The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

“Chill,” she hissed. “No, can I not be dramatic about things with my appropriate amount of flair anymore?” she said, scowling.

I relaxed at her scowl, sitting on the chair across from her. “Not until after you push the baby out.”

She scrunched up her nose. “Don’t remind me I have to do that.”

I nodded to her belly. “That’s not reminder enough?”

“Well now I can’t have a C-section, it is reminder enough,” she snapped. “But I was getting delightfully distracted by the Heath and Polly show and then you had to go and remind me.”

I grinned. I was getting better at them now. “Well, I apologize.”

She rolled her eyes, then they turned serious. “You don’t have to apologize for being happy,” she whispered. “Is that what you are? Happy?”

I thought about it. I considered lying to her. It was certainly kinder to lie to my pregnant and worried sister. But she’d also murder me if she knew I was treating her with anything resembling care for her pregnancy. “Almost,” I said. “Sometimes.”

Lucy’s eyes shimmered. “You need to talk to someone, anyone, about this,” she said gently.

I nodded. “I know.”

She blinked. “You know? But I had a whole speech drafted. You kind of stole my thunder.”

I grinned. “Do you want me to protest so you can perform the speech?”

She waved her hand. “No, the moment’s ruined.” She narrowed her eyes. “So you know you have to talk.”

I nodded. “There is a group that one of the women in the shelter told me about. I go every week.”

She gaped at me. Openly gaped. “You go every week?”

I nodded.

“For how long?”

I thought on it, back to when I started going. Back to when I told Heath, and he hadn’t hesitated to tell me he’d drive me every Friday. He also hadn’t asked questions. Hadn’t probed. Not when he dropped me off or picked me up. “Like three weeks?”

“Three weeks!” Lucy screamed. “How does Heath not know?”

“He knows,” I replied mildly, hoping she wouldn’t induce labor with her hysterics. But then again, her being calm was out of the norm, so that was more likely to induce labor.

“He knows?” she hissed.

“Are you just going to repeat everything I say?” I asked, standing to get my things ready. “Because I’m going to be late for my class.”

“You’re always late to everything,” Lucy countered.

“Well, yes, that’s true, but since this is the first class I’m teaching, it would be a bad look.”

It was my first class.

Heath knew this.

Because he was Heath.

But he didn’t make a big thing about it, because he knew that I was nervous, and him making a thing would make it worse. So he was Heath, and it calmed me.

Lucy stared at me, didn’t move, I could see her considering using her considerable size to bar me from leaving until she got the truth out of me. I also saw the fear, the pain in her eyes if she did get the truth out of me. My sister, the bravest woman I knew, the woman who took on drug dealers and won, was scared of me.

Of my truth.

She stepped aside. “Fine,” she huffed.

Then she reached forward and squeezed my hand. “But just so you know, you’re loved, you’re not alone.”

I smiled. “I know that,” I whispered.

But I was alone.

Of course I wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

* * *

I lied to Lucy.

Something that was rare for me before but it had become the norm now. I used to think badly about untruths and omissions. Used to strive to live an honest life. Because I thought that honesty meant doing no harm.

I really had been living in a fantasy.

It wasn’t a huge lie. But lying was lying, right? I did go to the meetings. That was correct. Heath dropped me off with a kiss on the forehead, a tortured look in his eyes and a promise to be back in an hour.

I wasn’t sure if he even actually left. I had a sneaking suspicion that he just sat at the curb. He didn’t probe about the meetings. Didn’t push me to talk. He’d just kiss me again when we got in the car and let me have my silence, maybe thinking I’d had enough talking for the night.

There was talking at the meetings.

Just not from me.

I sat there, was insulated against my own horrors by hearing those of others. No one judged me in my silence. I certainly wasn’t alone in it either. I wasn’t alone in my pain either. That was the thing that had me coming back, even though my skin crawled every time I walked through those doors. Every time I faced a pale, gaunt, haunted woman who was trying to repair herself, recognize herself. Because I was forced to face the entirety of my own pain then.

I knew I had to. In order to heal, I had to embrace the pain. I taught that to my new students. To embrace the discomfort, for it’s only through discomfort that we grew. These meetings were me trying to practice what I preached.