From The Wreckage - Complete (49 page)

“All right, all right,” West mutters, sinking farther into the leather chair in her office. He props his feet on a stool in front of him, the picture of a relaxed man. If only. “I was thinking about it all last night. Football, my mom, the tornado… Jules.” He stops there, because saying her name always cuts him just enough to make him pause, the need to take a breath is overwhelming.

The pause, the breathing, it’s one of
his
tells. She’s picked up on the way he pauses every time he speaks Jules name during his time at Crestdale. Dr. Steel sits there quietly and she waits, as she does every time, knowing he will continue on in a moment.

“I’m glad I decided to stay here this past month,” West admits for the first time out loud.

“Do you think it’s helped?”

“Yeah.”

When Dani had suggested he wasn’t ready to go home and fight for Jules, he’d been angry at first. As if she knew anything about him, about their relationship, anyway. She was right, though. West wasn’t ready to face Jules yet because he hadn’t faced himself. 

“West, do you think you can tell me about the night of the tornado?” The way she speaks with very little inflection amazes him. The soothing monotone words never feel threatening the way everyone else's always does. Somehow, it made her easier to talk to. The family grief counselor he’d seen right after his mom passed away always put emphasis on his name, drawing it out with her southern Texas drawl. Obviously a transplant to the south, Dr. Steel’s sentences are quick and to the point.

“Again? Haven’t you heard it enough?” 

“I’d like to hear more about your time spent with Jules. We need to talk about her before you leave, don’t you agree?”

He shrugs, well aware of his issues with talking about Jules. For the past seven months, six required by the deal his dad made to get him out of any trouble over the wreck and the one extra one he decided he needed to admit to his issues, they’d covered all of his issues with his family. They’d yet to discuss his trouble with Jules. That one scares him still. Talking about her means he’s closer to trying to see her, and seeing her means she can say no to hearing him out.

Reluctantly, he looks up from the leather bracelets on his arm and answers her. “Yeah, we can.”

She lets out a small sigh, and West can just make out the slow sinking of her shoulders as she releases the air. It makes him smile for some unknown reason.

“You can begin wherever you want, West. It’s your story to tell.”

“It’s thinking of Jules and our story that made me think about how little I knew about myself.” She nods; a silent urging, telling him it’s okay to continue. He appreciates the way she listens to him without putting words in his mouth. “Before her, I thought I was maybe a little screwed up, a little depressed still over my mom, angry at the world… you know all that angst-ridden, teen cliché stuff. After her, I knew what I really was.”

Her brow raises, and her pen once again moves over the pad of paper on her lap.

“I was wrecked.”

“I hated going to the Shack on Friday nights, it was always packed full of football players, cheerleaders, and all of the students who wanted to be around them. The ones who were hoping for instant popularity because they were seen with the cool crowd. Do you know how many girls give it up to jocks in the back of their pick-ups for a chance to hang on their arms for a few weeks?” West asks, his face twisting in disgust. “I hated that scene.”

“Then why were you there?”

“I was there before the crowd rolled in. Ironically, I was flirting with a girl who worked there. She was a friend of Lauren’s, and she seemed willing to hang out, so I was waiting for her shift to end. I can’t even remember her name anymore. It would have meant nothing to either one of us.”

“It?” Dr. Steel cocks her head.

“Sex.”

“So you were hanging around hoping to score with some girl you didn’t know.” 

Those words coming from Dr. Steel’s lips sound crass. West nods, stifling a laugh with a shrug. “Um, yeah. Basically.” 

“Basically? Did you do that often? Sleep with girls for no reason?” His brows raise as she adds, “Well, for no reason beyond the obvious ones?” 

He feels the heat in his face at her obtrusive questions, but she looks cool as a cucumber. Her right leg crosses over her left, the tip of her shoe tapping the air to the beat of some unknown song as she takes notes on the little pad in her lap. She is not easily shaken. Her face – similar to her monotone voice - is always a clean slate of thoughtfulness. 

He chuckles at her inclusion of “the obvious reasons” for sex. “I wasn’t a monk, if that’s what you're asking.”

She clears her throat.

“West, you just finished telling me how much you hated being around the crowd at The Ice Shack and put down the players who used their status to get sex, but you did the same thing?”

“No. No, I didn’t do the same thing.” She raises a brow in silent challenge and West squirms in his seat. “I mean, yeah… I did sleep with my fair share of girls, but most of them were friends I partied with. There were no strings attached, no using my assumed popularity to get into some chick's pants. I could list the girls I’ve been with, and they would all tell you we’re still friends.”

“Friends with benefits, then?”

He shudders with a smile, “Seriously? How are those words coming from your mouth? You’re a doctor.”

“A doctor, West. Not a monk.” She laughs, throwing his phrase back at him.

He laughs with her. Her humor is why he finds it so easy to talk with her. She gets it in a way no other psychologist has in the years he’s been in and out of offices at his dad’s request. She doesn’t look down on him, and she doesn’t tell him he’s too young; she just gets it.

“So what does my sex life have to do with anything?” he asks after a moment.

“I’m curious how you felt about these girls. In this month since you’ve opened up to me, you have not mentioned anyone you cared about. With the exception of Jules, of course.” West watches as she flips through a few sheets on her notepad. “Did you not care for any of the girls you slept with?”

