“I will protect you.” I put my hand on his heart. “I will be the person you can always count on. I’ll be the one who filters all the shit so you can see all the good. Somebody comes for you? They come through me.”
His chest is heaving, his eyes are closed. “I don’t deserve it,” he pushes between his lips.
Putting my hands on his cheeks I force his head level with mine. “Open your eyes.”
It takes him a few moments, but he finally does. “You deserve everything. Just like I do, and we’re gonna have it together, Kepler.”
“You think so?” He’s slightly smiling.
“I know so.” I lean forward, kissing him, tasting the salt of my tears and the promise of what I hope is a future.
Eleven
Kelsea
N: I’m really sorry about what happened at my apartment. I’ve never allowed a woman to sleep over, because I was scared of what would happen. When I was a teenager, I would wake up with my hand tight around a pillow. I’ve never given myself a chance to see what would happen with someone else…until you.
K: I told you, I’m not upset with you, I’m sorry you have those memories and I would do anything to help you get over them, if you would allow me to.
I bite my thumb nail, wondering how he’s going to respond to what I’ve said. With him, I’m not ever sure how he will react.
N: Shrinks don’t work with me. Back when I first came to live with my parents, they sent me to a shrink, who put me on some medication. The medicine took away my feelings totally. I was like a zombie and I hated it.
K: So how did you convince them to take you off of it?
N: I told them I was better, that I hadn’t had a nightmare in a long time.
Oh my God, he lied to them, and he’s been dealing with this on his own since then!
K: Nick, lying to them wasn’t the answer.
N: Get off my case, Kels. It’s the only answer I had back then. Do you know what it’s like to go from feeling everything to feeling nothing? I didn’t want to be angry all the time, but I at least wanted to feel joy.
K: They have new medications now, Nick. Maybe there’s a new one out there that will give you peace of mind and won’t turn you into a zombie. I’m willing to help you find it.
N: You’re too good for me.
I blush from those words. They’re the closest he’s ever come to saying he truly cares about me. I’ll take what I can get, but I want him to understand his worth.
K: No Nick, I’m what you deserve.
When he says nothing else, I give myself a pat on the back. at least he didn’t argue with me.
It’s been three days since I’ve seen Nick. Not that I haven’t tried to see him, especially after the way we left each other, which was brutal. It just hasn’t worked out. He hasn’t completely ghosted me, we’ve texted a few times here and there, but it’s not the same as hearing his voice, seeing his face. I’m kind of sad, as I glance at my cell phone, wishing for a message from him. I’m living for them these days.
Sighing, I go back to work, looking up when I see Karsyn walking over.
“Can you take the next one?” Karsyn asks as I sit at the registration desk, filling out notes for the last patient I had. “Tucker’s stopping by,” she says softly.
“Aww, K, are you gonna be good?” I can already tell she’s trying to hold it together, and after my night with Nick, I’m feeling closer to her. I understand her more than I ever have. Both of us seem to have the pleasure of loving men who don’t think they deserve to be.
She nods almost stoically. “Yeah, I have to be.” She comes behind the desk, grabbing a bag. “His stuff.” The look on her face kills me.
“Take your time, I’ll cover for you.”
As I watch her back, I wonder if one day this will be me. Loving a man who can never fully love me back and being heartbroken when it’s over. The thought makes me sad, but at the same time, I think I’d rather have one day of pure happiness than a lifetime of never having my heart speed up at the sight of the person who holds it in the palm of their hand.
Pulling up our scheduling software, I write down the next patient’s name on an empty chart before going to the waiting room. “Metcalfe,” I call out, surprised when I see Roselynn, a school social worker we’ve worked with before, stand up with a young boy. I play it off, steeling my gaze. “Right this way. Let’s get you weighed and then we’ll get you into an exam room.”
Weighing him, I check his age on the sign in I printed. he’s thin for ten years old, almost on the malnourished side. I’ll be sure and say something to the doctor before he goes in. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get you set up.”
I show the boy the room he’s going in, giving him a soft smile. The social worker stays behind. “Depending on what the doctor finds, I may have to call the police,” she whispers. “Also, I need a witness, can you be in here when the doctor is?”
“No problem, let me go get him and fill him in on what’s happening. We’ll be with you two as soon as possible.”
My legs shake as I take the hallway quicker than I normally would. There’s a rumbling in my stomach, an uneasiness I’ve never felt before. Granted, I’ve had cases that broke my heart, but something about the boy reminds me of Nick.
“Dr. Patterson, there’s a potential problem in exam room three.”
He gives me a concerned glance. “What’s going on?”
Briefly I give him the rundown.
“Alright.” he nods. “Let’s go in, no point in keeping this boy waiting.”
I don’t say anything as I watch Dr. Patterson do his examination. I sit back, listen and make notes, knowing they will be imperative for later on. When the doctor has him take some deep breaths, I make note that it appears more difficult than what should be usual for him.
“Darren, is that difficult?” He softly questions.
“To breathe? A little.”
“What hurts?”
