Wild Irish Rose by Ava Miles

Author:Ava Miles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ava Miles Inc.
Published: 2019-03-04T08:00:00+00:00

Dr. Andreas Poread

Doctor of Psychology

(212) 555-0177

As if the envelope had doused her with a sheet of cold water, Becca crossed her arms over herself. “I don’t understand.” He couldn’t know. She looked up at him, her chest aching now at the horror of being exposed.

“Dr. Poread is one of the leading psychiatrists treating agoraphobia, miss,” Hargreaves said, his words riveting her to her chair. “He understands that people suffering from the disorder are usually unable to leave their homes for help, so his practice is mostly over the phone. I thought he might be a resource for you. If I’m mistaken, please accept my sincerest apologies.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth and turned her head away. Tears filled her eyes, and she barely had the presence of mind to open the bottom drawer of her desk where she kept the tissues. Inside, she was dying. He knew her shame. Her secret.

“You needn’t worry about anyone else knowing, miss,” he said, laying a finely ironed linen handkerchief in front of her.

“Oh, Hargreaves,” she said through her tears. Pressing the handkerchief to her eyes, she inhaled jaggedly, the pain pouring out of her. It was terrible to have someone else know, but in another sense it was a relief someone had noticed—and had cared enough to offer a helping hand.

“It’s quite all right, miss,” he said, calm and unflappable as ever. “Take your time.”

And so she went completely to pieces in front of him as he stood there, a silent witness to years of pent-up pain and frustration. When she was finished carrying on, she’d soaked his handkerchief and grown completely light-headed from the tears.

“How did you figure it out?” she finally asked him.

“A butler is trained to see everything, miss, and I noticed you rarely leave the house. When you do, it’s with some trepidation. There were other clues, but they are unimportant. I knew someone who seemed to share your affliction. She didn’t leave her house for some time. I grew concerned about her and did my research and found someone to help her. In the end, I realized she didn’t leave the house not because she was afraid to do so, but because she felt she had no reason to.”

Depression and not agoraphobia, then. While different, they ended up leading to the same situation: isolation.

“I thought perhaps Dr. Poread might not be known to you seeing as how he’s American and living in New York.”

She sniffed and shook her head. “In the beginning, Cian and my grandmother brought a few specialists to see me, but none of their treatments seemed to help. They could map my problem, as they say, but not fix it. They did suggest some breathing exercises that helped. As I grew older, I reached out to a few psychiatrists in Dublin and went through a series of treatments that didn’t work.”

She’d reached out to an anxiety coach in Galway when she’d come across him in her ongoing research for new treatments, but he’d only suggested coping cards and muscle-relaxing exercises, neither of which had improved her condition.

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