herself from the mires of trauma. One slow inch at a time, hanging by her fingernails some years, and she still had a long way to go, she recognized that, but that’s where it had begun, that first small ray of . . . yes, hope.
They came to a bench in a small grassy area off the sidewalk and Reed gestured to it questioningly. She nodded and they both walked to where it was and sat. “Tell me more,” he said.
She smiled. She didn’t think she’d talked this long to one person in her entire life. Much of her job was about listening and Liza was good at that. But being listened to, she realized, was a gift no one had given her in quite this way.
“I liked immersing myself in other subjects,” she said. “School became my sole focus. Now that my basic needs were being met, I could throw all my energy into that. I excelled. My high school counselor took me under her wing. She believed in me and helped me apply to colleges. I got a full academic scholarship to UC and when I took my first psychology class, it explained things I hadn’t had words for before. Post-traumatic stress, cycles of abuse . . .” She paused for a moment. “There are still things I struggle with, you know that.” She looked off behind him for a moment, the city lights sparkling and wavering as dusk turned to night. “So much.” She met Reed’s gaze again. “Parts of me are damaged, Reed. But it helps to name them. It helps to know I’m not the only one who’s felt those things. And maybe someday, if I work hard enough, if I confront my fears, I’ll overcome them, whatever that looks like.”
“I believe that.”
She tilted her head, taking in his earnest expression. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I think you’re a damn good bet, Dr. Nolan,” he said quietly, his gaze not straying from hers.
Warmth rushed through her and she was suddenly breathless. She let out a small nervous laugh that quickly died, her expression going serious. She wasn’t used to this. None of it. And she was out of her element, defenseless, and yet so happy too. Seen. It was sort of like the feeling she’d had when her high school counselor had expressed such pride in her, but more. This was Reed and her feelings for him were deep and confusing. Good and bad and all over the map. He made her feel alive and terrified, like running away and flinging herself into his arms. She broke eye contact, looking away for a moment as she got her bearings. “I’ve talked a lot. Tell me a little about you.”
He gave her a sweet smile, leaning back on the bench and looking out at the sidewalk for a moment where a few people walked by quickly, their hands in their pockets, eyes straight ahead. “What do you want to know?”
She thought about what he’d told her about his upbringing, how he’d found out at fourteen that his father was a serial killer. An evil man who’d victimized Reed’s birth mother. She had so many questions. Personal ones, but . . . maybe she’d somewhat earned a few personal answers. She hoped so, because she wanted so much to know about him. “You said your birth mother gave up rights to you so you could stay with the parents who had adopted you. But you didn’t meet her until you were eighteen. Did you ever resent her for not being a part of your life growing up? She could have decided that, right? To sort of . . . share you?”
Reed put his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “I’ve thought about that and honestly? No. What she did . . . it was the best thing for me. Once I learned the truth, I was old enough to have a really solid sense of myself, you know? I think finding out earlier would have been extremely confusing, might even have shaped me in ways it didn’t have a chance to.” He shook his head. “No, what Josie did was the most selfless thing she could have done, and I’m grateful. She wrote me a letter, explaining how she knew the best way to love me was to love from afar. And I didn’t know what that truly meant until I was in her farmhouse the first time. I was eighteen, ready