Warrior Blue

by Kelsey Kingsley

  She nodded slowly with understanding. “That’s perfectly normal, Blake. Everything you’re going through is absolutely normal.”

  Then, I asked, “Is it also normal to wanna pray?”

  Cocking her head with curious intrigue, she slowly nodded. “Yes. I would say it is.”

  “What about you?” I continued, questioning. “Have you ever prayed?”

  “I have, but, Blake, this—”

  “I don’t know how,” I admitted. The confession left me feeling embarrassed for some silly reason. “I thought about asking Audrey, but old habits die hard, I guess, so I’m asking you first.”

  Dr. Travetti smiled ruefully. “Blake, we’ve known each other for a long time now, and I realize you don’t know much about me. It would be unprofessional for me to sit here every week and delve into stories about my day or my past, so I don’t. But, given your question and what you’re going through right now, I think I can make an exception.”

  Leaning back in my chair, my curiosity piqued, I gestured for her to go on. “I’m listening.”

  Setting aside her clipboard, she crossed her legs tightly and began, “I lost someone very special to me a few years ago. We didn’t have the bond that you and Jake have, this person wasn’t my brother or sister, but I believed they were my soulmate. They were also sick, and I knew what I was getting myself into when I met them. But it didn’t matter at the time, because we were so in love and I had myself convinced that love alone could keep them alive. But it couldn’t, and they died.”

  Dropping my gaze to my clasped hands, I swallowed at my emotions and uttered, “Fuck, Doc. I’m so sorry.”

  “You can’t plan for how much it’s going to hurt to lose them, even if you know ahead of time that it’s coming,” she went on, casting another shred of light over her hidden past. “And after they were gone, I felt very alone and distant from my patients. I, um, had a hard time talking to people when all I wanted was to talk to someone. So, because I didn’t have many people in my life at the time, I talked to God instead.

  “I told Him about my pain and my problems. I asked Him to send messages to … this person I had lost. I begged Him to send me a sign, to make me feel like I had a purpose again, and …” She cleared her throat and rubbed at her nose, obviously stalling.

  “What happened? Did He answer?”

  Dr. Travetti nodded as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I actually, um … I actually believe He sent me you.”

  Furrowing my brow, I asked, “Huh?”

  She let loose a watery laugh, and dammit, I actually thought she might cry. “I was at the end of my rope. It had been almost a year since she … this person had passed away and I had received nothing. No signs, no … messages from beyond, absolutely nothing. So, one night, after having quite a bit to drink, I yelled at God and told Him that if he couldn’t bring Sabrina back, I needed him to give me something, anything, to make my life worth living again. And do you know what happened?”

  “What?”

  With pen in hand, she pointed at me. “You called me the next day, saying you needed someone to talk to. You didn’t have a reason, not at the time, but you just needed someone. And so did I. And I believe that you were my sign.”

  Slowly nodding, I allowed what she was saying to sink in. “So, that’s why you got all testy when I told you I didn’t believe in that shit.”

  Dr. Travetti’s cheeks pinked just a bit. “I’m not in the habit of pushing my personal beliefs on patients, but it did make me a little sad, yes.”

  “I get it,” I replied, twisting my hands around each other and trying to think of what to say next. The woman had divulged a piece of herself, something that must’ve made her feel so vulnerable to me, and I hadn’t a clue of what to say back. And then, something hit me. Something so seemingly small, and maybe it was, but I asked anyway. “Wait, what was her name?”

  Dr. Travetti shook her head and shooed the question away with a lift of her hand. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “Seriously, Doc. Please, what was her name?”

  Sighing, she tipped her head with impatience and embarrassment coloring her cheeks. “Her name was Sabrina.”

  My heart began to march in my chest. “I might be overstepping here, but was she Sabrina Wright?”

  In that moment, Doctor Vanessa Travetti revealed a side of herself to me that I’d never seen before. Her face burned a glowing, bright red, the color of her defensive rage, as she tightened her grip around the pen. Her mouth formed a terse line as her spine went rigid, and all that gave away her blatant hurt underneath, was the glazing of her eyes.

