Hey... so please stop asking why I'm reuploading chapters. I'm not just reuploading, I'm changing/adding new elements to this story. I'm not going to rush through it, and I do not know when I'm going to be uploading where you left off before I put this story on hiatus. I thought you guys have been enjoying the new pieces, but a few of you are just bombarding my private messages with the same inquiries of when I'll get to where you have left off. 

Did you like hearing from Brennan?

Sorry this is late, I had planned on updating Shattered (once) and Loving Ashlynn (two chapters) but I was with my mom at her doctor's appointment for an MRI, so I just got home a few hours ago. I may still update later but not definite. 

A/N: NOT THOROUGHLY EDITED.

Chapter 21 - The Bottom Line (Faith POV) Pt.1

October 27th, 2015

"I see that you stopped seeing one therapist, but are now seeing me..." Nova Sultana my new therapist said the minute I sat down. I nodded, not sure where this was going at the moment, but curious, very curious. "I hope that I can help you achieve what you're seeking," she said stunning me for a moment. "I know you're probably nervous, waiting for me to ask the big scary questions but how about I tell you a bit about myself?" still turning her previous comment over in my head, I nodded listening, but still occupied.

"Okay, so I'm Nova, I was taken by a family member - someone I trusted," my eyes widened, and her previous comment vanished from my mind, but her light hazel eyes shone sincerity. "It was my dad, he picked me up from school and said that my mom had passed away - I was only three at the time - and that we needed to leave because the people that had taken her away from us, they were after him as well." The room around me seemed to be spinning, but I still held on to every word that Nova was sharing with me right now.

She exhales deeply, closing her eyes before hazel eyes are focused on mine again. "We hid a lot. Slept in different cars for about a year, and he had built a fear so deep inside me that when I heard an emergency vehicle of any kind, pass by I hid of my volition. When people like the ones he described to me, that took my mother from me were around, I hid afraid that they were the people that had taken my mother from me."

The word 'mother' sends me back and pulls me forward. Cynthia - Ansel's sister in law - was my biological mother.

"After some time, we traveled, drove for days, then we boarded a ship, a large boat, and my dad said that we would be free, that after nearly two years of running, we were free." Nova smiles sadly at me, "When I turned fourteen and had to do a project, I could remember certain things about my mother, but wanted more details. A friend of mine, one that I had since we had moved to our new home in Peru, she helped me and when we began searching, things weren't coming out right."

Completely engrossed by her story, my nerves settling just a fraction, "At fourteen I wasn't ready to see the truth... but then at sixteen, it came up again and this time, memories didn't fit right for me. I didn't understand," she waved her hand.

"I had been to a funeral, and I wondered why my father and I never had one for my mothers, I began wondering what was on her headstone? What did all the other little family think? Did they miss me?" I couldn't relate to that part; Dmitri had always told me that my parents died.

"I was overwhelmed with questions, but I could not turn to my father, even though by now, he had met a woman four years ago, married her and had my little siblings. I didn't want to be more of a reminder of his loss than I already was." That's why Cynthia left me; I was a reminder of something bad, a mistake.

My stomach seemed to turn before I knew all the details. Except it was just the way that Nova scrunched up her nose. I had only been free for a while but by now, I could pick up on the 'bad news' face. "So when I turned seventeen, I did research, saved money and bought a calling card so that I could call America - down in Louisiana - and talk to some family from my mother's side." I watch in awe as Nova swallows thickly, and her eyes take on a dark sheer, glazed look.

"My hands were shaking, but um I wanted to speak to them, I felt like I had too. They had pieces of information about half of who I was I believed. So I call the number I found, and when - when the person answered, the voice was - it was my mother," she smiles, but her cheeks shake, and her lip wobbles, but she pulls it together. Quickly I might add. "I hung up at first, stunned thinking oh no, I just heard what I wanted too. I recalled having an aunt, and thought, oh no, she just sounds like my mom," I lean forward, hanging on Nova's words.

Nova's smile grows wider, "When I finally got the courage to call back two days later, I was extremely nervous, because by then there were so many different scenarios in my head that I didn't know what was true and what was false. I was so young, but I tried to think back to when my father said we had to go into hiding, just to see if I had missed something."

My lips twisted up in understanding, ready to blurt out if I had no self-control right now, that I was enduring the same thing. It was horrid and painful. "When the woman answered again, I thought for sure I would be ready, but hung up once again... and the final time I tried, after two rings, the one that had answered with "hello?" she answered with, "Nova?" sounding so hopeful." Beside myself, I found that my eyes watered and I sniffed inconspicuously, but Nova still handed me a tissue box.

"It was not all sunshine from there on you know Faith. I hung up once more right after she said, "it's me, mommy," because again, those three words, meant that there were now a million more scenario's I had to question."

Letting what she revealed settle in, Nova remained reserved. And I had to wonder, "Did you ever call back?" I finally asked.  I mean she was no longer in Peru, but she wasn't in Louisiana either. Her face gave nothing away until I asked and straight thin lips transformed into a large pearly white bright smile. "I did, and I learned the truth, that she and my father were having problems, she wanted to move, and he left with me, kidnapping me, holding me hostage and I had not known the truth; there was no danger. My father kidnapped me."

