When Stars Collide (Light in the Dark #2) (30 page)

“Come downstairs and have something to eat.”

“I’m not really hungry,” she replies, shuffling for the bed.

“Oh, no you don’t.” I grab her hand and halt her progress. She gives me an indignant look. “You need to eat,” I argue. “No offense, but you look like shit.”

She sighs. “Always so eloquent, Thea.”

“I try.” I give her a little nudge toward the door and she reluctantly goes. 

Downstairs, we pass Cade and Rae in the family room. Cade gives me an encouraging smile and I give him one back that’s the equivalent of
bite me
since he abandoned me. 

I pull out a chair at the kitchen table and guide my mom into it. 

Once seated she covers her face with her hands, her fingers sealed tight, letting no light penetrate her eyes. 

I opt to get her some toast with butter. She hasn’t been eating properly so I figure it’s best to start light. 

I fix it and set the plate in front of her.

She doesn’t move her hands.

“Please, for the love of God feed yourself. I already had to bathe you today.”

She drops her hands and gives me a look that says I’m three seconds away from being in trouble, which must mean she’s feeling more like herself. 

She picks up the piece of toast and takes the smallest bite imaginable. Seriously, a bird would’ve nibbled more off. 

“
Mom
,” I groan. 

“I’m just not very hungry,” she defends with a shrug. 

I throw my hands up in exasperation.

There is only so much you can do to help a person and the rest is up to them.  

“Your dad used to be a good man,” she says suddenly. “Before.”

“Before what?” I snap, my patience at a whopping zero. 

“Before I married him.” She looks forlornly at the table. “I thought when I got pregnant with Cade that would fix him.” She snorts. “How naïve is that? But the anger …” She trails off, her eyes distant. “It stayed. He could hide it, most of the time, but it would flare up every now and then and once Gabe died … Well, I think after that he didn’t see the point in pretending.”

“That’s when he started hitting me all the time,” Cade pipes up, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Rae stands beside him with her hand resting reassuringly on his forearm as she looks up at him lovingly. “Before then it would be a shove here and there, maybe yelling in my face, but when Gabe died …” He looks away. “I think it made him feel better to hit someone, and I was the easiest target.”

“I don’t know why we pretended for so long, that his evil didn’t exist,” I whisper.

“Because,” Cade starts, “we had no choice. We couldn’t get away from him and we had to deal any way we could.”

My mom sniffles and rubs her eyes. “I’m going to get a divorce. I’m going to make this right for you,” she vows. 

“No,” Cade says firmly. “You make it right for
you
. You deserve to be free, Mom.”

She sniffles again and then tears pour from her eyes. 

“I’m scared,” she admits between sobs.

“Don’t be,” Cade tells her, coming to wrap his arms around her. “We’re here for you.”

“Malcolm Montgomery is a dangerous man,” she warns. “He won’t let us go easily.”

Cade looks at me over the top of her head, his blue eyes like steel. “Then we’ll make him.” 

I glare at my email and shudder, slamming my laptop closed.

“What is it?” Xander asks, chuckling at me. 

“Email from the university, welcoming me back. School doesn’t start for another three weeks. You’d think they could hold up until the day before to ruin my life.”

“Don’t go back then.”

I wrinkle my nose. “And what? Stay home and
knit
? I don’t think so.”

He chuckles. “Not what I had in mind.” He reaches over and tickles me. I try to swipe his hand away, but he’s stronger than me. My laughter fills the room and tears fall from my eyes.

“Okay, okay,” I breathe between laughing fits. “Stop, please,” I beg.

He gives me another tickle and then stops, smirking at me. I clutch a pillow over my stomach in case he gets any wild ideas. 

A lot has changed in the last few weeks since that conversation with my mom. 

She, Cade, and I all talked it over and agreed to see a therapist. We each have one appointment a week on our own and one with all three of us. 

We’ve only been to one collective appointment together and today’s our second. The first was helpful, and I’m expecting today’s to be even more so. Like I told Cade, sometimes you need an unbiased person to talk things over with to put things into perspective. 

“When do you have to leave for your appointment?” Xander asks, and I swear it’s like the boy can read my mind. 

I glance at the clock. “Two hours.”

He grins. “Plenty of time to start a new show.”

We’ve long ago finished
Charmed
and plowed through
Prison Break
.

I stretch out on my stomach, stuffing the pillow under my chin. “What do you have in mind?”

“
Supernatural?
” he suggests.

“Ooh, I’ve heard great things about those Winchester brothers.” I waggle my brows and lick my lips.

His lips curl in disgust. “Maybe not then.”

“Too late.” I snatch the remote from the bed and switch to Netflix, finding
Supernatural
easily. He quits his pouting pretty quickly when the show proves to be fantastic.  

“Thea!” Cade calls a while later. “Time to go.”

“Ugh,” I groan, and point at Xander. “Don’t even
think
about finishing this episode without me. I’ll cut you.”

He laughs and raises his hands innocently. “I won’t. I need to go to the gym anyway.” He wets his lips then and shuffles nervously.

“What?” I prompt.

“I scheduled for us to meet with a relator tomorrow to see some places.”

My mouth pops open. “And you’re just now telling me this?”

He shrugs, smiling sheepishly. “I figured you’d freak out if I gave you too much notice.”

“Yeah, well…” I touch my hand to my chest, where I can feel it constricting and cutting off my air supply. “I’m definitely freaking out.”

“Hey,” he says. “We’re just
looking
. That’s all this is.”

