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I laughed. “You think talking about what I saw will magically make it all disappear, and then I’ll be walking around like a fucking loon like Chase?”
“It can’t hurt,” she said, watching me as I paced. How did she do that? How did she get past my carefully controlled defenses?
“Is it because you’re a man? You have to be strong. You think what’s going on in your head makes you weak?”
I ground my teeth together, hating that she was on the right track.
“You’d rather look tough and strong than try to get rid of the anxiety and fears. The dreams.”
I shrugged, hoping she’d see that I didn’t give a fuck. I tossed my water bottle out and nearly reached for something stronger. Instead, I sat back down and worked to shut down everything inside me.
“How much longer do I have to stay here?” I asked.
“Normally, we go just under an hour, but you can leave anytime you want.”
I hated that she wasn’t trying harder to make me stay, which made no fucking sense.
“But you’ll tattle on me to my brothers about how I’m not being cooperative.”
She leaned forward. “Mr. Raven, I don’t care about your brothers. This is about you. You have an opportunity here to work through things that can make your life easier and happier. If you’d rather go through life unhappy and angry, you can. No one is stopping you. You might ask yourself, though, why you’re the only one here who doesn’t seem to want that?”
I wanted to grab something and throw it. How dare she suggest I didn’t give a fuck about my life. Or that my family cared about me.
She studied my reaction, and I realized she would make some sort of judgment based on what I did. So, I did nothing.
8
Grace
Monday
Initially, Hunter seemed to be amiable and cooperative. Not that I thought this would go easy. Often, clients were all smiles and happy to talk as a way to appear well-adjusted. I figured Hunter’s initial cooperative attitude was so that I’d give him a positive report so he could go on his way.
But it didn’t take long for his veneer of easygoingness to start to tarnish. Right now, I could see the tension in his face, and the extreme effort he was exerting to hold himself in check. But from what? Most of his anger seemed to come out through verbal aggression. Did he have an urge to do something physical too, such as throwing something?
Working with clients who didn’t want to talk or tried to hide their issues wasn’t new to me. The trick was to find a way in so that they trusted me. But I wasn’t sure Hunter would ever fully trust anyone, least of all the woman he saw as being on his brothers’ side and who cornered him a few days before.
“Let me ask you this,” I finally said when he didn’t respond. “What would you like to have happen in your life? What goals or dreams do you have?”
He scoffed. “I don’t have them.”
“Why?” Most vets I’d worked with before often felt defeated but usually had something they wanted to work toward whether it was holding a job, falling in love, or being present in their family’s lives.
“Why bother? The world is a crapshoot.”
“Is that how your father amassed his fortune? Luck of the draw?”
“Craps involves dice,” he said.
I considered calling him out on his passive-aggressive attitude, but he turned away and I thought perhaps he was embarrassed by it. Interesting.
“Luck of the throw, then,” I amended.
“That whole ‘best-laid plans’ thing didn’t work out for me,” he said when he turned his attention back to me.
“What was your plan?”
“Get away. Travel. Defend my country.”
“What went wrong?”
His jaw did that tick thing suggesting I hit a topic he didn’t like.
“Attack that killed most of my brothers…military brothers. An injury that made me unfit to serve. So here I am. Back with the family I’d hoped to escape from.”
I watched him for a moment. He and his brothers did have an aggressive way of engaging with each other, and yet, I had some sense that there was love and respect there. Otherwise, why bother with hiring me and staging an intervention?
“So, you gave up on setting a new goal or dream,” I said. “You’re just going to accept your lot in life?”
He shook his head. “Why do you make me sound like a pussy?”
“Why is what I said something that makes you a pussy?” I was intrigued by how he interpreted my questions.
“You think I’m weak.” He stood again and jerkily ran his fingers through his thick, cropped hair.
“It would bother you for people to think you’re weak?”
He whirled. “In the military, weakness gets you and the people around you killed.”
I wondered if something had gone wrong that he blamed himself for the attack he mentioned earlier.
