Page 17 of Regal Feather
While I was in headquarters, breakfast was whatever they had at the canteen, and since I’d gotten to Ever’s, breakfast was whatever I could come up with after hunting through his more than half-empty pantry. Choices hadn’t been a thing.
“Decaf cappuccino and blueberry and banana pancakes with a side of that Greek yogurt with oats and maple syrup thing?”
Thank fuck for Ever.
And thank fuck for me finally mastering the art of not crying in public. I moved so I was the one squeezing his hand, which I was probably applying a lot of force into, but Ever didn’t say a thing.
He just smiled at the server as they wrote down the order and assured them it was okay when they said it would take a bit longer since they hadn’t had time to prep.
“We don’t order anything with meat when Tony or María are around,” he whispered into my ear when the server left. “That’s why.”
Uh-huh.
I didn’t remember a Tony or a María introducing themselves, but if he wanted to cut me some slack, I wasn’t going to fight him on it.
I was just going to get through this meal and let the banter around me wash over the remaining frazzled nerves that made no sense at all.
I hadn’t gone through anything traumatic. The psychiatrist who had warned me about an adjustment period and everything else had said I didn’t have PTSD or anything she could diagnose me with.
It didn’t make sense that I was losing it.
“Can I…?” Fuck. We didn’t hesitate or doubt our words. It was a whole thing during training. I’d just… Everyone was saying goodbye, and Carlos had stayed behind with León, so I thought I could take advantage of it. Reaching out still came with tendrils of shame eating at me, but…Ever. I owed it to him. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.” Carlos didn’t hesitate. “I wanted to talk to you, anyway, but I didn’t want to say too much while you were crowded.”
I swallowed. “I appreciate it.”
I hated that the consideration needed to be in place, but I was too tired to fight it. I noticed how I kept drifting between total exhaustion and whatever I was when Ever was around.
“I’ve got a group I meet up with every month. I don’t think we take people who’ve just gotten out, but one of them is a therapist. I can ask if he knows of any resources you can apply for. Or give him your number.”
A wry smile made it to my lips. Of course he’d offer to give him my number instead of the other way around. I wasn’t about to blow up because he was mentioning therapy or resources or any of those buzzwords, but I wouldn’t have called.
“Uh, yeah, sounds good.” I cleared my throat. I wanted to run a hand through my hair, do something with the building anxiety, but doing that would only remind me of how short it was. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Carlos nodded. He looked like he wanted to reach out, but he held himself still. It was the kind of stillness I was more familiar with. Oddly enough, it helped. “What did you want to ask me?”
“Just…” The longer I stayed here, forcing air into my lungs, the more ridiculous—pathetic—my plan sounded. “How did you… What can I do, now, to help with the exhaustion and the choices, and…everything?”
Carlos grimaced. “Man, you’ve been out for what, a week, and you’ve just been to a crowded restaurant with a dozen people you didn’t know. You’re doing ten times better than I was.”
My nostrils flared. I wasn’t angry, but embarrassment sometimes manifested in me rearing up for an attack. Knowing didn’t dispel the discomfort clinging to my skin.
“You saw what happened. I couldn’t even order a basic breakfast.”
“There’s nothing basic about the brunch options there,” Carlos retorted. “And that? When I first left, I’d literally only leave the house to go to the bar my sister worked at. Not in a self-medicating sort of way. In a she could make sure I was fed because I sure as fuck wasn’t.”
It wasn’t a competition, though. I didn’t care that I was doing better than someone else, whatever that meant.
“I just want something to feel the same.”
Carlos put a hand on my shoulder. The touch was okay. Not the best, but it didn’t make me recoil. It was a win.
“It will.” For some reason, as cliché as it sounded, gazing into the green eyes and soft freckles scattered across them had me believing him. “In the meantime, give me your number.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Just because he gave my number to a therapist didn’t mean I had to pick up right away. It didn’t mean I was admitting anything. It was just an option out there. A step in the right direction that didn’t feel so overwhelming, the pancakes I’d eaten rose to the mouth of my esophagus.
