The Only Shark In The Sea (The Date Shark Series Book 3) (12 page)

“They’ll understand, because,” Natalie’s soft, hesitant voice said, “because we all have those scary dark parts of ourselves, the scars we don’t let people see. Some of us have more than others, deeper wounds, but we all make decisions we wish we hadn’t and hurt people we love. They’ll understand because they’re your friends and they want to help you.”

Her words struck something inside of him, something that terrified him. They resonated deep in his core, but he was unwilling to face what she was saying. He knew the dark parts of life all too well. He knew she was right. He also knew he was too weak to face them. So he ran instead.

Chapter 15

The Reasons

It had been the second longest three weeks of Natalie’s life. Losing one of the few friends she had and watching what it was doing to Vance tore her apart, but it still didn’t compare to the weeks after she ran away from home. Shaking off those awful memories, she tried to focus on her work, but every few seconds her thoughts slipped back to Vance.

He had stormed away from them at the funeral. Natalie understood he was hurt and scared, but she was worried about him. So was everyone else. It wasn’t just Natalie’s calls he wasn’t answering. Tuesday night seemed like it would never end as she’d sat in Vance’s living room listening to him explain everything about the fight, the pregnancies, the abortion, and him leaving. She remembered confirming that Vance had met her at the café for a session, but she didn’t remember if she said anything after that. The whole time, all she had been able to think about was how useless she felt sitting next to him, unable to offer any kind of comfort at all.

Natalie had spent the whole rest of that week trying to work up the courage to touch Vance at the funeral. To give him a hug or shake his hand, anything. She saw the disappointment in his eyes when she had walked up to him at the funeral on Saturday with her arms glued to her body. It didn’t matter that she had managed to sit through the entire service next to strangers—but not too close—in order to honor Stephanie’s memory and support Vance. In the end, she had failed him.

It had killed her to see his reaction, but what could she do? Nothing she said had made any difference after that either, well…except to have made things worse. Even though Vance was ignoring everyone’s calls, it was hard not to wonder if he wanted to speak to her least of all.

All of the following Sunday she had paced around her house between calls from a very concerned Sabine, worrying and wishing he would at least text her to let her know he was okay. It was stupid. She realized that. It wasn’t like they were friends, not really. A few weeks of sessions together and that dinner Tuesday night didn’t place any debt on him that he
should
feel like he needed to reassure her. Honestly, they didn’t even have their sessions anymore.

The call she received the previous Friday had been the final kick in the gut, one that convinced her Vance was angry at her for her uselessness and what she’d said at the funeral. Sure, she’d expected that Vance wouldn’t be seeing patients for a while. Of course he needed time off. What she hadn’t been expecting was for his receptionist to tell her that all patients who had been with Vance less than six months were being referred to new psychiatrists. That meant her.

She wasn’t Vance’s patient anymore.

It was hard to argue with the receptionist’s logic that since patients like her were so new, it would be least traumatic for them to switch doctors. Natalie was welcome to come back to Vance when he was back in the office full-time, she had claimed, but for the time being she needed to go elsewhere, and someone would be in contact with her soon about where that would be. Natalie had been staring at her computer accomplishing nothing all morning.

Even when the phone rang again, she didn’t answer it right away. Part of her simply didn’t want to move. The remainder of her hesitation came straight from fear. Had they found her a new psychiatrist? She doubted anyone else would be willing to work with her issues like Vance had. Still, for some reason, she reached out and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Natalie,” a familiar French accent said, “this is Dr. Guy. How are you holding up?”

She had to think unusually hard about her answer. “Uh, okay, I guess.”

“You sound less than
okay
, but that is understandable,” he said. The compassion in his voice seemed to echo how much pain he was holding onto as well. “I am calling to discuss with you options for continuing your care. Until Vance is ready to come back, myself and a friend will be seeing his patients.”

“Not all of them,” Natalie said quietly.

Guy hesitated. “No, not everyone.” He sighed. “I had asked Mrs. Cartwright to let me speak to you before she called to explain that Vance’s newest patients will be referred elsewhere, but she was too quick. While all new patients are being sent to other practices, at least temporarily, that is not the reason I am referring you, Natalie.”

There was no chance of her responding. She held her breath, knowing he was about to tell her that Vance was too angry at her for everything to continue to treat her. Even knowing it was coming, tears burned at the backs of her eyes and her chin dropped to her chest in shame.

“Natalie, I am going to ask you to start attending a group therapy session that specializes in disabilities similar to yours. It is held in a big open room with ten to twelve people, so I think you will be able to handle the situation.” He paused, then continued, though his words were halting. “The reason for this, uh, I do think it will be a good situation for you, but, um, I do not think it is wise for you to remain as Vance’s patient even when he returns to his practice.”

She tried to stop the sob from bubbling up, but it broke through her control anyway. The attachment she felt to Vance was a glaring sign that Guy was right. It didn’t stop it from hurting.

“Vance, he will need a friend,” Guy said slowly, “one who knows what he is really dealing with. Sabine seems to know as well, but she cannot be here to make sure he is all right, and since he refuses to confide the truth in anyone else…Natalie, I feel very awkward in asking this of you, and I would never ask that you betray my friend’s confidence, but I think you may be the only one who can help him right now.”

Everything seemed to slow down, like that weird feeling you get when a carousel decelerates too quickly. Her stomach lurched as her mind tried to process what Guy was saying. “You don’t want me to be his patient because…because you want me to be his
friend
?”

Guy grumbled something under his breath in French before speaking again. “You are already his friend, Natalie. To be perfectly honest, the relationship you, Vance, and Stephanie had was already beyond what a normal doctor-patient relationship would be. I do not mean that badly. I only mean that now, with Stephanie gone, continuing to be friends while still being his patient has the potential to become quite complicated. When he is ready, he will need someone to talk to. He will need you. It is better if he can do so as a friend and not worry about being your doctor as well.”

