The first big love never fades!

Taylor needs help!

Ridge stared at her arm in horror. He had indeed expected this, but seeing it with his own eyes was a big shock to him. Taylor freed herself and rolled her sleeve back down. The two looked deep into each other's eyes. All denial and hiding was unnecessary. The truth was out. Ridge didn't know what to say at first. The situation totally overwhelmed him.

"Does the other arm look the same?" he finally asked. She just nodded. Taylor walked to the couch in a daze. There she suddenly started to cry terribly. All the tension she had suffered from through the years was released in that moment. All these years she had spent so much strength and energy to make sure no one would reveal her secret. In Texas, she had even managed to deceive her colleagues in the hospital. Even if someone had had a slight suspicion, she had always been able to talk her way out of it.

Ridge went to her desk, grabbed the tissue box and sat down next to her. He kept handing her new tissues and waited for her crying to subside. There were a thousand questions in his mind. Taylor calmed down. He took her in his arms.

"I'm sorry I was so rough with you just now!"

"It's okay!" He wiped away her remaining tears and brushed her hair. 

"Ridge, I..." she began, but fell silent again. Ridge looked her in the eye.

"Why Taylor? Why are you tolerating this? Why are you letting him beat you?" 

"You don't understand, Ridge!"

"What's not to understand! Your husband mistreats you, probably for years and you quietly put up with it and in addition you do everything you can to hide it! What I don't understand is why you are still married to him? Please don't tell me you love him?! You can't love a creep like him?!"

"Listen to me Ridge! It's not what it seems like. You have a wrong impression. Blake is not the monster you see in him now. His outbursts have a medical reason!"

"What? What do you mean?"

"Blake suffers from a mental disorder more specifically an impulse control disorder. In certain situations, he can't control his anger and his actions, and then he loses his temper. But that is only one aspect of his personality. He can also be very loving and caring."

"That's absurd! Just like the 'carrot and stick' principle, first he beats the hell out of you and then he plays the dear husband. It's sick, and you're playing along with this game!"

Taylor sighed. She knew it wasn't easy for an outsider to comprehend her relationship with Blake. 

"I know this whole situation must be very irritating for you. But believe me, I've got this under control! And it's not like Blake hits me all the time."

"Your arms speak a different language, and when I think of all your other injuries I've seen. But when you say the whole thing has a medical cause, you should be able to do something about it?"

"Yes, of course!", Taylor explained to him. "Blake is undergoing treatment. Back when it all started, I didn't know what was wrong with him either. At first it was just verbal attacks. Occasionally, he would go completely berserk over something trivial. When he started to attack me, I realized that he was not himself in those moments, that there was another person inside him. Afterwards he was terribly sorry every time. At some point I had the suspicion something was wrong with him. In a quiet accessible phase, I managed to persuade him to get an examination, and then we were told the diagnosis. Blake was in therapy for a long time and he is on medication. Over the last few years things have actually been going quite well. He's only lost control of now and then, but most of the time we've lived together peacefully. Only lately it has gotten worse again. Unfortunately, it looks like this dark side of him is coming out more and more, crowding out the nice person!"