Page 64 of Keeping Guard
Why wasn’t she sitting behind the desk? She was too close. “Noah’s fine.”
She smiled again. “Since you didn’t make today’s appointment yourself, am I right in assuming you’d rather be anywhere but here?”
“True story.” He gave her points for addressing that upfront. “I was ordered by my commander to see a head doc...sorry, a therapist.”
She laughed. “Head doc doesn’t offend me. I caught the widening of your eyes when you realized your—” she made air quotes “—head doc was a woman. You wondered how I could possibly relate to your military experiences.”
The woman was a spooky mind reader. He could deny it, but she was being direct with him, and he appreciated that. “I’ll admit it crossed my mind.”
“I served three tours to Afghanistan with the rank of captain in the army. So, been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt to prove it.”
“Sorry for assuming.” He was really starting off on the wrong foot here. It was going to get worse when he refused to talk about the second worst day of his life.
“Not a problem. You’ll find I’m not easily ruffled. All we’re going to do today is talk about what you can expect from our sessions. We’ll meet twice a week. You can schedule your appointments with Beverly before you leave today. Are you familiar with cognitive processing therapy, CPT for short?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Without thinking about it, give me one word for what you feel the majority of the time these days.”
“Guilt.” Sneaky woman. If he’d taken the time to think, he would have kept his mouth shut.
“CPT is one of the more successful therapies in treating PTSD. The primary focus of CPT is cognitive intervention. What that means is that I’ll work with you to identify negative thoughts related to the event in question, help you replace those thoughts with positive ones, and show you ways to cope when the guilt feels like it’s drowning you.”
Good luck with that, lady.
“At the end of each session, I’ll give you an assignment to complete before your next appointment. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you not avoid. I can’t help you feel your feelings or challenge your thoughts if you don’t come to therapy or if you avoid completing your practice assignments.”
He eyed the door.
“You can walk out right now, Noah. Go drown in your guilt, drink so much you can’t hold down a job, or maybe drugs will be your choice to wipe out your memories. It’s your choice, but if you do, I’ll be obligated to report to your commander that you refused treatment. Do you have a girlfriend or wife?”
No, there was just a black-haired, blue-eyed princess who talked too much that he liked kissing too much. “I don’t like you,” he said instead of answering her question.
She laughed. “You’ll like me even less at times during our sessions. For your homework assignment, I want you to write about what happened in Afghanistan.”
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Sorry, Doc. That slipped out.”Avoid. That was her word, and he was going to avoid his very first assignment because no way in hell was he going to write about that day.
“There is no ban on any word in my office, even if it’s that one.” She leaned toward him. “And, Noah, when you come for your next appointment, you better have your fucking assignment ready for me to read. Schedule your appointments with Beverly on your way out.”
He did not want to like the lady, but grudgingly, he did. He did not want to respect her. It was impossible not to. He did not plan to ever come back.
He scheduled his next four appointments with Beverly on his way out.
One hour and twenty minutes after dropping Lucky off with Jack, Noah was back at Operation K-9 Brothers. Lucky went bonkers at seeing him. “You’re ridiculous, dog. I wasn’t gone that long.” He squatted and obligingly gave the dog a belly rub.
“How’d it go?” Jack asked.
“Fine.”
“That’s it? She came highly recommended. If you don’t think she’ll work for you, we’ll find someone else.”
“It’s good, Jack, so stop worrying, okay?”
“A friend of mine, he was Delta Force, saw her after his honorable discharge because of a busted knee. He said she’s great.”
“This was my first appointment. Ask me again in a week or two. I have to go on Monday and Thursday mornings.”
“Great. By the way, you’ll meet that friend Sunday. You know your brother will be here this weekend, right?”
