come back and pick me up later, when we’re finished talking,” Susanna told her, offering a warm, comforting smile.

“Oh, uh, okay. I don’t know how long we’ll be.” This might end up being one super short session. Isabella still wasn't sure she was ready to talk any of this through.

But she did know she had to find a way to cope with everything.

The last thing she wanted was to let those people take anything else from her.

If she had to get a little help to figure this all out, she’d give it a try. An honest try.

“Long or short, it doesn’t matter,” Cole assured her. “Susanna is easy to talk to, so I think once you get going, you’ll be fine. But if you only want to talk for a little while, that’s totally fine. There are no rules for this, Isabella. You do what you need to do. Susanna will call when you're ready, and I’ll come get her.”

They were all being so understanding, and given her recent bout of mood swings, she wasn't so sure she deserved that. Still, she nodded gratefully and watched a tad wistfully as Cole captured Susanna’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up so he could drop a kiss to her lips.

After shooting her one last reassuring smile, Cole headed back toward his car, and Susanna stepped inside Becca and Connor’s living room.

“I made us tea, I heard you like it better than coffee, and honestly, I've kind of gone off coffee ever since I got home. I also baked some cupcakes this morning. I made a white chocolate ganache for the icing. I've never made ganache with white chocolate before, I almost didn't have enough, didn't realize that it had a much higher chocolate to cream ratio than dark chocolate.”

She did realize she was rambling though.

“Tea and cupcakes sound delicious. And white chocolate is actually my favorite.”

Susanna’s smile was so genuine as they headed over to take their seats that Isabella found herself relaxing just a fraction.

“I've never done this before. Therapy,” she added as she sat down and tucked her feet up underneath her.

“That’s okay, it’s not like playing sports, like Cole said, there are no rules. We’re just going to talk, and you can tell me as much or as little as you want about what happened to you, about how you're feeling, about what you feel you need help with. If you don’t want to discuss any of it today, that’s fine too. We can just talk, get to know each other better. One thing you should know is that this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. It’s going to take time to heal, to figure out who you are now, what you want out of life.”

Knowing that she didn't have to sit down and blurt out everything they did to her helped relax her a little more, and she picked up a cupcake and nibbled at the ganache icing.

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