  “Blake, how dare you,” she pushed from her lips, her voice pulled so tight against the strain in her chest. “How do you know that? Have you been digging up information about me?”

  “No,” I stated simply and honestly. “I—”

  “Why would you do this to me?” she demanded. “Why would you—”

  “Doc,” I told her hurriedly, “Audrey is Sabrina’s sister.”

  “Audrey? Your … Audrey is … Audrey Wright?”

  As I nodded, Vanessa pressed one hand to her chest as the other dropped the pen to the floor. She covered her mouth to stifle a gasp as her eyes stared blankly toward me, almost as if she’d just seen a ghost. My first instinct was to hug her, to console her, to tell her that this shit was just par for the course in my life, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe this was just the final piece of one big puzzle, all coming together to create something giant and beautiful in the most confusing, unbelievable, and fucked-up way. But, I didn’t hug her. She was still my therapist and we were still on the clock.

  But, instead, she hugged me.

  “Oh, my God, how is she? How is everybody?” she asked, holding onto me tightly, now realizing I was her only connection to the family of the woman she loved.

  “I think you already know how Audrey is,” I managed to laugh.

  “Oh,” she stepped back and cleared her throat, “right. I guess I do.”

  “This is weird,” I was the first to say, and she laughed, nodding in agreement. But then, she added, “It doesn’t have to be, for now, but I think you might want to find yourself a new therapist eventually.”

  I pondered that for a second, considering myself with someone new after all the years I’d been seeing the good doctor. I wondered if I even really needed the therapy anymore, now that I had Audrey, and the truth was, I didn’t think so. I no longer thought it was necessary and probably hadn’t been for a while, but the thought of not having Dr. Travetti in my life left me feeling off. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

  “Maybe,” I answered. “We’ll see what happens.”

  She nodded understandingly. “With Jake.”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  “You’ll keep me posted, of course.”

  “Come on, Doc. You know I will.”

  The session felt over, and so I stood up. I told her I’d see her the following Monday, or maybe sooner, depending on where the week went, and I headed toward the door. She stopped me with my name, and I glanced over my shoulder.

  “Blake, about praying …”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe He listens most when you get angry.”

  I nodded and smirked as I said, “Well, I got plenty of anger to spare.”

  “Oh, I know,” she offered me a smile. “Put it to good use.”

  I walked the rest of the way to the office entrance, when something Audrey’s mom had said weeks ago struck me, the night she’d told me about Sabrina’s girlfriend, about how much she’d loved her. I bet she missed her, too.

  “Hey, Doc?”

  “Yeah, Blake?”

  “You should give them a call,” I said. “I think they’d really like to hear from you.”

  Vanessa didn’t reply for a few moments, but I waited with my hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. Finally, she coughed and cleared her throat, before saying, “Thank you, Blake. I think I might.”

  ***

/>   Time passed in a monotonous drag, with every day bleeding seamlessly into the next. Audrey had taken the liberty of cancelling all my tattoo appointments for the foreseeable future, until we had a better idea of what was going on, and I was grateful for it. That gave me the freedom to spend every day at Jake’s side, watching for the flutter of an eyelid or the twitch of a finger, and when the chair became too uncomfortable, I crawled wearily back to Audrey’s place, never mine, to collapse in her bed. It’d become my new routine, but after a week had passed, I found that not having a distraction was a dangerous thing.

  I had too much time. Too much time to think, dwell, and obsess. I’d find myself glancing over Jake’s body to stare at my mother. The woman who’d seldom acknowledged my existence in the time we’d all been at the hospital. She looked at me like she was sorry, but if she really was sorry, then why couldn’t she make more of an effort to make things better? She could’ve thanked Audrey for dropping off dinner every night. She could’ve smiled at Freddy when he told her he was sorry. She could’ve looked me in the eye when she said she’d see me tomorrow. But she never did, and I was pissed.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go to the hospital tomorrow,” Audrey suggested hesitantly.