I nod. “Just looking,” I repeat. 

I know moving in together wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. We already do live together but with other people. I guess, it all feels so fast to me. I’m still getting used to us being together and
married
. Living on our own? I don’t know if I’m ready for that, especially with still being in college. I’m probably being stupid. We get along great, so it’s not like I have to worry about him irritating the crap out of me. If anything,
I
would be the one irritating him. 

“I want us to explore our options,” he says. 

“Okay,” I agree. “And then we’ll talk about it, together, right?”

He gives me a funny look. “Yeah, of course. I’m not going to buy us a place and not ask you first. It’s
ours
not
mine
.” He pinches my side slightly and jumps out of the way before I can swat him. “You better go.”

“Oh, right.”

After he brought up the relator I totally forgot that Cade had called for me. 

When I get downstairs I find that my mom and he are already outside waiting in the Jeep.

I pet Prue on her head and she licks my leg before I dart out the door.

My mom’s sitting in the back, so I end up sitting in the front with Cade.

None of us speak on the way and the silence is deafening. In fact, I’m convinced that silence is the loudest sound in the world. An oxymoron, perhaps, but true.

Cade pulls into the lot of the building and I stare at the white stone building. It’s clean, modern, almost clinical. When you walk inside it feels like you’re about to be operated on, and maybe you are. It sure feels like they’re poking around in your head and pulling out the important bits and pieces, laying them out on a table and deciphering what the hidden parts of your mind mean. 

Cade turns off the Jeep, lays his palms on his knees, and breathes out heavily.

None of us move. 

None of us are ready.

But in order to heal, you have to make that step and do the hard thing, instead of letting the pain beat you. 

I put my hand on the door handle and push it open. “Come on,” I say, coaxing them out of the car. 

Cade follows first, then my mom.

We all say nothing as we head inside the building, check-in, and take our seats in the waiting area.

Little time passes before we’re being called back into Dr. Long’s office. He’s an older man, about fifty or sixty, with gray hair and a heavy beard. He’s kind and patient, though, and as far as therapists go, I don’t think he’s that bad. 

Cade and I sit on the couch and my mom takes the chair. 

Dr. Long sits in his chair, his legs crossed, and smiles kindly. 

“I’m glad to see you all back today,” he says. “I know this is only your second visit together, but consistency is progress, and I think these meetings together, as well as your separate appointments, are key in healing.” He claps his hands together and appraises us. “What would you all like to talk about today?”

I bite my lip. So many thoughts are running through my mind because there’s an endless list of things we need to talk about. 

Cade surprises me by speaking first. “Gabe. I want to talk about Gabe.”

My head swivels toward him, and like always, whenever I hear Gabe’s name a pang pierces my chest. 

Cade swallows thickly and looks at me and then Dr. Long. “Thea blames herself, and I want her to know that it wasn’t her fault. It was
no one’s
fault. It was a freak accident.”

I exhale a shaky breath and my eyes dart to the ceiling. “Is that true, Thea? Do you think it’s your fault?”

I press my hands over my eyes. In the last month I’ve thought more about Gabe than I have in the eight years since he died. It’s too painful, and every time I think of him, it’s like someone’s stuck a knife in my chest and torn open the muscle and bone, splitting me in half. 

“I know it’s my fault,” I mumble. 

“Why is that?” Dr. Long asks. “Why do you
know
it’s your fault? Tell me what happened.”

I take a deep breath as flashes of that day flit through my mind. 

“We were on vacation,” I start. “I wanted to go horseback riding so we all went. Gabe didn’t really like it, and he kept saying he wanted to get off and not do it. I called him a baby.” I press my lips together, fighting the rush of emotions. “His horse got spooked and reared back, and he fell off. He hit his head and bled out. God, there was so much blood.” When I close my eyes, it’s like I’m back at that day, watching him bleed, and there’s nothing I can do and the last thing I ever said to him was that he was a baby and he needed to suck it up.

Dr. Long presses his finger to his lips. “I don’t see how this is your fault, Thea. You didn’t push him off the horse. It sounds to me like a freak accident.”

“If I hadn’t begged for us to go, we wouldn’t have been there.” I pause, gathering my breath. “And you know how they say horses can sense your emotions? I think that horse knew Gabe was scared and it made it antsy, and then … who knows.” I shrug. “All I know is that it was my choice that led us there.”

Dr. Long sits back in his chair. “Hmm.”

“What?” I ask. “Say it.”

“It seems like this could have easily happened some other way. For instance, what if Cade had suggested you go zip-lining, and the gear had failed and something had happened to Gabe that way. Would you expect Cade to blame himself for that?” 

“No,” I whisper.

“And if Gabe had suggested horseback riding himself and something happened, would you have then blamed Gabe for his own death?”

“No,” I whisper again. “I would have said it was an accident.”

“Exactly.” Dr. Long smiles. “It
was
an accident. Nothing could have prevented it.”

“I feel so guilty,” I sob.

The warmth of Cade’s arms wrap around me. “Please, don’t feel guilty,” he begs. 

“Do you have anything you’d like to say, Lauren?” Dr. Long asks my mom. 

My mom wipes a tear from her eye. “I think we’ve all been carrying a lot of guilt about Gabe. I blamed myself, thinking if I’d left Malcolm we wouldn’t have even been there. I hadn’t even wanted to go on that vacation, but I had to do whatever he said.” She laughs humorlessly. “God,” she groans. “I was so stupid to stay with him.”