Page 36 of The Love Thief

CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE Mount Vesuvius Had Nothing on Me

Holly, you are a very lucky girl,” Sumant said with a weighty, serious look.

“I think Barry set you up by giving you the art to carry through customs without declaring it. Had you been caught, it would have been your word against his, and you would be facing ten years or more in U.S. federal prison . . . or worse.”

Sumant and I were halfway through our lunch at the Bliss Café. As I absorbed his assessment, my appetite immediately disintegrated. Sumant was right. I had been set up and used by that despicable lowlife.

A wave of anger rushed through me, and my brain exploded with sky-high plumes of flame and smoke and rocks from middle-earth.

Barry did this to me. On purpose. With intent. He targeted me.

He used me as the everyday, nice, all-American girl next door who could walk through customs carrying priceless works of art and get away with it. If I had gotten caught, he would have denied it all and sacrificed my life to save his own.

I wanted to annihilate him, destroy him, make him suffer until he begged for mercy. Then I would shoot him point-blank in that over-Botoxed forehead of his.

In my overheated mind, I concocted a revenge plan while not letting Sumant see or feel my rage.

This was a whole new level of anger for me.

It felt nuclear. I stopped myself from wanting to take my arm and sweep everything off the table and then go kick out the floor-to-ceiling windows until everything around me fell to the ground.

Then I broke down crying.

Hot tears escaped from the corners of my eyes, and within seconds I was a heaving mess in a big, heaving, out-of-control, ugly cry.

Poor Sumant. I had learned from Auntie Geeta that public displays of emotion were not kosher in India, and it was clear he didn’t know what to do.

Fortunately, Deepak could see (and hear) me via the pass-through window from the bookshop. He rushed over, sat down next to me, and instantly handed me his clean, white linen handkerchief.

“It’s gonna be okay, Holly,” Deepak said in his inimitable, deeply loving way. “Just let it all out.” He looked at Sumant. “You must be Holly’s lawyer. I’m Deepak. What happened? Did the FBI interview go badly?”

“Nice to meet you, Deepak. I’m Sumant. The FBI interview went very well. I’m sure you will understand that we can’t discuss the details. Our Madam Holly isn’t in any trouble, just a bit overwhelmed at the moment,” he said as he glanced down at his watch.

“Holly, I must go and catch my flight to Delhi. I will update Geeta and let you know the next steps. You did a great job today. You should be very proud of yourself. Please call me if you have any questions,” Sumant said quickly as he put a handful of rupees on the table. And then he was gone.

I couldn’t blame him for wanting to make a quick escape. I managed to squeak out a quick thank-you as he headed for the door.

As I loudly blew my nose, my sobs began to subside. The anger still swelled heavily in my chest. How could I have been so foolish to fall for Barry’s scheme? I righted my frame and inhaled deeply. On the exhale, I turned to Deepak.

“Technically, you are still a therapist, right? So technically, anything I say to you is confidential, right?” I asked him. Before he could respond, I added, “So I am not breaking any rules if I want to tell you what happened today?” It was more a statement than a question.

In a gentle, loving voice, he looked at me and said, “Whatever you say to me, Holly, will be in the vault. Just between you and me. You know I will help you in any way I can.”

I breathed a deep sigh of relief and launched into a lengthy recap of the FBI interview, including the evidence and photos Agent Turner had shown me, and concluded with how unbelievably angry I was that Barry had set me up.

“Holly, your anger is justified, and anyone hearing your story would understand. Betrayal may be the hardest emotion to recover from because, most of the time, we are betrayed by someone very close to us. Someone we love. Someone we believe loves us. Someone we trust. Suddenly, we are blindsided by them as if the rug has been ripped out from under us, and we are left in a state of grief, disbelief, fear, confusion, and loss. There is no pill or mantra to fix this quickly, but with time, there is a recovery path that will heal your heart and soul. You have also lost your faith and trust in everything, including yourself. And there is a way back,” Deepak assured me.

Sitting next to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the café, I let the sight of the flowing Ganga capture my attention while I absorbed what Deepak was saying.

What possible way could I go to restore faith and trust in men?

The feelings of betrayal ripped through my soul like a machete.

As I peered across the river, I imagined my anger gushing through a big red hose from my chest to the water, cleansing the toxicity from my body.

Deepak’s voice pulled me back as he continued his explanation.

“I’m sure you have heard of the five stages of grief?

Well, there are also stages of healing from betrayal, and right now, you are in the beginning.

It is the scariest stage, where your world as you knew it has been shattered, and you are terrified because you don’t yet have a new worldview of your life.

Discovering Barry and Carly’s betrayal followed by the near-death car accident threw you into a fight-or-flight stress response, thereby lighting up the reptilian part of your brain. ”

I immediately imagined the snakes slithering across Barry’s floors.

