by C. Morgan
If there was ever any doubt about how cold of a mother Alison was, it would’ve been confirmed for sure today. She didn’t give a fuck about us. The only thing she’d ever cared about was giving her husband offspring to continue his legacy and keeping up appearances.
Honestly, my mother didn’t even look like she wanted to be here. In fact, she looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. Even if her firstborn child was here and might just need an actual mother for once. I’d have been better off if she’d sent one of the housekeepers in her place. At least they pretended to care about us.
“It hasn’t even been a week, Brysen,” my father seethed, his tie loosened around his neck and his hair just a little out of place. I didn’t know if he’d been pulled out of bed, or maybe out of one of his mistresses’ beds, when he’d gotten the call, but it was clear he hadn’t been sleeping. “You haven’t even been back on campus a week and now this?”
I stared at him blankly, still not interrupting him. “Let’s have a look at what’s happened so far. On your first night back on campus, you got into a fight with so many other people that no one knows for sure what happened.”
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I knew exactly what had happened. So did Daxton, Ruby, Ryker, Hadley, and probably a few others. They just weren’t snitches. Which was surprising, actually.
“Then, on your second night, you totaled someone else’s car and nearly fucking killed yourself,” Tommy kept right on raging, thankfully not able to read my thoughts on the matter. “What the hell is going to happen tomorrow night? You going to get arrested, or were you planning something a little more explosive? Maybe a campus-wide riot or getting caught on camera having sex with one of your professors so the tape could be broadcast at the next rowing meet?”
That’s not a half bad idea, old man. If only I’d come up with it myself. There was no way I was using it now. Besides, I didn’t have any professors who would’ve worked for an idea like that anyway. They were all either ancient, male, or both, and none of that was my type.
“You’re a fucking disappointment, Brysen. I thought I made myself clear over break,” Tommy spat. “You keep this shit up and your trust fund is gone.”
My ears perked. I’d thought for sure he was going to tell me that it was already gone, but now I wasn’t so sure. “The only reason I’m not on the phone with my lawyer right now is because the university doesn’t seem sure about your culpability in the bar fight and the doctors have assured me there’s no way you could’ve known you were going to pass out behind that wheel.”
So, I still have a shot at the trust money, then. Good to know. “None of that makes you any less of a disappointment as a son. I’m not even just disappointed in you. I’m disgusted by your behavior. You’re a disgrace to our family name and if you keep this up, I’ll personally make sure you don’t get to call yourself a Burke for much longer.”
My brows shot up. Wait, he can do that?
Sniffles at my side caught my attention, and I glanced up to see Em trying to hold it together. Every time my father made threats against me, it hit her almost as hard as it hit me.
I tried to smile at her, but I was pretty sure that with my face in its current condition, it came out looking a lot more like a grimace. For just a fraction of a second, our eyes met and that tiny shred of humanity inside me pulsed with sorrow for her. Sorrow that she constantly had to listen to her father, a man who she actually liked sometimes, ripping her brother a new one without any regard for her feelings.
The crack of Tommy’s voice drew my gaze back to his soon enough, though. “But that’s just the thing. The docs might think you passed out because of some brain bleed, but I know you better than that. What really happened? Were you drunk? High? Whose car was that anyway? If I have to replace it, you can bet your ass every cent is coming out of your own fucking pocket.”
Before he could carry on telling me how terrible I was, the door opened and a doctor walked in, saving my ass from having the rest of the pineapple shoved up it. He was at least double my father’s age, but he held up his hands in apology as he closed the door behind him.
“My apologies for the interruption, Mr, Burke,” he said. “I realize that you traveled in the middle of the night to get here, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you leave for now. Your son needs his rest, and it’s rounds in just a couple of hours’ time.”
Tommy glared at the doctor, but then dropped his chin in a curt nod. Without saying another word to me, he extended his hand to my mother. She’d turned away from the window for the first time when the doctor had walked in, and she silently placed her fingers in my father’s palm.
Together—and without so much as a goodbye to me—they strode out of the room. Emily’s much smaller hand wrapped around mine, and she bent over to kiss me on the forehead.
“I’ll come back to see you again as soon as I can, okay?” she whispered, wiping away the tears on her cheeks with the back of her free hand. “Love you, Bry. Feel better.”
After holding my gaze for another second, she took off after my parents. The doctor was gone too and for the first time since I’d woken up, I was alone. I just didn’t know if I wanted to be.
So often after a confrontation with my father, I was left hating myself just a little bit more than I had before. Which was always saying something. It was no exception this time.
My family would’ve been so much better off without me. And that was a fact. If I wasn’t here, even Emily would’ve had it better. Tommy wouldn’t have hurt her by laying into me so often and he probably would’ve been a much chiller guy in general without me around to rile him up.
Maybe everyone would’ve been better off if I’d have been driving a little faster. Tommy sure as fuck would’ve been happier than he was right now and Alison probably wouldn’t have cared any more than she did now, but she’d have one less child to try to strong arm into keeping up all those appearances for her. Emily would’ve been torn up for a little while, but she’d have gotten over it.