“I, but, I can’t help him. He won’t even answer my calls or texts,” Natalie argued. “I mean, I just wanted to make sure he was okay is all, but he won’t respond.”

“I know this,” Guy said, “but you must keep trying. Please.”

His tone was bordering on desperate, and even though the rejection Natalie had been fearing hadn’t come, she thought this might be even worse. Guy couldn’t put that kind of weight on her. He couldn’t trust her to make sure his friend didn’t fall apart. Didn’t he remember how much of a mess Natalie was herself? How on earth did he expect her to make anything better for Vance?

All those thoughts and more sprinted through her mind. It was too big of a task for her, too much to ask. She knew that, but her lips parted and she said, “Okay.”

As soon as that one word left her mouth, Guy sighed. Natalie’s response was vastly different. She felt like she was going to puke.

“I also wanted to ask you about what had been going on before Stephanie…before that Tuesday,” Guy said. “Sabine mentioned to me that Vance had been very worried about you when he left that night and perhaps thought you might be in danger. I do not know the specifics, but is everything all right?”

Glad to be on a different subject, even if it was an uncomfortable one, Natalie took a deep breath. “I’m fine, for now. The guy at work who was bothering me and didn’t show up for work that day just had food poisoning. That’s all. When he came back to work a few days later he apologized for everything and accepted the write-up without complaint. My boss is keeping close tabs on him, but there haven’t been any other problems.”

Natalie didn’t mention the phone call from her dad. She had found out how to have his phone blocked from making calls to her work number, so she hadn’t received any more harassing calls, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t tried, or that he wasn’t trying to find another way to reach her or some way to get her back home. It wasn’t something she cared to discuss with Guy, though.

“I am glad to hear you are safe,” Guy said. “If you have any further issues, please don’t hesitate to call me, yes? It may be a while before Vance is himself again.”

“Of course.” She sounded like she meant it, but Natalie didn’t plan on calling Guy for help any time soon. Not only did she not have the same connection with him as she did with Vance, he already had enough on his plate with taking over Vance’s patients, his wife going through chemo, and their son to take care of.

Before hanging up, Guy gave Natalie the information about the group therapy session and insisted she at least give it a try. They met every Monday night at seven. She glanced at the time and winced. That was only four hours away, which didn’t give her much time to try to convince herself to go. He wouldn’t hang up until she promised to attend that night’s session, so Natalie eventually gave in and promised to, at the very least, show up and sit there.

The rest of her day was pretty much a wash.

***

Natalie checked her phone again. Vance hadn’t responded to her since the funeral, and she really had no other friends who might call other than Sabine, but she was desperate for an excuse to walk back to her car. Guy wouldn’t actually know if she didn’t show up. She could lie if he asked. Sighing, she forced herself to take a step forward and look through the window in the door.

She wanted to change. She wanted to get better. That was the whole reason she had called Guy in the first place. Even with everything that had happened in the last few weeks, her desires hadn’t changed. They had intensified, if anything, but with a different focus.

Before, Natalie would look at families and couples and wish she was capable of living a normal life. That hadn’t really changed, but there was suddenly a more immediate reason to change. Guy was right that Vance needed help. She didn’t have any confidence at all that she was the person to give it, but she had to try.

Her fingers felt numb as she reached for the door handle and gripped it. She watched her knuckles turn white before she was able to make herself pull the door open. When she did, every pair of eyes in the circle of chairs turned to stare at her. It was nearly enough to make her bolt right then and there. She did let go of the door and scramble backward when a middle-aged woman stood.

“Are you Natalie?” she asked.

She could feel the panic rising as she nodded. Her breaths were getting shorter and shorter.

“Dr. Saint Laurent called me earlier to let me know you’d be coming tonight,” the woman said. “I’m Leslie.” She didn’t try to move any closer or attempt to shake Natalie’s hand or anything like that. She gestured toward an empty chair and said, “You’re welcome to move your chair as close or far away from the circle as you feel comfortable. It’s also up to you whether you want to share anything or not. Our group is very low pressure and we do everything we can to accommodate each other’s unique needs.”

Natalie was relieved when the woman took her seat again and directed everyone’s attention back to her so they weren’t all staring at Natalie any longer. The session seemed to make an attempt at resuming. Given that it was a group of people with serious social issues, it was awkward at best. The jerky start-stop of conversation was oddly comforting to Natalie. After a while, she made her way over to the chair and pulled it a good five feet away from the nearest person before sitting down.

Leslie was the only one who seemed to notice her join the group. Well, she was the only one who acknowledged it, anyway. More likely than not, the others were all hyperaware of everyone in the room like she was, but pretended to be invisible. That was pretty much Natalie’s tactic as well.

“Milestones,” Leslie said, “are very important in this group.” She seemed to be talking to Natalie. “The milestones are chosen by each individual, a goal they would like to reach within a certain amount of time. It can be anything from saying hello to someone to having low level physical contact.”

Everyone in the room shuddered.

“You can tell the group your milestone, or you can write it down and I’ll keep it private,” Leslie continued. “No one is required to choose a milestone, but I think we can all agree that having a goal to work toward is important.”

A few heads nodded.

“Would anyone like to comment on the progress they’ve made toward reaching a milestone?” Leslie asked.

No one raised their hand. The entire group sat in a silence that was strangely
not
awkward at all, until a deep voice across the circle from Natalie finally spoke. “I asked a question…during a safety meeting…at work.”

A general murmur rumbled around the room. Natalie knew nothing about the man who had spoken or what his particular social difficulties were, but she knew how daunting it was to speak up in front of other people, and found herself nodding in appreciation of his achievement as well. Leslie was more vocal.