by C. Morgan
Since I didn’t want to burden my sister with any of my BS, I was officially isolated from my entire family. Isolated, in pain, and pissed off. Then again, I’d always been angry. Angry at something or someone all the fucking time.
It was exhausting.
As the thoughts thundered through my mind, one after another and so fast that I couldn’t even think about stopping them, Ruby crouched down next to me with concern clouding her eyes.
Fuck her. I don’t need her to look at me like that. I don’t need her fucking sympathy. Well aware of the fact that I was probably lashing out at her because she was the only person here, I scooted back when she reached out to me again.
“Are you deaf? I told you not to fucking touch me.”
Her teeth ground together, but she kept her tone calm and even. “I heard you, but then you asked if I was kidding you and didn’t respond when I asked what I was supposedly kidding you about. I need to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “No thanks to you. Let’s not kid ourselves about any of this, shall we? You’re not a real therapist. You shouldn’t be in here unattended. Since you’ve fucked me, you shouldn’t be in here at all.”
“That’s not—“
“I wasn’t done.” I focused on her soft, green irises and didn’t see the person behind them. All I saw was that girl who thought she was better than me. “What are you even doing, anyway? You might as well just hand me that chart and leave me to it. It’s not like you’re capable of helping me, or anyone else for that matter.”
Her eyes went wide before she frowned at me. “Excuse me? I’m the one who—“
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved my hands dismissively, slicing them through the air as I rolled my eyes. “I know. You happened to be studying in the library when I crashed and then you called the paramedics. That doesn’t make you my savior and it doesn’t make you a superhero. You just got lucky by being in the right place at the right time.”
“Look, I know you’re hurt, but can we dial it back a notch?” she asked quietly, then dragged in a deep breath.
“Dial it back a notch?” A bark of laughter that sounded bitter even to my own ears ripped out of me. “You’ve got to be kidding me again, right? All you’ve done this session is to stare at me while I’m trying to pay attention to my recovery. I’d be better off without you here, so leave.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said, trying and failing to sound as confident as she always did.
I saw her eyes misting up, though. That’s right, Ruby. Let’s see how you like being the one who’s hurt.
“You know, you talk a big game,” I continued like she hadn’t said anything. “You’re all about how you’re so serious about your studies, but then we get here, and you can’t even stay focused for long enough to make sure that I don’t end up on the ground.”
She opened her mouth, but I didn’t give her the chance to defend herself. No one ever gives me that chance, so why should I do it for her?
“Do you want to know what I think?” I asked, grinning as I looked her right in the eyes. “I think you’re a big phony. A fake. You talk the talk, but it’s only to hide the fact that you can’t actually walk the walk. That’s why you’re always studying. You already know that you’re never going to be able to cut it out in the real world once those books get taken away from you.”
Tears filled her eyes, and I saw her throat working as she fought to hold them back. No, sweetheart. That ain’t gonna fly here today. Let them fucking fall.
“It’s only my second session. You might be a freshman, but if you were really at the top of your game, this would’ve been child’s play for you and clearly, it’s not. Now you’re the one crying? I’m the one on the fucking floor. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
Ruby blinked hard, and the first of the tears leaked onto her cheeks as a result. She didn’t wipe them away, nor did she bolt like I’d half expected, half wanted her to.
“That’s enough,” she said, her voice wobbly but firm. “I’m going to haul you back up into that chair now, and then I’m going to check your leg. If you don’t like it, then tough. It’s happening.”
Before I could protest or jerk away from her again, she wrapped her hands around my arm and, with a surprising show of strength I hadn’t realized she had, did exactly what she’d said. She hauled me up far enough that I didn’t have a choice but to anchor with my good foot and push myself up. If I didn’t do it, I’d have fallen straight back on my ass.
Once I was back in the chair, she sat on her knees beside me and ran her hands over my thigh. So taken aback by her caring, expert actions despite everything I’d just said, I didn’t even keep spouting vitriol at her.
It was only once she’d satisfied herself of whatever she’d been checking that she swiped away the tears that’d still been tracking down her cheeks. As she did, she began spouting words from her textbook verbatim. I didn’t have to have read or even seen the book before to know that was what she was doing.
“Therapists always have to be prepared for the emotional outbursts patients can suffer after a serious injury and especially during recovery,” she said. “It’s a traumatic time and there’s often a very real fear that the rehabilitation after the injury won’t go as well as doctors’ and therapists had planned. As such, the professional team cannot and should not allow any negative, emotional reactions during treatment to derail the goal-driven plan.”
She took a deep breath and looked up at me before slowly rising to her feet. “I should’ve been more prepared for your outburst to come across as a personal attack given our history. I’m sorry for getting emotional myself. Your injuries are severe and the repercussions have to be very difficult to deal with. If I can’t handle that, then you’re right. I’m not a real therapist. Not yet.”
That gave me pause. Say what now?
“Do you really think I’m only this way because of my injury?” I asked, not used to being let off the hook any more than I was used to someone apologizing to me after I tore into them.