  I stared at her incredulously. “Are you serious right now?”

  Ann ladled beef stew into the bowl in front of me and said, “It’s not a bad idea, honey. You’ve been there all day, every day, for the past week. You need a break.”

  “Yeah? And what if he wakes up and I’m not there?” I challenged, my tone teetering toward irritation.

  “Your folks will call you,” Audrey’s father, George, assured, meeting my eye and holding my gaze.

  “He’ll be scared though, and if I’m not there, it’ll make it worse.”

  Ann looked to Audrey for backup, who covered my hand with hers. “You’re right, and we know that. But, sweetheart, sitting in that room every day for hours on end isn’t helping anything.”

  I shook my head as my resolve began to buckle. “But if he wakes up—”

  “Then you’ll hurry over there to be with him. But in the meantime, you should at least go home and get some other clothes to wear.” She grimaced apologetically, lowering her gaze to the hooded sweatshirt I’d been wearing for nearly a week.

  I’d been avoiding my house ever since the accident. Jake was everywhere within those walls, and the thought that he might never walk again, let alone through the door, tore at me in a way I don’t think I can describe. I was so afraid that seeing all his things would rip at the wounds and make them deeper, that I would’ve been all right to never step foot in there again. Still, I knew Audrey was right. My clothing options at her place were limited to only a couple of t-shirts, one pair of jeans, and the sweatpants I’d been wearing the night of Jake’s accident. I needed to suck it up and go home, if for only a little while.

  “I’ll go with you, if you want,” Audrey offered.

  “No, it’s fine.” I shook my head, keeping my gaze on the steam curling up from the bowl. There was no way I’d let her take time off from work so close to her holiday break, just to hold my hand while I collected some clothes from my house. It was absurd, even if it did sound tempting.

  Ann sat across the table from me and gestured at my dish. “Aren’t you hungry, honey?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I nodded, offering her a smile as I dipped my spoon into the dish. “It smells great.”

  “Mom likes to add Guinness to her stew,” Audrey mentioned.

  Pressing a hand to my chest, I said, “Woman after my own heart.”

  Ann brushed the flattery away with a scoff and a wave of her hand. “Oh, stop it. It’s not like I came up with the recipe myself or anything.”

  “Well, it—”

  I was cut off by the chime of a cellphone. Audrey glanced at me anxiously and I shook my head in answer. “Not mine.”

  “No, it’s mine,” Ann said, getting up from the table.

  “Ann, we’re eating dinner,” George grumbled, glowering at his wife’s back as she headed toward the kitchen counter and retrieved the ringing offender.

  “It could be the hospital,” she replied pointedly. But then, she gasped and hurried back to the table with the phone in hand. “Oh, my … George, look at this.”

  He glanced at the screen and uttered an “oh, wow” as Audrey lifted her head with concern and asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s Vanessa,” her mother whispered, her face sheet-white, and I lowered my spoon to the table.

  I hadn’t told the Wright family about Dr. Travetti, not wanting to excite them with something that might never come. I’d left it up to Vanessa, and I was glad she’d made the decision to reach out.

  Audrey looked to me with shock and whispered, “She was Sabrina’s girlfriend.”

  Slowly, I nodded as Ann answered the phone. “H-hello?”

  The conversation was painfully one-sided as Ann asked Vanessa the usual questions. How she was, how was business, how was the family. But when Ann’s voice strained with emotion until it broke, she hurried out of the dining room, and we heard nothing at all.

  “I can’t believe she called,” Audrey whispered as though afraid to speak.

  “When was the last time you talked to her?” I asked.

  George rubbed his bearded cheek with a palm. “Oh, boy, I guess … I guess it was the funeral.” He glanced at Audrey. “That sounds about right, doesn’t it?”

  Audrey nodded sorrowfully, slowly paddling her spoon through the stew. “Yeah. We didn’t see or talk to her again after that.”

  “Such a shame, too,” George went on, sighing and leaning back in his chair. “Her office is right over in Derby Square. She works with a team of doctors now.”

