Released (Caged 3)

“It sounds perfectly reasonable to you,” Baynor countered. “That’s why you don’t want to talk about it.”

Glaring at him, I considered just bailing on the conversation and the hospital as a whole. I was pretty sure I could have gotten out faster than he could get someone here who was able to restrain me. Of course, I wasn’t wearing anything but the fucking open-assed gown.

“Fuck you,” I finally said.

He smashed his lips together and looked down at his hands.

“I guess you aren’t ready for this,” he said quietly.

He stood up and started across the room as images of Tria doing the same walk away from me cavorted in my frontal lobe. My stomach clenched and felt like it did a complete summersault inside my gut.

“Wait!” I called out.

He turned and raised a brow at me.

“I can…I can try.”

*****

Still shaking, I curled up on my side and let the nurse run a cold cloth over the back of my neck. Part of me wanted to punch him in the face, and another part of me wanted to at least tell him to go fuck himself, but I didn’t.

I was too exhausted to do anything.

Baynor had let me take my time, and I had talked to him for a good three hours before I managed to get it all out there. My stomach revolted; sweat poured out of my skin; my hands shook. I wasn’t sure if it was because my body wanted H or because my mind wanted to shut down and Baynor wasn’t letting me.

I thought I was supposed to feel better after getting it all out there, but I didn’t.

I couldn’t even sleep that night.

Baynor returned in the morning and handed me a brown paper sack. I looked at him warily and then slowly pulled out a small book with a fabric cover. I thumbed through it, but all the pages were blank.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.

“Write in it,” he responded with a shrug. “That’s what you do with a journal.”

“You’re giving me a fucking diary?” I asked. “Do I look like a twelve-year-old girl?”

“No, you look like a completely destroyed grown-up man.” He put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. “I’m sending yo

u home tomorrow. I want you to at least write something in it before your first session with Erin Chambers.”

I didn’t even pay any attention to what he said though I probably should have.

“I thought I had to talk and shit. Why do I have to write?”

“We have been talking,” he said, “but there’s more to it than that, and you know it.”

I frowned at the book in my hands, flipped it over, and then fanned through the blank pages again.

“What do I write in it?” I asked. My throat tightened. “Do I have to…to write all of that shit we talked about? I mean, about what happened?”

“About Aimee and the baby’s death,” he said quietly.

I swallowed as I nodded slowly.

“It’s okay to say the words, Liam,” he told me. “You’ve avoided that for too long, but no—you don’t have to write down anything in particular. Write down what you feel like writing down.”

“I don’t get it,” I admitted.