Lydia’s P.O.V
“We’re both victims here, Derek,” I told him straight up, because he had been a soldier and soldiers prefer blunt attacks rather than beating around the bush. “But we took two very different routes to heal ourselves.”
“And what makes you say that?” He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve healed just fine. And I’m moving forward just fine as well. Now, about Davi-”
“Are you?” I said, cutting him off. “Are you really moving forward? Have you truly moved forward at all since the day you woke up to find your legs gone?”
“What the hell do you mean?” He snapped angrily. Looks like anger issues runs in the family.
“Lyric thinks that you’re training him so he can get into SEAL.” I said, taking a sip of the mocktail in my hands, deliberately prolonging the conversation. “But there is no real need for that. SEAL trains their soldiers once you get in. Yes, physical strength is a necessity but that doesn’t mean he had to get pounded to the ground every day in a ring, possibly damaging a few body parts in the process.”
“What are you getting at?” Derek frowned angrily, his knuckles turning white from the force at which he was gripping the wheelchair hands.
“What I’m getting at is that you enjoy this, watching Lyric get beat up, seeing him suffer.” I pointed out. “You enjoy this because you want him to suffer, just like you did. You want him to feel the pain but at the same time, you want him to stand back up and fight because that’s what you would’ve done. You’re not training him, Derek; you’re living your life through him. And as much as he wants to do that, it’s hurting him on the inside, making his own life miserable.”
“That’s impossible! Stop this nonsense!” Derek yelled, moving forward in his chair almost to the point where he could’ve tipped over. “David is my brother! I would never! I could never feel satisfied to watch him fall! I could…I wouldn’t…”
“I know you might not do it on purpose, but deep down, there’s a part of you that wants to hurt him like you were hurt, so he can understand what you were going through. You probably keep thinking in your mind ‘why me?’ all the time. ” I told him. “It’s a very natural reaction, Derek, but I do want to ask you something. How long did you see a shrink after your accident?”
“It wasn’t an accident. It was-”
“That’s not the point.” I cut him off. “Answer me.”
“Three months.”
“Three months?” I tilted my head to the side as I studied the sharp angles of his face. “You lost both your legs for a lifetime and you only saw a shrink for three months?”
“My personal life is none of your damn business!” He snapped. “Not every treatment works for everyone.”
“It’s true, but yours should have been longer. Because you still have hidden anger inside your heart.” And then I confessed my own deepest, darkest secrets. “And I know it because you and I are the same.”
Derek looked up at me sharply, his eyes a shade darker than his brothers. “What did you do?” It was a demand; he felt impatience at finding out that he wasn’t the only one that had tried to hurt his brother. It was a secret plea for help to get rid of his guilt.
“After I woke up in the hospital and learned that I couldn’t show emotions on my face anymore…I was devastated.” I told him truthfully, opening up another scar on my heart because Derek needed to hear this. “I couldn’t smile, couldn’t cry, couldn’t laugh…nothing. Everything that made me who I was had been taken away from me in one single blow and none of it had been my fault.” I shook my head to push aside the helplessness that came with the memory. “My older brother, Stephen once told me that he understood what I might be going through and that if I wanted to talk, he was always there for me.”
I fell silent when I remembered that day. I tried not to remember it often but it’s a memory that will haunt me until the day that I die. Even if I don’t want to remember it consciously, it sneaks into my subconscious mind and invades my dreams sometimes in the form of nightmares…nightmare where my worst fears actually came true.
“What did you do?” This time, Derek’s voice was soft when he spoke to me.
I shrugged. “I told him he didn’t understand, that he never would…and the only way for him to understand would be if he held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
Derek sucked in a breath and I was glad that Lyric wasn’t here right now to hear any of this. I’d called him a bully, but this? This made me a monster, far worse than anything Lyric could have ever done.
“Bastard actually stole our father’s gun and pointed it at his head.” I rasped out, my throat feeling raw. “If I hadn’t stopped him, if I hadn’t accidentally gone into his room, he’d have pulled the trigger as well.”
I blinked rapidly to push back the tears. It had been a very hard time of my life when I’d turned into that monster and even though I’d apologized again and again to Stephen, he’d said he’d have gone through hell itself if only he could make me feel better, if he could give me back what I’d lost. We had never again discussed the incident and Stephan had forbidden me from telling anyone, even our parents. This was the first time I’d spoken about the incident to anyone in the past three years.
“They felt helpless.” Derek spoke almost ten minutes later, his voice quite yet I understood the emotion behind them. “Your brother and mine…they felt helpless that they were unable to do anything about our pain and so they did everything we asked them to…to take that burden away from us.”
I nodded quietly. “We lucked out on the people that love us to death,” my voice was hoarse from all the unshed tears. “But I realized then that my brother would do what I asked him to do because he loved me and he felt helpless in not being able to help me. There’s also the guilt that they weren’t able to protect us, it makes them vulnerable, it makes them want to do anything to make you happy.”
“How do I fix this?” Derek looked up at me then and I saw the unshed tears in his eyes too. We were both victims of circumstances, but I had learned to survive while Derek hadn’t. It was his turn now.
“Don’t give him anymore suggestions.” I said simply. “Let him decide what he wants to be, what he wants to do with his life. If he wants to keep on fighting then let him, but if he doesn’t, then don’t hold him back.”
The room was quiet for a long time and I didn’t speak again, letting Derek absorb everything that I’d told him. But when the clock struck nine, I sighed and pushed off the closed door, deciding it was time to leave.
“It’s getting late,” I told Derek and tilting my head back, finished off my drink and placed the empty glass on a table nearby. “Talk to someone…anyone. Doesn’t have to be a shrink, but someone who understands you. Trust me, you’ll feel better.”
When Derek didn’t answer, I opened the door and turned to face him one last time. “I’ll see you around…I guess.” With that, I stepped out of the room, closing the door behind me…and nearly had a heart attack.
“Lyric!” I placed a hand on my racing heart that threatened to burst out of my chest. “How long have you been standing here?”
“Sorry,” he gave me a sheepish grin. “I was worried that my brother was probably threatening to ship you off to Alaska, so I stood by the window to know what was going on inside. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, it just happened.”
And at that instant, I knew that Lyric had heard the secret that I’d just shared with Derek. I should’ve been worried about him finding out like this, but oddly, I felt relieved. I hadn’t wanted Derek to be the first one to know about that secret, I wanted it to be Lyric, and now that I knew Lyric had heard, I didn’t feel guilty. Lyric and I had taken our first step into this relationship only a week ago but what we felt for one another wasn’t anything new…it had started the first day we met; when Lyric had told me it’d be fun to break me. Now, that same man held me close to his heart almost every night, not caring that I was more than a little broken on the inside.
“It’s getting late.” I told Lyric. “And we have school tomorrow. I should-“
“I’m coming with you.” There was no room for debate in that sentence.
“I thought you and parents talked out your differences?” I asked as he came to stand beside me and taking off his coat, draping it over my shoulders. The night wasn’t as cold but the instant I was covered in Lyric’s scent, in his warmth, I felt something inside me begin to heal.
“We have.” Lyric answered my previous question as he tucked me against his body and we began walking towards the backyard where there was an exit to the main road outside. “But I’d rather spend the night with you than chatting with my parents or my brother about our feelings.”
“Fine.” I knew they were all excuses, but I didn’t protest as we exited the house and walked to retrieve Lyric’s car. Because I was finding it increasingly difficult to stay away from Lyric too.
Whatever the future holds, will be dealt with in the future. Right now, I didn’t want those shadows to ruin our present.