  Audrey was smart. It was one of the things I loved about her, and I knew that at the mention of the location, she’d put it all together. And she did, making it clear with a quick turn of her head to stare at me with a wide, teary-eyed stare.

  “You did this.”

  “Huh?” George asked as I shrugged and said, “I only made a suggestion. I didn’t know what she’d do.”

  “How did you know?”

  Lifting my mouth in a smirk, I shook my head, refusing to tell her with a mutter about doctor-patient confidentiality. Ann returned to the table, her hands clutched around her phone and tears drying on her cheeks. She told George and Audrey that Vanessa wanted to see the family for Christmas Eve, if that was all right with everybody. As Audrey and her father answered with enthusiasm, I silently excused myself from the conversation and returned my attention to my food.

  This felt like a family moment. And I wasn’t family.

  But George lured my attention back by saying, “And we’ll plan on you being there, too, Blake, but of course, we know you have to take things day by day right now.”

  With my mouth open in an embarrassing display of shock, I stammered, “W-wha …,” before swallowing and asking, “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Christmas Eve,” Audrey clued me in, laying her hand against my back.

  Slowly nodding, mildly confused, I answered, “Oh. Right. Yeah, sure.”

  “Which reminds me,” Ann said, grabbing her spoon, “Blake, what size do you wear? I mean, I’m not saying I’m buying you clothes for Christmas, but—”

  George snorted. “But she’s saying she’s buying you clothes for Christmas. And if I were you, I’d keep that information locked up tight.”

  Ann’s jaw dropped in mock offense. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “He’s saying there’s no way you’d pick out anything Blake would actually wear,” Audrey said, corroborating with her father.

  “You don’t know that!” Ann reached across the table and patted my hand. “I mean, how hard can it be? All he wears is black!”

  “Hey,” I said, having finally collected myself enough to chime in. “I’ll have you know, I actually own a red sweater my mom made me wear on Christmas a few years ago.”

  “Oh, wel
l, excuse me!” Ann laughed, lifting her hands from the table. “I stand corrected.”

  The exchange was silly, and I assume, damn near meaningless for the average person, but I’d only seen things like this on TV and in movies. If my family had ever shared in moments of playful banter, I couldn’t remember them. It was nice, to feel included and wanted. To feel cared for. I found myself smiling, despite the lingering sadness looming overhead, and I relished in the brief reprieve, hoping I could keep it for a while longer.

  Hell, maybe I could even keep it for good.

  ***

  “Good night, sweetheart. Love you,” Audrey said to Freddy as she hung up the phone. She tucked her feet underneath the blanket and laid beside me. Draping her arm over my chest, she kissed my shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.”

  I slid my arm beneath her and around the curve of her waist. “What are you thanking me for?”

  “Vanessa,” she said, her voice just as hushed as before. “I know you won’t talk about it, and that’s okay. But I just want you to know how much it means to us.”

  “I just did what anybody else would’ve done.”

  Anchoring herself with a hand against my chest, she propped up abruptly and shook her head with furious adamancy. “No, Blake. A lot of people wouldn’t have. I mean, I like to think that the majority of people are good, but they’re also selfish. They don’t step outside of themselves; they can’t. But you are a good man, and I love you for it.”

  She pressed a kiss to my lips and I closed my eyes, holding on tight to what she alone had made me believe that I was—a good man. And hell, maybe I always had been. Maybe all of that guilt and blame had been for nothing, and I just needed this woman to show me that. Everything, all of the good that had come to me these past few months, all the sanity I’ve managed to hold onto during this week without my brother—it was all because of her. Only her.

  My hands sought her face and held on tight as I whispered, “I love you” against her lips. I had said it to her before, and I had meant it, but this felt so much more like an eternal truth. Like what I felt now was too deep and too settled to ever leave. It went beyond my body, beyond the pumping organ in my chest, and made itself at home in the core of my being, made of color and stardust. And fuck, I found it so hard to breathe, so hard to do anything but grip my fingers in her hair and hold on for dear life. Like she was all that was keeping me from drowning.