Reptilian brain? It seemed plausible that I had something in common with those creatures.

But weren’t we humans more than that? I worried that part of my brain would hold me hostage for the rest of my life.

Deepak softly lifted my chin and stared into my eyes.

“Part of you is now in the next stage, survival mode, where you look for a way to heal. For many, this is the stage in which they get stuck,” he said.

“Right now, you are in a negative feedback loop of focusing on blaming Barry and Carly, and making them a target of your anger. When you keep repeating your story of how right you are that they wronged you, it prevents you from relearning how to trust. You don’t want to get stuck there, but many people do. ”

The doorbell rang at that moment. Deepak got up from his chair.

Stuck? I don’t want to get stuck. I’ve flown halfway around the world to get unstuck, for God’s sake.

But the anger was so overwhelming I had no clue how to jump off the roller coaster I was on.

As I watched Deepak help a customer pay for his book, I suddenly felt so tired, without a fiber of strength in my body, threadbare and exhausted like a muddy carpet that had been trampled on by careless feet.

Deepak returned to the chair across from me with a smile.

He paused for a moment, granting me some time to collect myself.

I could tell he had more to say, so I calmed myself enough to tune in to his wisdom.

“To continue your healing, you need to be willing to ask yourself and discover, what was the gift of this? What did I learn? What do I know now that I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t lived through this exact experience?

How have I grown? These are not easy questions, but they help you adjust to the present as you make new rules for yourself and become more discerning about who you allow into your life. ”

He had that right. There was no way I would ever let this happen to me again.

The thought surprised me, causing a flicker of hope in my heart.

Had I really learned something from this?

I could feel a seed being planted somewhere inside me.

Of what I did not know, but I sensed a nearly imperceptible shift like slow-flowing lava marking the landscape for future fertile ground.

Deepak shuffled his feet quietly in his chair to prepare me for the final blow of reality.

“The final stage of your healing is like a rebirth filled with self-love and self-care; you have new beliefs, your mind heals, and you have a new worldview. This is where you now become the strongest, wisest version of yourself and where you get to forgiveness. You never forget, but you can learn to forgive,” he said.

I knew it! So, I would have to practice forgiveness, after all.

Something I was not ready for. Deep down, I knew he was right, but I wasn’t ready to hear it fully just yet.

Letting go of my rage, getting to forgiveness?

It all felt like an impossible mountain to climb and not one I had the will or energy or willingness to tackle.

We sat in silence together as I took it all in.

“I’ll never forgive him. Or Carly. Especially Carly. She, more than anyone, knew my lifelong dream was finally coming true and then she willingly, knowingly blew it all up. I hate them both so much,” I said, knowing how immature I must have sounded to this special, kind man.

Deepak went to a nearby bookshelf and came back with a book written by Emmet Fox, its cover worn thin from years of use. He turned to one of many dog-eared pages. “Close your eyes, Holly, and take a deep breath. I want to read you something.”

I did as instructed and Deepak began:

“When you hold resentment against anyone, you are bound to that person by a cosmic link, a real, tough mental chain. You are tied by a cosmic tie to the thing that you hate. The one person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel.” Deepak stopped reading and looked up at me. Fresh, hot tears poured down my cheeks.

“Holly, you may not realize it,” he said gently, “but hating someone binds you just as tightly to that person as longing does. Hate is a poison that gets into your bloodstream. Before we can heal, we have to release any hurt and upset we’re still holding on to.

Forgiving helps you to let go of the pain and all the destructive emotions of anger, bitterness, and resentment.

Forgiving is for your sake. It’s for your well-being and healing, and it’s a slow process that happens in layers and stages. ”

“I don’t want to be bound to Carly by anything, much less some cosmic link or mental chain,” I said, blinking the tears from my eyes. “I just want to be free from the whole ugly experience.”

“Then consider that Carly’s actions were ultimately the greatest gift she could have given you,” Deepak suggested gently.

Before I could protest, he continued. “It wasn’t Carly’s fault that you were targeted and manipulated by a sociopath.

Her seeming betrayal that day saved you from embroiling yourself in a life of unimaginable darkness and pain.

With that one act, she exposed Barry for what he really was and opened the door for you to reclaim your freedom. ”

Maybe it was Deepak’s power of suggestion, but I suddenly felt lighter, as if that mental chain of resentment had been broken by the realization that, in part because of Carly’s actions, I was actually free.

Deepak must have noticed the softening of my face. As if wanting to leave me to soak in this transformation for a few minutes, he gave me a loving nod before walking back into the bookstore.

I slowly dove back into my mostly uneaten lunch of veggie tofu and fried rice (which would have been better with some grilled chicken or shrimp in it) and Diet Coke.

My appetite was suddenly back. I could always gauge my emotional state by my ability to eat.

Clearly, I was feeling a bit better in the aftermath of this raging eruption of tears.