An Unexpected Love (Women's Fiction/BWWM Romance) Read Online Free PDF

Dr. Livingston
said. “To be a part of a present that’s not real…how does it make you feel,
Layla?”
    “Like an idiot. Like someone who isn’t
even human. Like no one would ever understand.”
    “Is there something that recently happened
that might’ve triggered it?” Dr. Livingston asked. “You’d been doing fine for
over a year.”
    “I don’t think anything really triggers
the hallucinations, but I recently got divorced a month ago.”
    Cross leaned back and crossed his arms.
    “That was hard,” Layla said. “I’d been
married twenty years, and I was used to that structure. When you wake up to the
same person, even if it’s not paradise, you still miss it.”
    “Why wasn’t it paradise?” Dr. Livingston
whispered.
    “It was at first.” Layla straightened up
in the chair. “I thought Patrick was my soul mate because he accepted me.
Before I met him, I’d lost relationships because of my illness. It takes a toll
on the ones closest to you.” Her gaze landed on the bald man. “When I met
Patrick, I had everything. I was making moves to start my business, Royal Delights.”
    “The catering company?” the blonde-haired
woman beside Cross asked. “That’s yours?”
    Layla nodded.
    “Wow.” The blonde woman smiled. “My sister
had you guys cater her wedding last year. The food was amazing.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Layla said. “I haven’t
worked in two years. I went through a rough patch. The medicine was getting to
me, and I stayed stressed. Funny thing is I loved working, but the doctor and
Patrick said it was best that I cooled it. So I left.”
    “Did you want to?” Cross asked.
    “No,” Layla answered. “I felt Patrick
pushed me into it, like he always pushed me into things.”
    “What do you mean?” Dr. Livingston asked
her.
    “Patrick thinks he always knows what’s
best for me, and he doesn’t like to hear otherwise.” Layla gripped the bottom
of her chair. “He thinks he knows more about my illness than I do. That bugged
the hell out of me. On top of that, everything was always my fault. He sucked
the life out of me.”
    “Why do you say that?” Janet asked.
    “I feel like he stripped me of what makes
me…me. I was always independent, and I loved being a chef and running my catering
company.” She began to rock. “Other than my girls—we have two teenagers—nothing
made me happy like working. It was a part of me. I felt so lost after not being
able to do it. It’s like as time went on he took pieces of me.” She breathed
into her hands. “I hate to say this, but I think he was glad I was
schizophrenic so that…when I fell to pieces…he could put me back together. I
think that’s why he married me. Because it made him feel strong to have someone
he had to rescue.”
    “That’s deep,” Cross said. “Do you really
believe that?”
    “Yes.” A tear escaped the corner of her
eye. “I do.”

 

CHAPTER SEVEN
    As Cross walked Layla to her room thirty
minutes later, he asked, “You okay?”
    She pulled at her Houston Rockets T-shirt.
“I hate group.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s embarrassing,” she answered as she leaned
against the white door. “You open yourself up to a bunch of strangers, and
what’s the point?”
    “The point is to get us to see ourselves
differently than we already do. The reason we end up in the institution is
because we don’t know how to relate to others. I love group.” He scratched his
arm. “I feel like I can be myself. Did you mean what you said? You believe your
ex-husband liked you being schizophrenic?”
    “I shouldn’t have said that.” She pushed
her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t mean that he wanted me to have this illness.
But after a while, it’s like his purpose became cleaning my messes…you know?
Sometimes it’s like if he wasn’t doing that, I didn’t know why we were
together.”
    He moved closer to her. “Do you still love
him?”
    “He’s the father of my kids. I’ll always
love him. But