Page 47 of Night Fury
“Do you love me?” he asked her.
She clutched onto his back, pressing her body into his as if she could swallow him whole, as if she could merge their bodies in some way. “More than life itself.”
“And I love you just as much. Tell me, sunflower, if I was the one going through all of this, what would you say to me? What would you want me to do?”
Her head snapped up as her wide eyes met his, and he knew he had her. Johanna struggled doing things for herself, Luke knew that, but he realized that if he made himself the example then her love, her need to protect him, would outweigh anything else and she wouldn’t be able to argue. Instead, she would be forced to see reason.
Johanna tilted her head down and away from his, but he gently grasped her chin and made her meet his eyes. “Tell me.”
“I’d…”
“You’d make me rest. You’d take care of me, support me, do anything and give me anything I needed to renew my strength.” Luke ran his fingers over her skin. “You’d wipe away all my fears and fight all of my battles with a smile on your face, wouldn’t you, my sweet sunflower?”
“Y-Yes,” she hiccuped, fighting back tears.
“Then let me do this for you. You are my love, my everything. What hurts you, hurts me. What frightens you, frightens me. If there is something you want to fight or kill,Iwill be your weapon and your shield. Let me fight with you, please. Aren’t we better together?”
She nodded, more tears falling down her face that he kissed away. “But I-I don’t know how.”
“First, come rest with me. Then we’ll attack your internal battles full on, whether you want to fight them together, or if you’d be willing to consider getting an outside perspective, such as therapy. I’ll even go with you.”
“B-But the coordinates—”
He shushed her softly, tucking her hair behind her ears. “They’ll still be there. You’ve gone through so much, sunflower. It’s time to rest. It’s okay to rest. We’ll look at them tomorrow.”
Johanna bit her lip, clearly battling a war inside herself.
Luke slowly let his hands slide down her neck, over her shoulders, and down her arms until he reached her hands. He squeezed her hands in his and held them as he brought them to his lips and kissed them both. “Come with me, sunflower. I don’t want to sleep without you.”
She bit her lip again but nodded.
Hope flared to life inside of Luke, and as they left the room together, he knew they would get through this. It may be a long, turbulent road, but they would see the other side, and he felt grateful to have someone who would fight just as hard for him as he would for her.
CHAPTER 18
Agreeing to therapy was a difficult thing for Johanna. It hurt her pride to have something wrong with her. It hurt to have to reach out to someone else. She was a mental witch, having trained her mind for years to be able to deal with her powers, to go inside other’s heads and come out unscathed. And yet, here she was.
Her appointment with Estelle had lasted an additional hour over what they’d scheduled. Estelle had worked with several of the women Greg, Dani, Luke, and Mya had saved from the caves, which is why she believed she would also be able to help Johanna.
At first, Johanna was nervous. Estelle began with rudimentary questions which Johanna answered honestly. Then Estelle simply said, “Have you always felt like you needed to be the hero?”
“The hero?” Johanna asked.
“Yes, that the only time you have worth and value is when you’re rescuing someone else from their perils. That if you’ve sacrificed yourself for the greater good, then it was all worth it because you’ve served your purpose.”
Johanna’s mouth fell open. She didn’t even know she was crying until she felt the wetness roll down her cheeks. In just a few moments, Estelle had ripped into Johanna’s psyche and unveiled a truth so close to her heart she thought she could hide it forever. The façade fell apart, just as Johanna did at the seams, and she cried. She cried as she told her story to Estelle, she cried as she talked about her childhood, she cried as she talked about the abuse she’d gone through and how robbed she felt of everything—another truth she kept to herself for fear that it was selfish.
Estelle listened and handed her tissues while Johanna opened her entire heart. She never rushed her, never quieted her, didn’t even take notes. She just listened, and Johanna didn’t realize how much she’d needed that.
When she finished, Estelle told her that she believed Johanna had PTSD. She explained there were different types of PTSD, and that war had many different faces. Because she wanted to know, Estelle walked Johanna through what she thought was the best course of action. First, journaling. Johanna needed to get in touch with her emotions and make time for them instead of blocking them off to try to function throughout her day. Between that, talk therapy, and mindfulness practices, she believed Johanna would be just fine.
Luke took her to get an actual notebook, as she figured she’d procrastinate journaling if she used something electronic, and the next day she tried it. She sat in the sunroom, pulled out her notebook, opened to the first page, and wrote:This is stupid.
The dismissive words shocked her. She froze with her pen in her hand, her heart beating a mile a minute as if she were not allowed to voice her innermost feelings and thoughts this way. Then she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she was. She had to do this to get better, and she could judge herself for what she wrote later. Now she could just be free.
This feels like a waste of time. I feel like I should be doing twenty million other things. We still haven’t found Zachariah; I’m still having a hard time correcting the last few coordinates and remembering exactly when I switched from one coding system to another because it all just takes me back. I remember how everything felt, how hopeless I felt. I truly believed there would be no way out. I truly believed I was going to die.
Her hand shook at the revelation, but she couldn’t stop now.