Ruby shrugged one of her slumped shoulders. “You’re a jerk, but the stress of physio probably isn’t helping. Let’s cut the appointment short today. Give your leg a rest after that fall, and we’ll try again next time.”
As she turned to leave, I reached out before I could even really think about it and caught her wrist. “No. Stay a bit longer. Please?”
“I want to get better,” I tacked on through gritted teeth when she didn’t respond right away. “You’re my best shot at doing that. Please, Ruby? Let’s just keep going. I’ll let you know if I need to rest. I promise.”
She held my gaze for a long time before she finally dipped her head in a nod. “Fine, but you need to keep that promise. If you don’t, you’re the only one who will suffer for it.”
Chapter 23
RUBY
In one of my textbooks, I’d read that the road to recovery for our patients can leave therapists feeling almost as emotionally wrung out and vulnerable as the patients themselves. At the time I’d read the text, I remembered thinking that that would never happen to me.
Little had I known that I’d not only feel exactly that, but that I’d feel it so deeply that all I wanted to do was to crawl into a dark corner and lick my own wounds for a while. Everything Brysen had said had cut me to the bone, and it was even worse that a lot of it hadn’t been far off the money at all.
When I’d suggested we end the appointment early, it’d been for my benefit as much as it was for his. As it turned out, however, he wasn’t one to cut and run when things got hard.
If anything, he seemed to take the exercises even more seriously now than he had before. While I was feeling more vulnerable than I had in a long time and guilty for having let my emotions get the better of me, he seemed almost regretful.
After he surprised me by asking me to carry on, we worked together mostly in silence for the first while. I quietly explained what was expected of him, and his questions and a
nswers were murmured almost gently before he got on with doing what he needed to do.
We fell into an easy rhythm, and there was none of the aggressive energy about him that had been there before. His rage seemed to have burned itself out and so had mine. In the strangely peaceful aftermath, it was starting to look like we could be a good pairing of patient and therapist after all.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured out of the blue as he handed me back a ball he’d been using. He looked up at me, and the sincerity shining in his eyes was completely unfamiliar coming from him. “You’re right. I was being a prick. I shouldn’t have said any of that. I’ve been dealing with a lot, and you were in the line of fire at the wrong time.”
I froze with my hand on the ball he was passing to me, but without actually taking it from him. “Wait. What?”
The corners of those deep greens of his crinkled and a low chuckle rumbled from his chest, but he held his gaze unwaveringly on mine as he slowly repeated his words. “You’re right. I was being a prick. I’m sorry.”
“Wow. An apology from you about being a jerk? We’re probably going to have a heatwave in January because that just happened.”
He laughed. It wasn’t loud or booming, but it was a rich, genuine sound that I didn’t get the feeling many people had heard from him. “Probably. That doesn’t mean I didn’t owe you said apology, though. If you can take responsibility and fess up, then so can I.”
“In that case, I accept your apology,” I said. “There’s no point in us holding any outbursts against each other if we’re going to keep working together. I want you to feel comfortable here. It’s supposed to be a safe space for healing, and I guess emotions are part of healing.”
“You really do want to help me, huh?” There was a note of disbelief to his tone that surprised me.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I? And don’t say because of what happened between us. Neither of us can afford to bring that in here when it’s time for your appointments. We’ve both got too much riding on these sessions to allow our personal issues to interfere.”
A slight crease appeared between his brows as he mulled over what I’d said. Eventually, just the tip of his tongue swept across his lips. “You’re never going to let me take the easy way out, are you?”
“Nope, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about right now.”
He chuckled again, but that same sincere openness from before crept back into his eyes. I could see him struggling with whatever he wanted to say, but I also saw the moment when he formed the resolute determination to say it anyway.
“It would’ve been a lot easier for me to just have been able to say that I was surprised you really wanted to help me after what happened between us,” he said. “You seemed pretty pissed off when we were on the quad.”
“On that front, I still am,” I said. “Leaving it out of this room was harder than I thought it would be. In fact, you were right too. When we first got here today, I was distracted by you. Not because I meant to make you feel like a piece of meat, but because I’ve never really had to compartmentalize like this. It’s… difficult.”
“Tell me about it,” he murmured, then seemed to shake it off. “The reason I’m surprised that you really want to help me is because of what happened, which is the easy part to admit, but it’s also because I’m not used to people genuinely wanting to help me without wanting something from me in return.”
“That’s a pretty tough way to live,” I said. “Is it true, though? Or is that just how you perceive it?”
He shrugged. “It’s true. Always has been. Tit for tat, you know?”
It’s no wonder he’s so abrasive and confrontational then. If that was the only way people ever noticed or treated him, I couldn’t blame him for always being on the defensive.
“No,” I said honestly. “I don’t know. Between my family and the few friends I have, I’ve been lucky that there’s always been someone I can turn to for help when things go wrong.”
