“See, we’re your saviours,” Carrick gloats.
Despite all the sarcastic retorts rampaging through my head I refuse to react, deciding that from this moment on I’m not going to even acknowledge Carrick. The best way to deal with a person who uses their overwhelming personality and poor behaviour to get attention is to ignore them, so ignore him I will.
“They are passionate young men, with very…” Dr Lynch pauses, trying to articulate his thoughts whilst I wait for him to fill the gap. “...Intriguing personalities that I believe will help encourage you to find your voice.”
Is this a joke? If I had a voice, my words would be lost to the terror of my heart squeezing my throat shut, as it is I remain outwardly calm. Arden has already threatened my life the minute I met him, and Lorcan insinuated that I owe him sexual favours because of his friendship with the arsehole and now I’m expected to share my trauma with these boys in group therapy sessions?
I’d prefer one on one sessions with you.
“It is, I’m afraid, non-negotiable,” Dr Lynch replies after reading my statement, the kindness in his eyes turning to pity, and in that moment I see this for what it is.
He knows.
He knows that my father is a man you cannot say no to. He knows that these boys aren’t kind, and I’d go as far as to say that my father requested I be placed with the most heinous people at the school because he believes that I’ll be cured with cruelty and not kindness.
This is a farce. All of it.
This session. This school.
None of it is for my benefit.
This is about my dad wanting a normal child. This is about him needing me to be strong, and strength isn’t a girl who cannot speak. That is not the O’Farrell way. Strength is a girl who finds her voice in order to put three troublesome boys in their place. What my dad has forgotten is that the last time he tried to put me in the path of three angry, messed-up boys, I made them my friends.
I guess, then, this is round two.
Though something tells me I will never be friends with Carrick, Lorcan or Arden. That their hatefulness wasn’t built on abuse, twisting their goodness into darkness like Malik Brov’s sons, but on something altogether different.
My anger is quickly replaced with a sense of impending doom, and it’s only heightened when Lorcan and Arden step into the room, reeking of illicit sex and the distinct scent of marijuana.
They both have a lazy smile on their face, the whites of their eyes bloodshot. High on oxytocin and dopamine, they are oblivious to the tension in the room.
“So good of you to join us,” Dr Lynch says, getting up from his seat and ushering them into the office.
Apart from wrinkling his nose, he doesn’t acknowledge the glaringly obvious. Looks like Dr Lynch is good at turning a blind eye. Which is great for them, and terrible for me.
“We were helping Miss with a plumbing issue,” Arden says, swallowing a smile as Carrick mimics a lewd sex act with his hands behind Dr Lynch’s back.
“So Carrick told me. I’m glad you’re putting your skills to work.”
“Oh, we certainly made good use of them,” Lorcan adds, smirking.
Bile rises up my throat at the gloating. I don’t care who they’ve slept with, even though it’s disgusting that someone in a position of authority can take advantage of two young men who’re clearly emotionally unstable. What I care about is that I’m expected to have group therapy sessions with these arseholes because my father believes they’ll anger me enough into speaking again.
Newsflash, I have zero control over my ability to speak. God knows I’ve tried over the years, but the sound won’t come. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I won’t ever hear my voice again and no amount of bullishness from my father, and cruelty from whomever he puts in my path, will cure me. Nothing has helped me to find my voice.
Not the self-harm I’ve inflicted on myself over the years to try and coax out a cry of pain, or the copious amounts of medication forced into my system upon the advice of some quack my father’s paid to drug me. I’ve seen numerous doctors and had hours upon hours of therapy, but all that time and money has been wasted. Not even the kindness and understanding my beloved grandmother has showered me with over the years has helped.
Truth be known, if I could reach down my own throat and rip out my voice, I would.
I’d do it in a tattered heartbeat, with a cry of feral joy.
But I can’t.
So I’m left with no voice, and evidently no say in my life either.
I may be able to communicate by writing words on paper, but nothing is more powerful than a voice being heard, and I may as well be writing in a foreign language for all the lack of understanding inflicted upon me over the years.
“So what did we miss?” Arden asks, sliding out a chair next to me, twisting it around and straddling the seat.
“Cyn throwing a hissy fit over the fact we’re in group therapy together. She’d rather cut herself to shreds apparently,” Carrick gloats.
My head snaps around as I glare at him and he smiles broadly. “There she is,” he mutters.
I could kick myself for reacting, but I’m more concerned about how he knew that’s what I wrote down before I decided against sharing that very personal information and wrote something else instead.
Carrick’s gaze drops to the pad I’m holding. “Your marker pen bled through the page. It’s not all that hard to read backwards. If you want to keep shit private, I’d use a pencil.”
If I was able to speak, I’d be stunned into silence. His remark was cutting, but the advice was actually useful. I frown, uncertain of his intentions.
“What? It’s just common sense, did you lose that as well as your voice?” he snips.
Back to being a prick again, then.
Lorcan feigns disappointment as he holds his hand over his chest and looks wide-eyed at me. “You’re not keen on the idea of us being therapy friends? Why’s that?”
The three of them laugh, and I draw on every last ounce of strength not to react or lash out like they so desperately want me to do.
“Actually, it’s a valid question,” Dr Lynch interscedes. “Would you care to elaborate, Cynthia?”
Isn’t it obvious? I write as calmly as I possibly can. This isn’t for my benefit.
Dr Lynch hesitates, then folds his hands in his lap and says, “I think it’s important that you trust in the process. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
We both know that I’m here because I’ve been forced to be. I don’t trust in this process. I don’t trust these BOYS, I write, pushing my response into the centre of the table. I don’t care if they read it.
“I wouldn’t trust us either, but it looks like you’ve got no choice,” Carrick says, his black eyes flickering with something I don’t want to acknowledge right now.
Pity.
4
Carrick - present day
“I don’t trust her,” I say, leaning against the wall in our outhouse as Cyn sets up her ingredients and equipment on the huge metal table running through the centre of the space to make diamonds.
This is a trial run to check the equipment, the quality of the ingredients, and the environment. These are all key factors of the process according to Arden, who questioned Cyn in great detail on our journey back to the island together.