Melissa: A Hathaway House Heartwarming Romance by Dale Mayer (surface ebook reader TXT) 📗

the animals, of course, but not just yet. She would first deal with all the things that she still had to work on. But things were getting there. After breakfast, she had her first visit of the week with Dr. Sullivan. As she wheeled in, Dr. Sullivan looked at her and said, “Well, there’s a smile on your face.”

“There is,” she said. “I’ve been here now three weeks, almost four weeks, and I’m seeing enough progress that I’m feeling good about my decision to come here.”

“And what about Dani? Had that friendship worked into your decision-making process?”

“It’s nice to see her,” she admitted. “I wasn’t used to seeing somebody who was so open in her affections before. She and the Major were very foreign to me. My parents, my family? I hadn’t realized how stiff and formal my relationship was with them, until I met Dani and her father. Their relationship was so very different, and it was something that I really wanted, but, at the time, it felt like I was being disloyal to my parents, even though they were dead and gone, but it was like having to be true to their memory.” She shook her head. “People are really messed up.”

“Sometimes when we’re in pain,” Dr. Sullivan said, “it’s hard to see the helping hands being offered, the joy and the hope and the love that’s there because we think we don’t deserve it, or we shouldn’t accept it because it’s wrong, or we feel guilty because we’re alive, and the people around us are dead, and we don’t deserve anything better than that. All of those are normal human emotions, but that doesn’t mean that they are ones we should hang on to. You’re an adult now. You know so much more about that process and who you were back then, what sent you into the navy, and what has you sitting here now in this position. Now maybe you’re ready to accept a little more from Dani and the Major.”

“Well, it seems like the Major is still very much the same, maybe even more gregarious,” she said. “He still won’t take no for an answer.”

Dr. Sullivan laughed. “That’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?” They both chuckled at that.

“He’s a very big-hearted person,” Melissa said with a smile. “I remember he was always there with a hug, if I needed it. And, of course, back then I desperately needed them, but I also knew that I couldn’t depend on them because, well, look what happens when you depend on people.”

The doctor nodded and said, “They leave you, don’t they?”

She looked up and could feel the tears clogging her throat. “It’s stupid because I know my parents didn’t want to leave me. They didn’t want to die in an accident, but because they did, they left me, and I still hold some of that hurt inside.”

“And that’s totally normal,” she said quietly. “It’s very normal, and sometimes people even feel abandoned by the death of another person. It’s not that that person would have chosen that exit from our world, but it happened, and you’re the one left dealing with the mixed bag of emotions. So, take the time and sort it out, realize that you’ve let some of that color your world now and stop you and hold you back from having that family you want, having that group of friends you want. It was always there on offer, and it probably was in the navy, but you maybe were still so afraid that you would be the one left behind, that the others would turn around and eventually leave you, that you didn’t put any effort into making it happen.”

Melissa sat here, staring at her in shock. “Wow,” she said. “I hadn’t really considered that either.”

“Take the time to consider it now,” she said. “And just be easier on yourself. Don’t judge, accept the emotions, accept all of it for what it is. Give it the honesty to acknowledge that it’s there. Then you walk away from it, let it go.”

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” she said quietly. “To accept it as a nonjudgment.”

“Exactly,” Dr. Sullivan said. “Relax, love yourself, love what’s coming up, and let it go. You’ll be a whole new person for it afterward.”

Shane happened to be going down the hallway from one of his other sessions, preoccupied with his tablet. Only as he moved to avoid a wheelchair did he note it was Melissa coming out of Dr. Sullivan’s office. He stopped, looked at her, and smiled. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“I’m hardly somebody to miss,” she said humorously, pointing to the wheelchair.

He shook his head. “Forget about the wheelchair,” he said. “You’re somebody who’s hard to miss anyway.” Her smile beamed, and he laughed. “And I meant it.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, chuckling. “Sure you did.”

He shook his head. “You’ll have to work on that.”

“Work on what?” she asked curiously.

“The inability to accept a compliment for what it is.”

She stopped and stared.

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I meant it,” he said. “You’re hard to miss.” She obviously didn’t know what to say, so he smiled and said, “How did your session go?”

“Oh, she’s an interesting person to talk to,” Melissa admitted. “It’s different from what I thought I would be getting out of it. But it’s helping.”

“Good,” he said. “That’s important.”

“I just didn’t realize,” she said, as she wheeled down the hallway beside him, “just how much all this interacts with everything else in my system.”

“A lot of people like to forget that healing has to happen on all levels,” he said in a serious tone. “And sometimes they don’t like to have it pointed out. Because a lot of times people come into an injury, an accident, with some really deep grudges, for completely different reasons, different people involved. But it’s the same thing. You still have to let go of some of the stuff in order to let your body do what it needs to