Joshua’s cold eyes stare at Nicholas.
“It was your fault she nearly died. It was your fault that Amelie did this. It was your fault Natasha had to go through this.”
Joshua stands swiftly.
“She was your fiancé. You should have protected her.”
“Shut up,” Joshua whispers coldly.
“This is all your fault. Isn’t that right, Joshua?”
“Yes!” he snaps. “Of course it’s my fucking fault.”
I shake my head as tears pool to blur my vision. “No, baby, this wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was.” Joshua sucks in precious air into his lungs as he tries to calm himself down.
“We will come back to this in a moment.” Nicholas smiles sympathetically.
He turns his attention back to me. “I have an assignment for you, Natasha.”
I like assignments, I smile. “Ok.”
“I would like you to go back and fill in your diary for me. Tell me about what happened when you were taken, day by day.”
My face falls and I shake my head.
“Why not?”
I stay silent.
“I…” I hesitate. “I don’t.” I stop as the tears start to run down my face and the lump in my throat hurts me.
“Why, Natasha. I would like you to give me a reason.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m scared,” I whisper.
“You don’t want to go back there.”
I shake my head quickly.
“It was terrible, wasn’t it?”
I nod sharply.
“Its better not to think about it, isn’t it?”
I nod again.
“You know how we talked about me needing to learn to live with being in love with two men?” Joshua and I both nod. “I need you two to learn to live with something, too. You need to acknowledge what has happened to the both of you. You need to acknowledge that you have both survived a life-changing event. You’re different people now.”
Joshua drops his head sadly.
“And that’s ok! It’s ok to be slightly damaged version of yourselves.”
My eyes meet Joshua’s and I grab his hand.
“It’s ok to be imperfect. It’s ok to have down days and bad memories.”
I stare at him through my tears.
“What’s not ok, is pretending that it didn’t happen.”
I nod and Joshua drops his head.
“You two have a bond. You’ve both been through so much, yet you survived.”
Joshua smiles and puts his arm around me, softly kissing my forehead as I wipe my tears away.
“Rely on each other. Talk to each other. Support each other.”
Joshua nods. “We will.”
I smile but the tears won’t stop. I lean forward and pull a tissue from the box, blowing my nose loudly.
Nicholas smiles. “You two are going to be fine. You just have to be kind to one another and let yourselves have a moment of weakness every day. If you keep acting tough all the time, you’re going to crash and burn.”