Immediately I tense up, because there were those words again, 'kidnapping' and 'hostage.' I can only shake my head, "You've - you've read the file?" I stutter out when she doesn't say anything else.

Stunned, not only by her choice of words but also by her admittance. "There was no danger." That was almost too close to home. I had assumed there was a war, but that was even before Dmitri had found me. Why did I think that? Where were Cynthia, Andy and I before the gray room? 

"I have, and I'm very sorry that you've gone through what you did, our situations aren't identical, but I can empathize with the troubles-" I screwed my face up and instantly Nova stopped speaking, observing me.

"You aren't having troubles?" she asks kindly, not condescending like but in a way that I knew her undertone was total disbelief, but there was a hint of hope. "You have no fears Faith?"

I blinked looking away. Of course, I had fears! I wanted to scream. Fears of rejections, being wrong, ridiculed, failure at not being able to succeed in this new world, I felt exposed now - all the time - and I craved security. Still how could I get it when I feared the truth? When I couldn't even trust myself?

I stubbornly refuse to answer, but Nova isn't smug, "I read your file, and while I want to hear more from you, not from what others have said about you, I think you're doing wonderfully-" the snort came loudly from me. 

"You do not believe you're doing amazingly?" if she thinks I am, it's a lie. Which again is the problem. "Can I ask you for something?" her voice very calm and conversational, but still my guard went up. "What I would like, even though this is our first session, is I want you to lay all your problems on me, all your worries, even if it's just one thing, I want you to take it off your shoulders and place it on mine, for the time being."

Did she want to make my problems her own? Store them? Like a bank? 

I didn't trust that my last therapist was - I think she betrayed my confidence. Could I tell Nova that? No... I wouldn't tell her that. I couldn't quite explain what happened, but it was like a feeling in my stomach where I just couldn't shut it off, everything in my body was telling me that I needed to be as far away from Sonya as possible.

It felt like an instinctual thing. 

Finally with a hefty sigh, I unload my burden. "Dmitri did not kidnap me. All the things I said that he said, the war, the In-Independents, the Loyalists, all of that, I don't-" gasping, I push through. "I am not sure where it is from, but it was not from Dmitri," I tell Nova, my hands shaking and the back of my neck throbbing.

By the time I've said such a burdened but simple sentence, my body feels like it's seizing in panic at the truth and lies, and unknown all in one. I begin rocking back and forth as guilt swarms over me in fast doubled waves. My skin tingles and the stress of the last two weeks, all come forth, here in front of this stranger.

"Faith, I need you to breathe," I nod intent on listening, following her guidance, but I fail. 

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I wake up - horizontally - on the couch I was sitting on, Kalenah in the room, holding my hand. Gazing at me sympathetically, "How are you?" I pushed myself to a seated position, feeling exhausted, my limbs heavy. "You've only been out for about thirty minutes," Kalenah tells me even though I didn't ask, yet wanted to know. "Sorry," a mumbled apology fights it was out as my stomach feels as though I've swallowed a farm of bees, while also wondering just what Kalenah knew.

"Are you okay Faith? Is - is this about - are you worried about Cynthia?" I blink looking around for Nova, "she had another client but asked that we wait for you to have another session before you leave," again answering my unasked question.

"If this, if you are concerned about Cynthia, then don't be. Like Ansel and I told you last night, we are on your side, whatever happens, you are part of our family, you are home," she says fiery, and I swear the gray in her eyes thickens.

I nod, but the truth was even without them laying that on me, I had enough trying to weave my way through my dreams and memories. "That's - it's not," I shake my head my eyes welling up and I can't bring myself even to speak, even though inside I'm overwhelmed and my hearts racing. Desperate to hold onto something, to feel like I'm not flying away piece by piece I hold on to Kalenah's hand, squeezing with all my might.

I say no more, and amazingly Kalenah doesn't pull away, and over time, I'm not sure how much, I feel more whole, more tethered.

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Kalenah leaves again, and I almost asked her to stay, I don't. Not brave enough I think. Unsure that she wants to be here to hear what's changed since I arrived in her home, "You look like you wanted her to stay," Nova comments and I fix my expression looking back at her.

"I'm sure if you wanted that support, Kalenah would stay if us, with you," I'm nodding my head even though, I don't believe it, "Sorry I passed out," an apology tumbles out of me.

"I'm sorry that I asked so much of you," I nodded. Is she apologizing to me? "I um - I'm not sure," my lip wobbles. "I think - I thought that maybe - because I was in the safe house, there was nothing there that would remind me of what I was missing - or seeing or remembering?" I try to explain confused but Nova nods, and there's no judgment in her eyes.

"I 've come out into the world, and it's like - there are so many things that I don't know that don't make sense. I'm constantly trying to catch everything and it's not working because I am an enigma. For a few months, it was going great, but now I don't know what's real or what's fake..."

I was desperate - and going with my gut again - to tell someone what was happening; "I don't know how to trust my memories when now I'm getting new ones that are contradictory with the old ones," and that was the bottom line.

If I couldn't trust myself, how did I learn to trust anyone else? Was it even possible?

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