I watch as he points to his ribcage. When Dr. Patterson starts feeling and slightly manipulating the bones and skin, I can see anger in his eyes. “Okay, Bud, I’m gonna need you to take your shirt off so I can see what I’m feeling better.”
Darren acts like he doesn’t want to, looking at the social worker for approval. When she gives it, he slowly lifts his shirt. Holding back my gasp is the hardest thing I have ever done. There are bruises in different stages of healing all along his skin. Some look older, others look brand new. Dr. Patterson asks a few more questions, but truth be told, I don’t hear them. All I can do is look at this poor child and wonder who in the hell would want to hurt him.
I ask that question of the social worker as they finish up. She’s asked me to come outside to fill out some paperwork.
“His father was arrested a few days ago, but he made bail. It looks like Darren slipped through the cracks. He was given to his aunt, but when his father came to get him, he was allowed to leave. He came to school today complaining of pain in his side. The teachers suspect his home situation IS volatile, which is why I was called in,” she explains as she runs a hand across her forehead.
“So what happens now?” I’m almost scared to ask the question. It doesn’t seem like it could get worse for Darren, but I have no idea how this process works. In the time I’ve worked here we’ve only been involved in a few cases like this.
“Now we call the police and make a statement.”
The words make me sick to my stomach. “Will he be removed from the home? I’m sorry if I’m prying, but this breaks my heart.”
“No, I completely understand. He will be removed from the home this time and placed into foster care since the aunt is the next of kin and we’ve already established she can’t be trusted. We’ll move to have him entered into the system.”
She says it so matter-of-factly. And I guess it is. This is something she does every day. She breaks up families because doing so protects one of the parties. “Do you have any idea what kind of a home he’ll be placed in?
”
“There are foster families in the area, and we also have a group home.”
When she says group home, my stomach drops. It literally falls to the floor as I think of Darren – the small kid who looks six or seven, but is really ten – in a group home. I wonder if anyone will care what his favorite toy is, what movies he likes to watch, what are his tv shows, does he have a favorite shirt he likes to wear? Will he get to bring his favorite shirt with him?
I don’t realize I’ve asked the questions aloud until the social worker answers.
“He won’t go home to get his things, no. When he’s placed, the foster parents will be provided a stipend to get him started in his new home.”
I nod, like I understand, but I don’t understand at all. How parents can do this to their children, how children who have to go through this become adults in this crazy world. It’s then I think of Nick. They become adults because they have to, and sometimes the road to becoming an adult leaves scars that don’t seem to go away.
“I heard they called the PD,” Karsyn says as I make my back to the registration desk. I’ve been tasked with looking up Darren’s medical records to see if he’s ever been brought in for something like this before.
“Yeah, he’s really bad,” I confirm, grabbing an empty computer and getting to work on it. “How did it go with Tucker?” Hopefully talking with her about normal stuff will keep my mind off the million things I have running through it.
“It was brutal,” she sighs. “Neither one of us really want to break up, but we can’t seem to figure out how to be together.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. It was the best nine months of my life. I’ve never fallen like that for a guy before, and when I fell I went all in. To say I’m heartbroken is an understatement.”
I see so much of myself in Karsyn right now. She loves a man who can’t outrun his past. “Do you regret it?”
She faces me with a sad grin. “Not at all. I’ve waited my whole life to feel the intensity and passion with a man like I felt with him. Maybe I’m stupid, but I haven’t ever been with someone I just had to see every day. Anytime we were alone, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I’ll never give up those memories.” She sighs. “Like I said, maybe I’m stupid, but at least I can say I experienced an all-consuming love. It’s more than many can.”
“You’re right, most people can’t say they have.”
She gets up, comes over to me and bends down, hugging me tightly around the shoulders. “I can tell why you’re asking, and I can tell you, you won’t regret giving Nick a chance.”
A laugh breaks its way out of my throat. “What if he isn’t willing to give me a chance. It’s kind of the other way around.”
Her pretty blue eyes sparkle as she looks down at me. I’m not sure if it’s with sadness or mischief. “Then make him an offer he can’t refuse, Kels.”
“I’m pretty sure Nickolas Kepler can refuse anything and everything,” I groan. “There’s never been a martyr like him.”
“Oh, there’s something, I promise there will be something. And when there is, make the offer and see what happens.”
As she leaves I think hard about what she’s said. If we’re meant to be together, we will be – that’s what happened to everyone else in my family. I trust fate, it’s never steered us wrong before.
Twelve
Nick
I’m just about to clock out for my shift when a call comes over the radio, advising us of a disturbance at the Urgent Clinic. My adrenaline spikes because I know that’s where Kels is. It worries me since we’ve been texting most of the day, but she didn’t describe a disturbance.
“Dispatch, show me as responding.”
Flipping the lights and shoving my foot against the pedal, I feel the acceleration, gripping the steering wheel tight. If there’s one thing I appreciate about my job, it’s the ability and permission to drive just on this side of out of control. Approaching an intersection, I slow, checking to make sure I’m seen, before driving through it. “Three minutes out,” I inform dispatch.
“Right behind you.” I hear Ransom’s voice come over the radio.
