He Believed His Ex More Than He Believed Me Chapter 04
I stopped.
Three years earlier, that car had been speeding toward Nolan.
I shoved him aside, took the impact myself, and broke two ribs, leaving me with severe post-traumatic stress.
I had not slept through a single night since.
Nolan gripped my shoulders and pushed me forward. “Facing the source of your fear is the only way to cure PTSD.”
I clung to the doorframe. “Please don’t.”
Vanessa stood behind him with her notebook under one arm. “Your traumatic memory needs to be reprocessed.
“Trust Nolan. He’s helping you.”
His hands pressed harder. I fell into the basement, striking my knees on the concrete, and the steel door slammed behind me.
I rushed back and pounded on it. “Let me out, Nolan.”
He watched me through the barred window, exhaustion weighing down his gaze. “Stay in there and look at the car until it no longer frightens you.”
My fingers curled around the cold bars. “I’ll die in here.”
Something shifted in his expression.
“That’s catastrophizing,” Vanessa said quietly. “Don’t let it sway you.”
Nolan closed his eyes, and his voice hardened. “I’m so tired, Noelle.”
I went still.
He looked at me with wounded resentment. “I want the bright, happy woman you used to be.
“Can’t you care what this has done to me?”
I released the bars.
Vanessa slipped her arm through his. “You’re doing the right thing.
“Desensitization always hurts before it frees someone.”
Their footsteps receded until only the car and I remained. I sat against the wall and scraped at the crumbling paint with my fingertips.
The smell of rust, the broken glass, and the scream of brakes surged out of the darkness. I bit the back of my hand and made no sound.
Over the next ten hours, I gouged a patch from the wall. My nails split backward, and blood smeared the gray paint.
Someone came to the other side of the door twice. Nolan stood there for a long time but did not open it.
Later, Vanessa said through the steel, “Good progress. She has stopped asking for help.”
A small laugh escaped me.
They did not need me to live.
They only needed me to stop asking to be saved.
After midnight, a paper slid under the door. Vanessa had outlined the next exposure phase, with Nolan’s signed consent at the bottom.
The date was the day before he removed the balcony barrier.
I held the page between my bleeding fingers as something inside my chest slowly tightened.
When Nolan finally opened the basement, I was sitting beside the wrecked car.
I was not shaking or crying. I only looked up and smiled.
His eyes lit at once. “Noelle.”
He rushed in, pulled me against him, and held my back. “I knew you could do it.”
Vanessa stood in the doorway. Surprise flickered across her face before she smiled.
“See? Evidence-based intervention works.”
Nolan held me tighter. “You’re finally better.”
I rested my chin on his shoulder. “Yes.
“I’m better.”
For two weeks, I acted normal. I made oatmeal, ironed Nolan’s shirts, and offered Vanessa coffee when she came to take notes.
The wariness slowly left Nolan’s eyes. He brought me around his friends and told everyone Vanessa had saved us.
Whenever someone praised her, he nodded with a lightness I had not heard in years. “She pulled me out too.”