Midnight Lily(45)

I shook my head. "No. I mean, there were places I think I kept myself from going in my mind, things that felt wrong that I didn't choose to investigate, but . . . no. I never actually questioned it. I had all his thoughts, all his feelings, all his memories. For that time, I was him. Only . . . I wasn't either. It's so damned confusing. Even for me."

She nodded her head. "Ryan, had you ever ‘gone away’ in your head before this?"

I sighed, moving my thoughts back to her question. I'd thought about it a lot. "Yeah, when I was a kid. My dad, he, well, to put it bluntly, he beat the shit out of me on a pretty regular basis." I paused, swallowing. Goddamn, the very memory of that man was still so painful. He had put me in a cage sometimes to punish me like a worthless animal. Bark like a dog! Bark like a dog, you dirty f*cking animal. Bark like the dog you are and I'll let you out. He'd died seven years ago, and I hadn't even flown back for his funeral. I'd never said goodbye. I'd thought of it as a small way to get him back, but in reality, maybe I’d been the only one damaged. I'd never gotten closure. As if that was even possible. "I tried to harden myself, but . . . I never could. I just never could." I sighed. "So instead, I got pretty adept at going somewhere else in my mind, you know? I'd just . . . leave. I got so good at it that after a while I didn't even feel the punches, the burns. Pissed him off, you know, me not reacting. But I couldn’t blank out and still pretend it hurt, so I just got beat extra hard. Didn't matter though." I shook my head.

"Why didn't it matter, Ryan?"

"Because there was nothing I could do to stop it. I just had to figure out how to survive it."

"Did you ever become someone else during those times, Ryan?"

"No. Never."

She nodded, chewing on the end of her pen, regarding me pensively. Did she not believe me?

"I saw in your file you were hospitalized one time. What was the reason for that hospitalization?"

I took a deep breath. "I . . . I was in college. I was under stress, lonely—"

"Holden wasn't with you then."

"Right. I went to Arizona State. I wanted to get far away from Ohio, far away from my father. I just didn't realize how hard it'd be . . ." My words floated away.

"Go on."

"I just . . . I had a lot of anxiety. I just wasn't doing well."

"But your hospital stay, that helped you?"

"It did. I got back on track and was able to return to school, graduate, start my career."

Dr. Katz watched me again for a minute and I shifted in my seat under her penetrating gaze. "So, initially, with your father, you just removed yourself mentally from the situation. That's how you survived it. Until Holden?"

Pain squeezed my heart. Would I miss him forever? Would I want it any other way? I relaxed, breathing deeply. "Yes, until Holden. He befriended me." I laughed softly. "I mean, that sounds passive. And Holden was never passive—not like me. He’d practically demanded I be his friend. It's the only way it would have worked, you know? I was so mistrusting of everyone. But Holden, he was like this force, this force of just . . . energy and goodness."

"You worshipped him."

I paused, considering that. "I guess . . . yeah, I guess. But it wasn't because he was a great football player, or that he was a big shot or a celebrity. I loved Holden because he had this way about him . . . somehow he made every single person in the room feel like they were the most important one there. And how did he do that? It always amazed me. He . . . it's hard to explain. You had to know him." I paused again. "He was just so genuine. And his parents were such good people, too." Running my hand through my hair, I allowed the memories in. "I got to finally experience what a family was supposed to be." If you're not going to help yourself, there's nothing I can do for you, I'd told him. I'd said that to him after everything he'd done for me. After all the times he'd come to my rescue. After all of his persistence, I'd left him to fend for himself that night. If only I'd stayed to talk to him, to reassure him, to force him off that balcony before . . . I'd failed him. God, I'd failed him, and it still burned like a knife that would forever be planted in my gut. It sliced into me each time I moved. I felt my mind get foggy with grief and fought to pull myself to the surface.

Dr. Katz nodded again. "Did Holden's parents know what your dad did to you?"

I swallowed. "Yeah. I mean, they saw the bruises. They wanted to turn him in, but I refused. I didn't have anyone else, and I didn't want to go into foster care."

"Did it bother you that Holden's parents didn't offer to adopt you?"

"They practically did adopt me, even though they didn't have much money either. And once they understood what was happening at home, Mr. Scott went to see my dad. I don't know what was said, but my dad mostly laid off me after that. Mostly."

"So they did protect you?"

"Yeah," I choked out. "Yeah, they did."

"And they passed away the year before Holden?" she asked.

I nodded, a lump moving up my throat. "They were older. They'd had him later in life." It'd hit us both hard. Sometimes I almost felt like I took it harder than he did . . . But I also knew it was part of the reason Holden had gotten addicted to the pills, why they had been so appealing to him.