Hearing him gives me a feeling of safety, knowing my best friend has my back. If I were to ever have a partner on the job, it would be him. The three minutes it takes me to get there feels like years. Ransom pulls up right behind me, we walk in together, but nothing seems out of the ordinary.
Looking around the lobby and front entrance, I see Karsyn, who waves us back.
“What’s up?” I ask her as she escorts us into a room.
“Dr. Patterson and Kels will be in here as soon as possible to talk to you. I believe there’s also a social worker here.”
As she leaves, me and Ransom look at each other. “What the hell is going on?” We both have seats.
“No clue,” he answers, stretching out.
“How’s Stelle?” I make conversation because I can’t stand the quietness of the room.
“Sick, she’s having all-day sickness. We’re just crossing our fingers that when she makes it to the second trimester she’ll be better. Some days she’s good, other days she’s puking all day long. I don’t know how she handles it. She’s tired, though, all the time.”
“Yeah, I tried calling her the other day, but it went to voicemail.” I play with a piece of paper on the table. “Newsflash, she didn’t call me back.” I pretend to be hurt.
“You got shit to take up with your sister, take it up with her, don’t be tattle telling on her with me. I already got a minefield called pregnancy hormones to walk delicately through.” He shakes his head, giving me the finger.
“Poor thing,” I placate him.
“Fuck you, this shit is hard. She got mad at me the other day because I chose to have one mother fuckin’ sushi roll. She can’t have sushi. To ‘pay me back’ her dinner was cookies. Like that bothers me.” He breathes heavily. “All I did was tell her it’s probably not the best idea for her and the baby, then all hell broke loose.”
I laugh hard, putting my hand on my stomach. “What did she do?”
“Went to your goddamn parents’ house for dinner. I had a lengthy text conversation with Ryan.” He rolls his eyes.
“Oh I bet you did, messing with his baby girl like that.”
“Baby girl, my ass. She’s a T-Rex when she gets mad.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, I feel sorry enough for myself, thank you very much.”
Just as I’m about to go back into it with him, the door to the room opens, and in walks Kels, Dr. Patterson, and someone else I don’t know. My eyes immediately go to Kels; they look down her scrub covered body, and I can’t help but to imagine what she looks like against the sheets of my bed.
I don’t like how pale she is though, and again I wonder what the hell is going on.
“Officers, this is Roselynn Honeycomb, she’s the social worker who takes care of the schools in Laurel County. She brought a student in today.” Dr. Patterson makes the introduction.
Ransom and I shake hands with her, before sit down, and get prepared to take notes. “Why don’t you start off by telling us why you actually brought him in, who made the first complaint?”
“His PE teacher,” she says slowly. “Apparently he couldn’t do everything he was supposed to do, and when the teacher questioned why he couldn’t do some of the athletic requirements, he talked about how much it hurt. The teacher got suspicious and asked if he could take a look. When he did, he saw bruising on the abdomen, back, and sides of the child. I was called, and I brought him here.”
“What did you find to be the case?” I ask Dr. Patterson, giving him my attention.
“He’s got several healing injuries and some that are brand new. From looking at his records, there’s a long history of what I think is child abuse. I pulled his records, and while I can’t give those to you without a subpoena, I can tell you, I’ve treated him for suspicious bruises and cuts before.
There is definitely a pattern.”
This shit pisses me off to no end. Patterns. I had patterns in my life and nobody had noticed them either. Silently I’d cried out for someone to help me. My eyes had begged for anyone to take notice. For fifteen years I’d suffered at the hands of various boyfriends and one mean stepfather. That all changed the day Ryan Kepler walked into my life, and I haven’t looked back.
I am one of the lucky ones. There are thousands who aren’t, and I feel for them every day. This child needs a voice, and I promised to make myself a voice that could be heard on the day I became a Kepler.
“Can we meet with him? Ask some questions?”
The social worker speaks up. “As long as I’m there.”
“Perfect.” I make a note in my book. “Let me know when you’re ready and he’s available.”
“Let me go get him.” She excuses herself, going to get the child. Ransom talks to the doctor, asking something about morning sickness. I take the opportunity to speak to Kels.
“How is he, really?” I ask softly.
“He’s scared, and he’s been conditioned to accept his punishment, I’m afraid. At the very least he has some therapist appointments in his future.” She holds herself with her arms, one wrapped up to cup her shoulder, the other one around her waist. “Reminds me a lot of you, to be honest.”
I don’t take offense to what she’s said, but it does break my heart for this kid. No one should grow up the way I had to grow up. We’re interrupted as the door opens and I see the kid. Darren notices me immediately, running to me, throwing his arms around my legs.
Surprised, I try to take a step back but he’s hanging on for dear life.
“Darren, are you okay?”
When he pulls away, I can see the tears in his eyes. “It happened again.”
Fuck if those words don’t kill me, if I don’t personally feel like this is a slap in the face. It’s my job to protect people, and I couldn’t protect him. The hardest thing? It’s like looking down at a younger version of me.
Suppression: Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team #2 Page 7