On that fresh snow, even only a few miles per hour more and no one would ever have been disappointed by me again. Same thing if I’d just not put on my seat belt.
Stop being dramatic, Burke, I ordered myself as soon as I realized the direction my thoughts had taken. I wasn’t suicidal. I was just a fuck up, that was all.
Huffing out a breath as I tried to fluff my pillow without stretching or moving too much, I lay back and stared at the ceiling. There were tiny spots on it, and set against the white of the ceiling tile, they reminded me of when I’d come to in that car and had seen the snowflakes falling outside.
I still didn’t know where Ruby had appeared from, but my best guess was that she’d been in the library. She seemed like the type who practically lived there, regardless of what time of night it was.
Jesus, did I really think she was an angel? I scoffed quietly into the dark room, but my heart wasn’t really in it. If it hadn’t been for her being so calm and steady at my side after the accident, I really didn’t know what I’d have done. Probably something stupid like try to get out of the car, which I now knew would’ve been a really shitty idea with my leg having been in the shape it was.
I didn’t know how she’d stayed so calm or why she’d waited for me to wake up after the surgery before leaving the hospital. She really shouldn’t have been here when my parents arrived, because now? Now she knew things I didn’t want her to know, and I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do about that once I got out of here.
Chapter 13
RUBY
Rumors flew around school like crazy the day after the crash. There was nothing—not even a good old fashioned STD—that spread around a college campus faster than the news that our very own, resident bad boy had nearly died last night.
The stories ranged from being relatively close to the truth to all the way to the outrageous. It was common knowledge that he’d been in a car accident. Quite a few people had seen Danny White’s car be
ing towed away this morning and since everyone knew he and Brysen were friends, most had come to the correct conclusion that Brysen had been the one behind the wheel when the car had been totaled.
Some whispered about there being more to the story. They alleged that Brysen had stolen Danny’s car and that they’d had a massive fight before he’d taken off. A few believed there had to have been alcohol or drugs involved, but I couldn’t exactly blame them for that particular theory since I’d wondered about it myself.
The part where it became truly outrageous was the speculation circulating about the reason he’d crashed the car to begin with. The fight, the stolen car, and Brysen’s possible intoxication was nothing compared to the rest of it.
I’d only had a couple of hours’ sleep, and as soon as I’d set foot outside my dorm room this morning, I’d started hearing those more outrageous theories. Girls had been talking about it with their heads bent together in the hallway outside my room, in the bathrooms while they were getting ready, and in the stairwell on my way out.
They’d heard all sorts of things, but my top two favorites of the absurd theories was that he’d been involved in a high speed car chase or that he’d been trying to outrun a hitman someone had hired. They claimed there was a price on the head of Tommy Burke’s son, and that someone had tried to collect.
The supporters of the high speed chase conspiracy told everyone who would listen that it’d been just like in a movie. A pack of police cars had been racing after him while helicopters circled in the air above. None of them seemed to stop for long enough to question why no one had actually seen or heard any police sirens or helicopters during the night. Small details like a complete lack of evidence to support their theory wasn’t standing in the way of a good story. Go figure.
In that sense, at least the hitman rumor wasn’t as blatantly ridiculous. Those who believed it thought that one of Tommy’s business deals had gone bad and that his family had been threatened because of it. Having heard the man ranting as I’d left the hospital in the early hours of the morning, I had to admit that it was plausible that he could’ve pissed someone off enough that they’d have paid an assassin to take out his entire line of succession in one fell swoop.
Since it wasn’t unusual for the campus to be gossiping about him, I wouldn’t have paid much attention if it hadn’t been for one, completely sucky fact. My name was caught up in all the drama this time. Somehow, it’d gotten out that I’d been there and it was like the whole school knew that I’d been the one to help Brysen after the crash.
Everywhere I went, people suddenly seemed to know who I was. When I walked past them, they pointed and started whispering. They nodded in my direction and scooted out of the way when they saw me coming.
The attention was terrible. I hated it with every ounce of my being. It was nothing more than a distraction, and I couldn’t really afford any of those right now. My first shift at the clinic was this afternoon and on the amount of sleep I’d gotten, it was a miracle I hadn’t passed out in any of my classes so far.
“Ms. Sprite,” one of my professors said shortly before dismissing us. “Can I see you for a minute when we’re done here?”
Sighing internally, I nodded and tried to ignore the chatter his request sparked among my classmates. This wasn’t the first time I was being asked to stay behind after a lecture today, and I doubted it’d be the last.
A few curious stragglers stayed behind once the others started leaving, packing up slowly and hanging back in a thinly veiled attempt to eavesdrop on my conversation with the prof. He glanced up when I approached him, saw there were other eyes in the room with us, and motioned me to the far end of the room.
“Thank you for staying, Ms. Sprite,” he said quietly, concern darkening his eyes as they studied mine. “The faculty has been informed of your role after Mr. Burke’s accident last night. I just wanted to check if you were okay. It couldn’t have been easy treating a peer after a traumatic event like that. I’m told his injuries are quite extensive.”
