Always Is Not Forever (Breaking Myself - Part II)

40. The One Where He Proposes

"Come again?" Dr. Sha asked, her hands flying from right to left, hitting the ping pong ball with the red colored bat.

Hitting with my bat, I tried to dodge her attempts to make me lose a point. "Why are we playing ping pong?"

"Don't you get bored staying in a room?"

"Kind of."

But this wasn't what I had expected when she called for an outside meeting instead in her building's cabin. I had thought a café maybe, or someplace quiet but she had surprised by calling me to a club and assured nobody would come in this room.

"Your dad was ready to allow it."

"His friend owns the club," I mumbled dryly, the sound of the hitting echoing in the four walls.

"And he loves you," She pointed out, smashing the ball and before I could hit, it flew from my side. "And you lost a point."

"Funny," Grumbling, I walked to one of the corners, picked the ball and started the game again. The sweat had started forming on the forehead, my grip on the handle of the bat was losing, my wrists were aching. What was the point of everything? "Now tell me why am I here?"

"Told you. I was bored in that cabin. Too many emotions." Winking, she continued the game. "Want to talk about your dreams?"

"Yes," I breathed. "Third in the row." And third time Kabir saw me in that state, the third time he found me crawling on the floor, inching back from him as if he was a parasite of my life.

"What was it? If you don't mind me asking."

"It was normal at first. Kabir and I were talking about something, and suddenly, the view changed and I'm screaming, my mouth is gagged, I'm tied and shouting at him to get off me."

I shivered at the images I had seen. Kabir asked what I had seen and my silence was the answer. He could help me but not get into it. It would cut him deeply, realizing after all our efforts, we came back to the point we were trying to avoid for a long time.

"I loved my previous nightmares," I bit. "At least they were a reality. This is not reality and it sucks. It's like Kabir is forcing me, but he would never do it."

She nodded. "Aftermath care?"

"Is it necessary to talk about that?"

"Nope." She grinned. "But it's necessary to know you get it. It connects you with reality."

Rolling my eyes, I hit the ball hard to make a point on how frustrated I was getting with myself, on how childish I was getting with him, pushing him down. His aftermath care was all that made me see everything was okay.

"He helped in the shower." Her eyes widened a bit. "I asked him to. It's weird. I'm scared, but then I see him and everything is like he won't hurt you and I'm back in trusting him. He's gentle." Which was hard to comprehend since how angry he gets or how intimidating he appeared in the party we had attended months ago.

"And?"

"After shower, he read my second book to me. Next whole day, I didn't want to move from the bed and he handled all the errands. He cooked, sat next to me the whole day." Ignoring his college and work. "I feel like I'm bringing him down."

"It was his choice," She said soothingly. "He knew what he was getting into, Alina. We talked about it. And it doesn't seem to bring him down."

"Couple therapy is helping too," I licked my lower lip. "We don't fight much anymore." I flew my hands in the air and placed the bat back on the board, taking a deep breath. "He's being understanding and he finally listened to removing that tracking device."