The question makes him feel like a scumbag. As if maybe he is as bad as the guys who use their status as a campus jock to rack up as many notches on their headboards as they can. It doesn’t sit well with him to think anyone would assume he is another prick looking for easy sex. It was never that way and yet, maybe it was.

“Honestly, I slept with the chicks I was friends with. The ones who knew there would be nothing between us when it was over. I didn’t do relationships. I tried once with Carley, and that was good enough. When we broke up, I decided attachments weren't for me.”

Dr. Steel’s tongue clucks again. “Until Jules.”

“Yep.”

“All right. Tell me the story. Why Jules Blacklin?”

Why, indeed!
he ponders, sinking down into the chair and stretching his legs out. “I saw her standing there that night and I fell for her. It was instant. I was gone before I opened my mouth. I’d known her most of my life; I’d watched her, knew she was with another guy even… but that night when she sat at that table and I looked up… it was over for me.”

“You fell for her before the tornado hit?”

“Yeah. In all honesty, I fell for her in the seventh grade. Maybe even before that. But when I kissed her that first time, I turned into a dumb pre-teen boy with a major hard-on and I had no idea what to do. Then my mom took a turn for the worse, and I dropped everything. Like we discussed.”

“And five years later, you’re finally sitting across from the girl you fell for once and what?” she prods lightly.

Reminiscing the last year has been a favorite, and most hated, pastime of his. So many things with Jules were perfect and worth the memories, and then there are the things he’d rather forget; the sights, sounds, and smells of the wreck that could have killed her. The very wreck that tore them apart.

“And I gave her crap and fell in love.” He smiles.

“You saved her life.” Dr. Steel points out unnecessarily.

“And she saved mine.”

She taps her pen cap to her lips once and nods. “Why do you think that? Who knows what would have happened that night?”

West shifts in his chair, looking towards the window as he gathers his thoughts. “I’m not talking about the tornado. I’m talking about life. I mean… yea, there's a chance that if I hadn’t bumped into her that night I might have run and been fine. Or I could have run and been like some of the others who weren’t lucky enough to make it. But, I’m talking about how she saved me from myself. She pulled me out of my shell.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility to place on another’s shoulders. From what I understand, you did the same for her.”

West jerks back at that. “What do you mean? Did you talk to her?”

She shakes her head, pursing her lips. “No.”

“Then, how do you… why, why would you bring her up? Who told you that?”

“West, it is my job to know all the ins and outs of what has happened in your life so I can help you. You know I’ve spoken to your brothers and father about that time. Now tell me, do you think that’s a fair assessment? You both used the other to lean on?”

He runs his palm over his face, scrubbing at his tired eyes as the memories come back to him.

I’ll be your strength,
he’d offered her at the vigil when she didn’t know how she’d get through everything.
You were my anchor
, he’d told her at the cornfield as he explained how he was able to stay so calm when they were trapped in the Grier house.

“Yeah,” he admits on a shaky breath. “We did lean on each other. We were both so scared and broken separately, but it was as if we were whole when we were together.”

“That is a lot to weight to put on a brand new love. Do you think perhaps the stress of going through the tornado propelled you two into your relationship? Your father says you jumped into things with her pretty quickly.”

“My dad worries about everything I do. Our relationship was quick, yes. We were pushed together by something crazy and scary and life changing, but that's not all there was between us. We were real. One hundred and twenty percent real, Dr. Steel. If you can’t accept that, then I’m done now.” West’s hands go up defensively before he shrugs and crosses them over his chest. There were naysayers from day one when it came to their relationship. Everyone wanted to say it was a fling, a passing phase. Jules' parents worried she was rebounding from Stuart Daniels, and West’s friends thought he was after a hot piece of action.

Dr. Steel looks up from her notes and taps the tip of the pen lightly on the paper. “I believe you, West. If it hadn’t meant anything to you, you wouldn’t be here. You walked away from her the same way you you walked away from football after your mother died. As I explained to you before, you get scared, you blame yourself, and you punish yourself. You love deeply and you don’t forgive yourself for the things that aren’t your fault. You hurt yourself thinking you’re doing the right thing, but in the end you lose out on all the good. You lose out on having the life you deserve. And then, bitterness and anger are all that remains.”

Anger and bitterness are all that remain. 

West is lying across the small dorm-like bed in his room, thinking about Dr. Steel’s comments, when a knock sounds at the door.

“Yeah?” he calls out.

A black head of hair peeks in as Dani’s long fingers wrap around the frame and push the door open. “You done with your exit interview?” she asks, slipping her willowy frame through the small crack and falling onto the bed next to him.

If it weren’t for her advice four weeks ago, he would have left Crestdale already. He would have gone back to Tyler, found Jules, and begged her for her understanding. Then, he would have probably run away and lost her again at the first sign of trouble.

“Yeah. I’m a free man.” 

Dani laughs lightly and West rolls to his side to stare at his new friend. He recalls the first day he met her, walking into his first group meeting a month ago. She’d challenged everything he said about why he was at Crestdale, even before he knew her name. She’d boldly shared her external scars with him that day, and as the weeks passed, she’d shared her internal ones, as well. Her story made his look like a fairy tale, yet she never criticized him for his weakness. He would miss her more than he thought possible.