Page 160 of Finding Noah

She shifted on the couch, moving closer until her thigh touched mine. She wrapped an arm around me and gave my body a tug until I relented and allowed her to press my head against her shoulder. Her palm held to my temple, brushing my hair off my forehead the way she always used to when I had been a little kid, and I closed my eyes, putting myself back to a place where it was just her and me against the bogeyman.

“Baby,” she said, resting her cheek against the top of my head, “you are the greatest thing to ever happen to my life.”

“I don't understand how you can say that,” I admitted.

She shifted beneath me, and I lifted my head for her to frame my face with her palms. She held on to my gaze with the intensity in hers.

“You gave me every bit of strength I needed to get through it all,” she said. “I survived because I needed you to live. And I know I wasn't perfect. I know I could've done better. I know there are things I did that other people probably wouldn't have done. But I did what I thought was best, and I did it for you. To keep you safe … with me. I thought that, as long as you were with me … you were safe.”

Then she laughed as a tear worked its way from her eye to slip down her cheek. She caught it, using her palm to wipe it away as she said, “But it was you who saved me.”

“Dad saved you,” I muttered with a huff and a weak smile.

She returned the smile, her eyes dancing within mine for a moment. Then she asked, “And who was brave enough to talk to him in the first place?”

***

As Meg's belly grew alongside my mounting PTSD, I’d accepted reluctantly that I was never going to be the father our baby needed me to be if I couldn't fight against the demon in my head. The one who haunted my dreams, the one who lurked in the corner of every dark room the moment the lights were turned off.

So, I went back to therapy for the second time in my life, this time of my own accord, and although I was reluctant to open up to Stephen—a nice old guy recommended by Dad's friend Harry—I eventually did.

I told him about Seth. The hell he'd put my mom and me through during the first thirteen years of my life.

I told him about Tommy's house and the boy I'd struggled to forget.

I told him about the man who'd saved our lives and become the dad I'd always deserved. The years of foolish jealousy toward my little brother. The resentment I'd once held toward my mom and the things she'd inadvertently put me through by simply allowing me to live.

Then, after a month of regular sessions, I finally told him about the week I'd spent locked away in a room somewhere still unbeknownst to me.

I couldn't look into the eyes of the older man before me as I uttered the words I hadn't yet spoken to anyone. Not to my fiancée. Not to my father and certainly not my mother. None of them knew the extent of what I'd been through, and though I silently vowed to tell them sooner or later, I wasn’t ready. But I told Stephen, and he listened to every word without interruption. He gave me the stage I needed to air every filthy, degrading detail, with my eyes on the floor and my hands stuffed deep into my sweatshirt pockets, until it was all out in the open. My horrifying truth, now resting upon the shoulders of someone else, and you know what?

It didn't make it any easier to have lived it. But somehow, I was able to sit a little taller without its entire weight pinning me down.

“Has it impacted your relationship at all?” Stephen asked me. “Physically? Emotionally?”

I shrugged, then shook my head. “No, not really,” I admitted truthfully. “I mean, it took me a little while to feel at all okay with trying to … you know, have sex, but that was more about me not wanting her to see the bruises and cuts and whatever … you know, the physical evidence.”

He responded with a contemplative hum.

“I think I just didn't want her to see me as broken, even though … I mean—let's be real—I am,” I said, unable to keep myself from emitting a bitter chuckle. “But once I was okay physically, for the most part, I, um … yeah, no, I never had a problem with sex with her. And I guess that's because, with her, it's for both of us, right? It's not about power or, um … revenge or … inflicting pain … um …”

I swallowed as I was suddenly sent back in time to a dimly lit room, where the pressure on my back wasn't that of the chair I sat in, but Ben. His body, weighing against mine. His sweat, dripping into my eyes. A wave of nausea rolled over me as I fought for the ability to breathe.

“Come back to me, Noah,” Stephen said through the fog. “Listen to my voice. You're okay. You're safe.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and gave my head a quick shake, pulling in a deep breath and releasing it slowly.

“What about emotionally?”

My eyes opened to look at him again with a questioning lift of my brows, and he smiled kindly.

“With your fiancée, did you experience any emotional impact after what you went through?”

I thought for a moment but not a second longer, and I shook my head. “Honestly, if anything, it's only brought us closer. More, um …” I furrowed my brow, searching for the word I needed, before uttering, “Connected, I guess.”

And it was the unbelievable truth—that the time I'd spent certain I would die, only to be spared and returned to the love of my life, didn’t do a damn thing to strain our relationship. And I knew that it was built on gratitude—the same Mom and I had experienced after we were sure Dad would succumb to his injuries, but didn't.

Life was about living now, not dwelling in the past. And even when that spectral demon came to sit in the corner of my darkened bedroom, threatening to strip me naked and prove again and again that he held power over me, the love Meg and I held for each other always chased him away.