Fearless - a jaylor story (peace book 3)

put it into words

-taylors pov-

We leave annas office and are greeted with my old therapist Rachel in the hallway who led us into her office and close the door. "Hi Taylor, I would say nice to see you again, but I wish it wasn't like this" she says with a weak smile. "Appreciate you saying that" 

She crouches down "and you must be Ellie, I'm Rachel, your mom has told me so much about you and showed me pictures. I heard you would be in here, so I got a special chair just for you from anna" she says and point to a bean bag chair next to the couch and Ellie smiles and we go over to the couch. 

I get Ellie set up with her headphones and iPad "baby, you were such a good girl with anna, so there is a special treat for you in the bag. But don't tell your sisters" I say, and she lights up and take out a fruit rollup from the bag and I put on her headphones. They are really good quality headphones that are noise canceling. 

Once Ellie is all good to go, I sit down on the couch making sure to stay right by Ellie and face Rachel. "Thank you for letting her stay in here. I know it's not exactly protocol, but we are trying to not cause her more stress right now" I tell her. 

"No worries, Taylor. You both have been through a lot now so whatever you need to feel comfortable. I don't mind, she seems like a delight" she says and I sigh. 

"Do you want to take me through what happened?" she says and brings out a notepad. Thankfully I've spent many hours talking with Rachel about my life so at least I know her. 

"it's been hell that's for sure." I go on and tell her how Adam called me out of nowhere and that it started the ball rolling. We have spent hours going over aspects of my relationship with Adam in the past and I've gotten good coping mechanisms to deal with the old stuff now. But it feels like the same cut has been opened again and once again I'm left bleeding on the floor fighting for survival. 

"Do you want to give me a general idea of the rest of it. We won't be able to get into everything today but I would like some general notes so we can together build the full picture" she says after writing down what I just told her. 

"a week after the call he showed up at Ellies school. That turned into the... when he..." I break down in tears "when he got in our playroom window and grabbed Ellie" I say and dry my tears and when I look at Ellie, I see she is concerned but I weakly force a smile to let her know I'm okay. 

"After that, when I ran out, he grabbed me too. We were down in the basement for a week, lots of bad stuff happened. And then a swat team came and broke us out. That's the bare bones of it" I tell her. "I wish I could just turn it all off and forget. But I can't because she needs me, all my children need me so I can't shut it out. And then there is the trial and I need to be able to testify so I can't fall apart. All I want to do is just lay in my bed forever and drown my sorrows, or just.... not exist... but I can't because I'm a mom and a wife and I know they need me" 

I just wish I could let myself feel what's going on, but I don't want to scare the kids. I want to give them what they need, but I have a tendency to do that at my own expense. It was hard to find a balance before but now it's even harder. 

"Remember what we talked about years ago Taylor. That's it's important for you to take time to take care of yourself too. Especially now, you have been through something really traumatic, and you're allowed to take time to process it. Burrowing it down inside of you won't help you, and it won't help your family" she says, and I know she is right. 

I have this bad habit of taking bad stuff and just lock it up inside of my head and not deal with it. But eventually that room becomes so big that the door explodes, and it all comes running towards me. That's what happened after the miscarriage.