“I know,” she murmured, mulling her words around in her head.
“But just because you have a traumatic past, doesn’t mean that you don’t have a future. You are healing remarkably well, Winter. You are a very strong woman, and if you want to explore something else with a man, or Mark, there is nothing wrong with that. You were eighteen when you were taken. Those two years were taken from you, and you won’t get them back, but you need to make sure that part of your healing is moving you forward as well.”
Was she moving forward?
She thought she was.
Her life before Ernesto hadn’t been violent even if her parents hadn’t been the most loving. But did any of that matter if it was all a lie?
“Even if I want something more with him, I don’t know if I can. I have no idea what a relationship is even supposed to look like.”
“Sometimes knowing what doesn’t work, will show you what the best way to go about something really is.”
Dr. Baker’s words kept repeating over and over in her head as her session ended. She walked out into the waiting room where Mark was waiting for her and she took a second to watch him. He was sitting in a too small for him chair, his broad shoulders filling more than just the physical space around him, a magazine in his hands. He was flipping it as if the action itself was keeping him busy and not the words on the paper.
His head was bent, the flop of dark hair falling over his head. He hadn’t gotten it cut in the last year and it was past his ears now.
She must have made a sound, because his head came up, his blue eyes locking with hers.
Would he even want a relationship with her?
She could see why Dr. Baker was telling her to talk to Mark. Part of the healing process was learning to talk about your past. To not let it affect her ability to move forward, and in theory telling Mark about her time with Ernesto would do just that.
In theory.
But it was also more. Just the thought of letting him in and him not accepting her, it left her feeling flayed open and exposed. She didn’t think she could manage it.
He kept glancing at her as he settled in the truck beside her. As the tuck cranked up and the air started blasting, he finally stopped staring and put the truck in drive.
“You are awfully quiet?” She smiled at his words.
No matter her thoughts on them, one thing was for certain. He was always in tuned to her and her mood.
“How was your session?”
“It was good.”
He grunted, as he pulled the truck over to the side of the road, twisting towards her.
In the beginning he had easily let her move through life without talking to him. If she had something that bothered her, he had never pushed.
Lately though, it wasn’t the same.
He was starting to push, and he didn’t let her get away with not answering him. She wouldn’t admit it, but it had become easier to talk to him lately, at least about the little things.
Like their day and what foods she wanted to try next.
Not about things like her past and how she was beginning to think that she was falling in love with him.
“Winter.” His brow was furrowed, like it always did when he was worried about her.
“She says that I need to talk to you.”
“Hmm,” he said, as his expression cleared, leaving just him in its wake.
“And you don’t want to?” He didn’t seem upset.
You will never know unless you try.
