Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
“I’m not,” she cried, tears running down her cheeks. “I’m not strong enough for this. Stop thinking that I can be like her!”
“I’m not—you fucking are,” I snapped at her. Dr. Gresham sat back in his chair, not stopping me from laying into her. He knew Alli needed a harsh reality check. “Meghan spiraled a lot fucking further than you did, Alli. That’s why I can never compare you two. Your brother and Vincent found Meghan bleeding everywhere all while she was high as a fucking kite from snorting coke up her damn nose.” Alli’s eyes widened in horror. “She hallucinated for fucking days, thinking she could hear our baby telling her how much he hated her. She was fucking pregnant, Alli, and she lost our baby. I never fucking knew because she broke up with me. Meghan had no one to truly confide in about what the fuck was going on with her. She didn’t have a loving brother, and she sure as fuck didn’t have parents with money who would at least get her the medication she needed. Don’t ever try to compare yourself to her.”
I drew in a deep breath. “The only reason I’m telling you that if she can get better, you can, too, is because Meghan hit a dark point—darker than most people reach, and she is fucking healing with each day that passes. Not because of me. Not because of your brother. But because each day, she believes in herself more and more.”
I stood up from the table, done with this visit. I couldn’t sit around and watch Alli feel sorry for herself. She would never get better if she didn’t start wanting it for herself as much as we did.
“Get better, Alli,” I told her. She sobbed, knowing I was leaving. “When you truly want to get better, then I’ll come see you.” I drew in another deep breath. “And stop focusing on Megan so damn much. It’s doing nothing but making you miserable. You don’t know her, and if you continue to feel bitter about her, you’ll never know her.” I’d make sure of it because I wouldn’t allow that kind of toxicity around my woman.
With that, I turned on my heel and strode out of the visitation area.
* * *
✶ ✶ ✶
* * *
Meghan was painting when I got home, so after giving her a kiss in greeting, I left her to do what she did best and went in hunt of Axel. He was sitting outside with his eyes shut. He obviously hadn’t heard me come out on the porch because all the exhaustion he normally hid from everyone was clear as day on his face.
“Bro, you need to take a fucking break,” I told him.
He opened one eye to look at me, hiding everything he was feeling once again. “I’ll take a break when the semester is over.” He closed his eye again. “How did the visit with my sister go?”
“She’s fucking miserable.” He nodded in agreement. “I don’t think she’s truly ready to stop letting her mental health define her.”
“Yeah, I saw it, too,” he agreed. “She’s focusing on Meghan a lot. It’s not healthy.”
I dropped into a chair beside him. “She asks about Meghan, and then thinks we’re comparing her and Meghan together.”
“They’re completely different,” Axel muttered.
I shrugged. “I told her I wasn’t visiting again until she finally decided to heal. Right now, she’s feeding off her mental health as much as it’s feeding off of her.”
Axel sighed. “I fucking hated that Mom and Dad stopped therapy for her. She was mostly okay when she was seeing a therapist.”
“I know.” I rolled my shoulders. “Guess we should have noticed the changes when we went home for the holidays.”
Axel was silent for a moment. “I’m iffy about visiting her again,” he finally spoke. I looked over at him. “I feel like visiting her will hinder her. I did the visits with Meghan because she wasn’t relying on the visits to get better. She was healing and growing on her own. For her, having a visit meant she had a privilege—almost as if she continued to heal and grow, she would be able to continue seeing and talking to me, and that helped her. It was nice to see her talk about how she was feeling, what she was doing. Even the first time I visited her, she spoke about how much it hurt, how dark it was for her.”
“Alli isn’t doing that,” I stated, but Axel nodded anyway.
“No, she’s not,” he agreed. “She used our visits as a way to get us to feel sorry for her.” Axel drew in a deep breath. “I’m done feeling sorry for my little sister, Julian. I know she can defeat this shit, learn to control it. She’ll never be better. I know that. But she can learn the signs and symptoms, learn how to cope with everything.”