Her eyes had grown big, no longer just expressing shock as I talked, but also fright. I just continued.
“After Bill told me that, I looked for the videos they produced online and found a few. The first time I watched one, I was surprised the woman could even move when they were finally done with her. So, I looked into her, just to make sure. She did make it out of the building ... but after those videos were published, she apparently couldn’t deal with the humiliation. The people they worked with are even worse than them! Even if I hate you all for what you did, I couldn’t let
“Tim...” she started to say, but nothing else came as she just stared at me.
“Still want me around?”
This was something that bothered me a lot, ever since it happened. I didn’t know for sure whether the Bookie and his men were actually dead, of course, but I knew this was the most likely outcome for them, even before we drove to Austin. Bill had made sure I understood that part as soon as I told him about my plan. When he asked me whether I knew what they did to people who steal from them, he wasn’t just warning me about the consequences of getting caught stealing. He was warning me about the consequences of succeeding in framing others.
I didn’t tell Danielle to get sympathy points, or make her feel indebted, or anything like that. I just had to tell someone, and ever since the blowout on Thanksgiving, I had decided that we all needed to know exactly where our problems came from. If they wanted to work on our relationship, they first needed to know why we no longer had one. In return, they deserved to know what I did in Austin, so they could decide if rebuilding a relationship with me was something worth working for.
If this confession would lead to them letting me go, or them finally deciding they didn’t want someone like me close to them anymore, nothing would be lost either. I would simply continue living like I already had for years, just not in this house.
But instead of doing anything like that, she leaned over, wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled my head into her breasts. She just held me like that for a long time, while her hands combed through my hair.
I won’t lie, I enjoyed it immensely. Being held like that was something I missed a lot. And then the old doubts came back. Any affection or concern they had shown me happened just after they realized that they needed me. I was used to expecting disappointment and looking for their hidden agenda. I simply had no way to know if this was genuine.
“Why are you holding me?” I said, trying to control myself. “This is ... not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Curse at me? Wake the others and tell them what I did? Tell me to get away from you?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she just held me tighter before finally speaking.
“Oh, Honey ... you were not the one who killed them, if that even happened.”
“But if it happened, I caused it!” I replied, noticing it got harder to control my voice.
“No. What you did was the only thing you could think of to protect us, and what it got you was pain. I saw your face just now while you told me. Trust me, I will never blame you for protecting your family!”
Receiving that kind of caring gesture, after she learned the full story ... I can’t even begin to describe how big of a relief I felt. I didn’t even notice how long we lay there, her just holding me in that comforting manner, until I heard birds chirping outside. I looked through the window and noticed that the sun was coming up, which meant it had been roughly three hours since she joined me. I got up and looked at her uncomfortably.
“Sorry for taking up your night.” I said.
“Don’t say it like...”
“Thank you. For...” I interrupted her, gesturing towards the sofa instead of finishing the sentence. “I hate to admit it, but I needed it.”
Hearing that made her smile. She stood, walked close to me, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and took my right hand into hers.
“Listen. The next time you feel like something bad is about to happen, I want you to try this. It’s called Five-Finger Breathing. Open your hand like this, palm up.” she said, turning my hand and spreading my fingers for me. Then she lightly traced my fingers with her middle-finger. “Start at the thumb. Trace the outside of it up to the tip while you breathe in through your nose, then trace the inside of it down to the palm while you breathe out through your mouth. Then do it with your index finger with your next breath, and then with your middle finger. Try to control your breathing, so it stays deep and slow as you do it. Do it until you’ve traced all your fingers this way, and, if you need to, do it again in reverse until you’re back at your thumb. By the time you reach it, you should feel a lot calmer already.”
