Collared(16)

“I know I can try.” I shift in the bed, but my body feels limp. Kind of the way it felt for a couple of days after he drugged me the night he took me. “Is he dead?”

My voice is so quiet I’m surprised she hears me.

“Earl Rae Jackson?” She just barely nods. “Yes, he’s dead. He shot himself.”

Something squeezes at my heart, and when I swallow this time, I can’t. Something’s stuck in my throat. “What are they going to do with his body?”

“I don’t know, but I can find out if you’d like.” Dr. Argent uncrosses her legs and crosses them the other direction.

“Will they have a funeral?”

“I’m not sure. Would you like me to ask?”

I shake my head, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve started to cry. They’re silent tears, but they come one right after the other, feeling as though they’re carving canyons down my temples. “No, I don’t care what happens to him.”

I want to wipe the tears away so I can pretend they’d never been there. I want to swipe them away so she can’t see them. I want to stop crying altogether because I learned a long time ago that tears do nothing but make a person feel worse.

Dr. Argent’s quiet for a second. Then she clears her throat. “You know, it’s very common for victims in your situation to form some sort of attachment to their captors.”

I close my eyes, but really, I want to cover my ears. I don’t want to hear any of this.

“It can happen in a matter of days, and with you being under his control for a decade—the only person you had contact with—it would be very normal for you to feel some kind of bond with him.”

The tears don’t stop. They come faster. “He took my whole life away. I hate him.”

Dr. Argent scoots the chair a little closer. “You’re crying.”

I laugh a few notes. They don’t sound like most laughs though. “In case you missed it, it’s been a rough decade for me.”

“You weren’t crying until I mentioned Earl Rae.”

Goddamn shrinks and their being all observant and forming conclusions. I’ve dealt with enough in my life—I shouldn’t have to put up with this bullshit. She can’t ask me a few questions, witness a few tears, then leap to the opinion that I fit the mold of this case study she read about or that one her college professors discussed once upon a time.

I’m a person—not a diagnosis.

“Could you please just leave? Now?” I manage to swallow the mass lodged in my throat. “I don’t want to talk about what happened. I don’t want to talk about him. I just want to get on with my life.”

There’s a knock at the door, and someone pops their head inside. I don’t know who it is, but Dr. Argent clearly does. She lifts her hand to indicate they should wait, and the person disappears and closes the door.

Her attention lands on me again. “Ten years have gone by, Jade. You can’t just go back to being a high school senior. Your friends will have changed. Some might be married and have families.” Her shoulders lift like that was that. “You can’t go back to that same life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a new one that’s just as good.”

I twist as much as I’m able until my back’s facing her. “Please go.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, but she doesn’t get up and leave either. “Your family’s here. They’re waiting outside.”

My lungs deflate. My family. I spent the last decade pretending to be someone else’s family until I almost stopped thinking about my real one at all. It hurt too much.

“I asked them to wait for me to talk with you before the doctors let them in.”

I imagine my body being cast in steel until I’m certain nothing can penetrate it. That’s a trick I learned when I was with Earl Rae—if I built strong enough defenses, nothing could get through. “Let them in.”

“Do you remember their names, Jade?”

I look back at her, insulted. That look fades when I realize I don’t. At least not right away. Not automatically like everyone else in the world can list off the names of their family members. One name is still there—it never faded—but I can’t say his name because his is the one that hurts the most.

I bite my cheek and search my memory. They’re there. I know they are. Earl Rae tried to strangle them out of me, but he didn’t get all of it. “Mike and Eleanor Childs—my parents’ names. Connor and Sam—Samantha—are my brother’s and sister’s names.” I want to say his name. I want to know if she’s seen him. I want to ask if he’s here.

I want him back . . . but that was another lifetime. The girl who loved him is gone. The girl he loved is gone.

“That’s right, Jade. Good. They’re all here. They came in as soon as they heard you’d been found. They’re anxious to see you.”

“Then why aren’t they in here with us?”

Dr. Argent looks at the ceiling like I am doing, probably to see if she’s missing out on anything. “I’ve worked with others like you, and most find it overwhelming to have everyone all at once just burst back into their life. It can be a lot to take in.”

I feel my eyebrows lifting. “You’re drilling me about what Earl Rae did to me and pressuring me to be the second girl to rise above, and you’re worried a reunion with my family will be overwhelming?”