Page 41 of Tortured Whispers
Fuck.
I caught the slip up immediately.
“Your brother had a daughter, right?” Ronnie quizzed.
“Yeah, Brooklyn,” I answered.
“Is that the eighteen-year-old you’re living with?”
“Yeah. I didn’t realize the session started already.” I cleared my throat and shifted in my seat.
“Easy, Cease. You know I’m here to help,” he reminded me.
“I know, I know.” I calmed down a bit and exhaled to settle my frayed nerves.
“You already know what I’m going to ask you, so let’s hear the answer.” Ronnie laced his fingers together and looked at me.
“You want to know why I didn’t refer to Brook as my niece especially during a time of grieving.” I shut my eyes and tried to force images of Brook’s naked body writhing and moaning beneath me, from my mind.
“Exactly, so…why didn’t you? Was it a simple slip up? Do you resent having her in your home?”
“No, not at all. Quite the opposite. I love having her there.” My heart knocked faster and harder in my chest.
“Okay then…maybe it was a slip-up. Now, tell me how you’ve been feeling since Anthony’s death,” he said.
“Guilty…empty,” I shrugged and looked at the floor.
“Where’s the guilt coming from?” Ronnie asked, scribbling down more things on his pad of paper.
“The night before Ant died, we got into an argument. I never got to apologize. I never got to make it right.” Regret colored my tone. I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand and sighed. “To have someone I loved so much jerked away from me in the middle of a frivolous argument…It fucking hurts. It’s the most bitter pain I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Pain struck my chest. I hated everything about the way Ant died.
“Why don’t you tell me what the argument was about?” Ronnie said in a hushed tone.
“It was about him keeping things from me and his daughter. He’d been taking heart medication for…I don’t know how long. He kept it from me. He kept it from Brook. He knew I’d worry but that’s not enough reason to keep something so huge given how our father died.” Heat rushed the back of my neck and I rubbed it, willing the heat away.
“How did your father die?” Ronnie’s fingers moved nimbly across the pad of paper as he took notes. I forced my stare away from his words and focused on my hands. I hated reliving how my father died.
“He had a heart attack,” I began slowly. “I-I found him in his room, in bed.” I didn’t want to go too deep into the memory. It hurt too much. It hurt twice as much after Ant died.
“So your father and brother both died in similar ways?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“How old were you and Anthony when your father died?” Ronnie probed.
“I was sixteen and Ant was twenty-one,” I answered.
“How old were you when your mother died?”
“I was eleven and Ant was sixteen.” I pushed images of my parents out of my head because if I conjured them up then I’d conjure the pain that came with their absences.
“So, Anthony became kind of like your father after you two lost your dad. I assume you stayed with him, correct?” He quizzed.
“Yeah, I did. He was like my second father. I should have never picked that fight with him,” I said.
“Cease, your argument with Anthony was a trauma response to you finding out he was keeping his heart condition a secret. You felt betrayed, right?”
“Yeah, exactly. Still, I knew he had a heart condition and I fought with him. It was stupid,” I frowned.