“It wasn’t easy, but I’m okay,” I said. “To be honest with you, I just want to put it behind me now. I handled myself and that should be enough. This is what I’ve been training to do, sort of. I’m fine, but I appreciate your concern.”
He kept his gaze on mine, searching for another beat before he nodded. “Very well. I understand wanting to put it behind you, but if you ever need to talk about what happened, please feel free to approach any of us. We’ve all been there where you are now, starting out and having just had your first rough case. If you need it, we can help you debrief.”
“Thank you, sir.”
A kind smile spread on his lips as he nodded again. “Some unsolicited advice, Ms. Sprite? Taking care of others might be the name of the game that we’re in, but we can’t take care of anyone else if we don’t take care of ourselves first. Always remember that.”
“I will,” I said. “Thanks again.”
As I’d expected, that wasn’t the last time I had that conversation with a member of the faculty. They seemed genuinely worried about me, but I was fine. Or at least, I would be if my peers would stop staring at me but it wasn’t like the profs could tell them to stop gossiping. That would’ve been about as useless as telling a bunch of drunk high school students to stop peeing in a swimming pool. A completely futile effort that would only remind those who weren’t already gossiping about what was going on around them.
The only thing I could do was to ride out this storm. Eventually, they’d lose interest and move on to something else. Anything I did, said, or asked the faculty to do would only fuel the fire and keep me in the limelight for longer. Which was the last thing I needed.
By the end of a day, I was dead on my feet, drained from not having realized how much energy it took to pretend not to realize that people were talking about me. I still had my first working shift at the clinic, though.
It was housed in a small, Victorian era building near the center of campus. I’d only been inside a couple of times since starting at the university, and I’d never really gotten a look around. As I opened the glass paneled door and walked inside, a renewed burst of energy shot through me.
This was a real life clinic. A place where people came for help when they were sick or hurt, and I was going to be working here.
The Edgewater logo was mounted on the wall facing the door and for a second, I felt humbled by the magnitude of what was happening right now. Edgewater’s programs in the medical field were renowned for producing outstanding professionals in their fields. And this right here? This was the clinic so many of those alums had passed through before going on to do great things.
“Ruby Sprite?” a voice said from the reception desk on one side of the room.
The desk was framed by a picture window behind it, looking out over one of the quads and the red-brick buildings around it. Just the fact that someone who worked at that desk knew my name was a thrill.
“That’s me,” I said, finally managing to focus on the person and not only our surroundings.
A guy who looked a few years older than me stood behind the desk, leaning with his forearms on the brushed glass countertop. In between his arms, there was a pile of charts and he held a pen in one of his hands.
He was wearing the same light blue colored scrubs as I was, but his seemed significantly more lived-in than mine. With that and his neatly brushed red hair and bright, intelligent brown eyes, he looked every inch the doctor I took him to be. A golden wedding band winked at me from the second finger on his left hand, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
At least if the guy was married, it wouldn’t automatically inspire a fresh round of rumors about me if anyone saw me walking around with him today. Holy frick. Only one day of being the center of attention, and I’m already getting paranoid.
Shoving all that aside, I smiled politely when he came out from behind the desk and approached me. He returned my smile and stuck out his hand for a quick shake when he got cl
ose enough.
“I’m Josh,” he said. “Grad student. It’s nice to meet you, Ruby. I’ll be showing you around today. If you have any questions as we move along, please ask them. I always try to anticipate what the newbies might want to know, but I miss some stuff anyway. Ready to get started?”
“Yes, sir,” I said without hesitation, giving his hand a firm squeeze before releasing it and taking a step back. “Ready when you are.”
He dropped his head back and chuckled, then motioned for me to follow him back to the desk. “Just call me Josh, and I’ve been ready since I got here this morning so let’s get going.”
Picking up the charts, he led me down a corridor off the waiting area, glancing at me occasionally over his shoulder as we walked. “Okay, so these are the doctors’ offices and the exam rooms. The most important door you need to know about on this hallway is that one. The breakroom.”
He pointed it out to me, but didn’t stop to show me inside. “There’s free coffee in there. It’s not great, but there will be times when it’ll taste like the best thing you’ve ever had.”
I chuckled, making a mental note to myself to remember to check out the room later. “Got it.”
“Good,” he said. “We’ve also got a therapy center here, which is where you’ll be spending a lot of time for your physiotherapy credits. It’s mostly physical rehab for the athletes on campus when they get injured, but we do get other patients from time to time too.”
Josh opened a door to our right and led me into the much larger, student waiting area on the other side of the building. “We try to keep the students separated from the parents and general public. Once they’ve checked in, they’re asked to wait for us here. Most of our patients come in and out through these doors. They’re closer to the cafeteria and the buildings where the slightly less specialized classes are.”
For the rest of my shift, he let me help with some of his patients as he called them in based on the order of the pile of charts he’d carried to the exam room. Josh was a good teacher who gave me a broad range of things to do and learn. He was patient with me, but I’d read about everything he asked me to do and applying theory to practice was fairly effortless with the more basic procedures.
