Shane (Damage Control 4)

Anger runs under the deceptively calm tone like a hot current, but he’s right to ask. I’ve been acting like I know better than him, and he’s the one who has been living with these demons for years now. Who am I to offer help? How can I convince him I could?

“I’m not an expert.” Shit. Give a little ground, Cass. Give a clue about yourself. You know his worst demons, and he knows nothing about you. “But I’ve studied post-traumatic stress disorder, especially flashbacks, because of Angel.” I meet his questioning gaze in the cracked mirror. “My brother.”

He turns slowly. It’s as if some invisible barrier has fallen. There’s something unguarded about his expression now, curious and hopeful. “He has flashbacks, too?”

“He did. And nightmares. From his time in the military.”

“And he got over them?”

He’s making the same mistake Seth and Manon did, and it’s my fault for not giving him the truth outright. It’s not an easy truth, and it probably won’t make me look good, either. How can you trust someone to help you when this someone has failed her own brother?

“Angel died. He killed himself when I was twelve. He was only twenty-five.” I lean against the doorjamb, suddenly cold. A shiver wracks me. I rub my hands up and down my bare arms. “I found him in the shower, his wrists slit. It was too late to save him.”

This is it. Tell me to go home now, Shane. To fuck off. Tell me what a failure I am, and why should you listen to anything I say?

Crap.

Silence presses down on us, fills the small bathroom like a living creature, and suddenly all I can see is Angel’s sprawled form, the pool of dark blood, the stillness… God, the stillness and the fear and the loss.

“I’m sorry,” Shane murmurs, and before I know what’s happening, he’s right there, in front of me, wrapping his arms around me and hauling me against his chest. “So sorry.”

“It’s okay.” But it’s not, and tears burn my eyes. “It was many years ago. He wouldn’t try. He wouldn’t listen to the therapist. He didn’t—” I choke on a sob. “He didn’t want to live anymore. But you do.” I press myself to him until I can feel every sharp bone and hard muscle of his body, until I can feel his heart beat through me. “You do.”

“I don’t wanna die,” he whispers against my hair. “But back then, sometimes, it seemed like the only way out of the dark. My own mind scared me.”

I clutch at him. “And now?”

“You make me want things,” he whispers. “Good things. I like it when you’re here. I…” He buries his face against my neck. “I want you to help me.”

I’m wrapped so tightly around him I don’t know how I can be pried off again. “Shane…” God, I love him. I’m so maddeningly in love with him.

I want to share his bed every night, sleep in his arms, have breakfast together in the mornings… Go to the movies, spend quiet evenings on the sofa watching TV, shower with him, have a family… Make him laugh in the mornings and be there to hear the happy sound.

Dear God, Cass.

Mom would have a fit if she knew I let a boy catch me—because the one who caught her, long ago, my dad, left and broke her heart.

***

We’re curled on the sofa, me on his lap, his hand on my hair, and I know he said he has to get ready for work, but either he’s forgotten about it, or he thinks this is more important.

I hope it’s the latter.

Besides, I really don’t want him going back to that construction site where he fell off a scaffold and barely avoided breaking his neck. Jesus. I have a bad feeling about that place.

Which is stupid, and it’s not like I have a solution, like another job ready and waiting for him. If he wanted to take it.

Okay, focus, Cass. He’s talking. You worked hard to get him talking, even bared your soul, told him about Angel. Now listen.

“…told me I was making it up, and anyway men just suck it up and move on.” His voice is quiet, and frighteningly empty.

“Seth said that?”

He glances down at me and that scary emptiness fades a little. “Seth? No, the prison therapist.”

“Oh.” Dammit, Cass, pull yourself together. “Fuck her.”

“It was a man.”