“My family have always been there when the shit hits the fan, but I wouldn’t say I can turn to them,” he said casually, like it didn’t matter when really, it was kind of obvious that it did. “They’d have preferred if there was never any reason for them to have to be there for me. Their ideal would’ve been having a son who wore the preppy clothes, studied hard, and walked the line.”
Cautious since it felt like we were venturing into sensitive territory again, I watched him carefully as I asked a question that might just confirm one of the suspicions I had about his family. “Do you think your parents just want you to fade into the background? Like, to leave who you are behind and to keep your head down until graduation?”
“Yep,” he said immediately. “If not that, then they definitely would’ve wanted me to be known around campus for something other than fighting and causing shit. Being known for being the captain of the rowing team or the president of one of the frats would’ve been a good start.”
“No pressure or anything, right?” I joked in an attempt to lighten the moment.
“Right,” he agreed, but there wasn’t much humor in his voice. “Although, they wouldn’t have minded at all if I was more like you. The people who know you seem to know you for being a hard worker and a good student.”
A curious frown pulled my brows closer together. “Have you been asking around about me, Burke?”
“Nah. I haven’t needed to. People have been too happy to tell me all about the med student who revived me when I needed CPR. No questions asked.”
I snorted accidentally when I didn’t know whether to laugh or to groan in frustration. “Where did they get the CPR thing from anyhow? I’ve heard you were almost dead by the time I got there, and that I managed to get you breathing again just in time.”
“Lucky me,” he said dryly. “I have no idea where they got it from, but I haven’t been correcting anyone. You might not have given me CPR, but you deserve all the credit you’re getting for rescuing me.”
He paused for a beat, his gaze feeling heavier on mine all of a sudden. “I know what I said earlier, but you’re going to be a great therapist. Or nurse. Or both. I’m not sure how any of it works.”
The part of me that came alive whenever I thought about my future and what I wanted to do with it stirred, desperately wanting to tell him—in excruciating detail—about my plans. I kept a lid on it, though.
We’d talked about me and my future plans before, but I didn’t know anything about his. “What about you? Any big plans once you walk out of Edgewater? What do you want to do?”
“My father wants me to follow in his footsteps,” he said, but his voice sounded like the answer had been drilled into him. It was stiff instead of natural. Rehearsed instead of honest. “I’ll be going into financial management and stocks. Preserve the family name and take over the family business.”
“That doesn’t sound like your vibe at all,” I said before I could help myself. “Is that really what you want to do?”
“What I want to do has never been a factor,” he said, then flashed me an amused grin. “What is my vibe then?”
I laughed and took the opportunity to crack a joke. “Well, you seem more like a slick car salesman to me. You have the bad attitude to fit the bill and everything. You’d be perfect for it.”
What I didn’t tell him was that he certainly had the looks to add to the package. Women would fall all over themselves to buy cars from him. In fact, there were a lot of women who’d probably suddenly need a new car every second month. He’d have made a killing.
“My attitude might make it a good fit, but I don’t want to sell cars,” he said, grinning before his eyes took on a faraway quality.
“What do you want to do then?” I asked. “If it’s not car sales, there’s got to be something else you have in mind?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, coming out of his thoughts to look at me again. “I’ve never thought too much about it because my whole future has been laid out for me since I was born. If
I ever get the chance, though, I’d like to start something of my own. Maybe something in the extreme sports industry.”
“Now that sounds more like you.” I smiled and reached out to touch his forearm. “If that’s your dream, don’t give up on it, okay? You never know. There might be a way to do both.”
It seemed like such an archaic concept to me that he was expected to go into the family business without any argument or choice in the matter. Choosing my own path was suddenly something I was grateful for instead of just taking it for granted like I always had.
Our eyes met as my hand lingered on his arm. I hadn’t intended to keep touching him, but it was more difficult to pull away than it should’ve been. That chemistry that had flowed between us before was back with a vengeance, and I’d been getting progressively closer to him while we’d been talking.
Brysen was leaning toward me as well, seemingly as incapable as I was to keep his body from acting on the pull between us. Even though I knew he was bad news and that he’d probably hurt me again in some way or another, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into him when we got started on the next exercise.
Part of me wanted to tell myself that I was doing it to make him feel better, but the more truthful part knew that wasn’t true. I was doing it because I was aching for a connection. With him. Bad news and all.
For so long, I’d been closed off to everything and anything else as I focused on my studies. And the problem was that regardless of how bad I knew he was for me, no one had ever made me feel as alive before as he did. He drove me crazy in the good ways and the bad, which I’d never been able to say about anyone. In a few short weeks, he’d made me mad and sad, he’d made me happy and excited, and he’d made me laugh and cry.
While I’d have preferred for none of the bad things to have been there, I had to admit that their presence was what made it real to me. He elicited actual, strong emotions from me in a world which usually only had me on the outside looking in.
When his green eyes caught mine again, he glanced down at my lips as I knelt next to him. Without giving it a second thought, I decided to just go with it and this time, I was the one who kissed him. As I did, I sealed off the parts of my brain screaming at me about what a bad idea this was.
