by Vivian Lux
“Ten reps on each side. I want you to plant your entire foot, not just the ball of it,” Kristyn ordered.
“Look,” I called out, wanting Everly’s eyes on me again. “I’m Jane Fonda. Jazzercise. Ready?” I clapped my hands in a four count, then shouted, “Grapevine!”
“You’re a nut. You’re gonna fall!” she shouted.
“I am not,” I declared, even as my foot came down wrong. I stepped back, landing hard on my heel as I tried not to lose my balance. The shock of the landing reverberated right up my newly healed leg. An involuntary yelp escaped my mouth as my still-weak ankle turned with a sharp, searing pain. In a last-ditch effort to save myself, I crossed my other foot over and planted it, gritting my teeth as the same jolting shock raced up my other leg.
Kristyn reached out to catch me, and Everly was a mere second behind in grabbing my other arm. Shame made me press my lips together and say nothing when Everly asked if I was okay. I also kept my mouth shut when Kristyn asked if I needed any ice, just shaking my head. My ankles were screaming and inside of my head I was screaming right along with them. Because just like that, all of the pain that I thought happiness had washed away came flooding right back.
Chapter Nineteen
Everly
Even though it was gray and awful outside, I felt like I had my own personal sun shining inside of my chest.
Every time I looked at Gabe, I felt that warmth again. Every time he smiled at me with that giddy smile, like we were sharing an incredible secret that no one else was privy to, I felt that sun’s brilliance. It shone into all of the dark corners of my mind and warmed all the frozen places in my chest.
The sun was inside of me, but it also seemed to shine on me too. Every time Gabe looked at me, I felt like I was stepping out of the shadows to be seen for the first time. It was a new and strange feeling to be seen this way and it made me feel like everything I did was significant, like time was stretching out so that every second was important.
I’d tried to act normal, but nothing felt normal any more.
Normal would have been him getting super pissed at me for keeping my identity secret for so long. Normal would have meant that he wouldn’t have remembered at all, or, worse, he would have but it hadn’t meant a damn thing to him.
He hadn’t done any of that. He’d just touched my face as relief crossed his and then he’d laughed with wild delight.
And then he’d kissed me again.
Was this my new normal? I wondered as I sat in the therapy room, watching Gabe as he did his exercises and trying to keep the fawning smile off my face. Was my new normal just…spending time with this guy who made me so damn happy?
He’d kissed me this morning when I came to pick him up, a long, deep kiss that made my blood sing. I’d never felt like this before. My whole life I’d held myself separate, but now I was so connected to a person. I felt like a thin cord had been stretched between our bodies, allowing me to feel what he felt. And what he felt—felt for me…
Let’s just say it was making it super hard to be a professional.
Professional nurses don’t kiss their patients in the middle of therapy sessions. They especially don’t do this when other professionals are right there watching with dumbstruck looks on their faces. I could feel Kristyn’s disbelief when Gabe pressed his lips to mine, and that was the only thing that kept me from throwing my arms around him and letting him devour my mouth like he wanted to.
But I still let his lips linger there on mine a whole lot longer than I should have before I finally remembered I was a nurse.
Reddening, I drew back from him and tugged at my shirt. I tried to put some distance between us, both physical distance and emotional, as I reminded myself that, regardless of the fact that I’d missed my boards, I still had a professional reputation to maintain.
But that thin cord of connection wouldn’t let me have distance. I felt Gabe’s disappointment when I pulled away—felt it so acutely, even, that I smiled at him reassuringly.
Which Gabe—being Gabe—took as an invitation to start overdoing it.
“Are you okay?” I gasped, rushing to his side as he stumbled off the stairstep.
He didn’t say anything. I didn’t know him well enough to know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. “Do you need some ice?” Kristyn asked.
Still, nothing. I studied his face. That connection told me that his pride had been wounded. “Let’s head out,” I told him, keeping my tone light and encouraging. Professional, even. “You worked really hard today. I’m impressed.”
He glanced at me. I smiled and nodded but when he didn’t smile back, the sun in my chest dimmed a little. Confused, I hurried around the therapy room to fetch all of our things. I grabbed him his crutches and waited for his grateful smile.
With his head down, he sneered at the floor and snatched them from my hands, every inch the arrogant celebrity rockstar he had been most of his life.
I was stung, but I lifted my chin anyway. “You good?”
“Fine,” he said curtly. His mouth was still drawn up in a sneer.
I pressed my lips together and opened the door. He hopped through, not even saying thank you. My trained eye went right to his ankles, noting that he was moving a lot more gingerly leaving therapy than he had been when we arrived. “You hurt yourself back there,” I stated flatly. It wasn’t a question.
“I’m fine,” he said, reaching for the door.
“Are you kidding?” I snapped, rushing around to grab the door handle from him. His stubbornness was getting under my skin. “You’re supposed to let me get that.”
“I don’t need your help,” he said, blowing past me and heading to his mom’s SUV. We’d borrowed it to get to the session since Grim was still being treated by his dad.
I should have let it go. I should have let it roll off of me like I’d done so many times before. But that light in my chest had started shining—shining because of him—and now the darkness wasn’t acceptable anymore.
I hurried after him. He stopped when I clapped my hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t turn around. “You do need my help,” I reminded him. “You’re hurt. It’s okay to take help when you’re hurt.”
His shoulder rose on an inhale like he was about to say something, but he just shook his sandy head and kept hopping to the car.
I stood there frozen for a moment, stunned by his coldness. I had this desperate urge to turn on my heel and walk away from him, to leave and refuse to be treated this way by the rockstar version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
But I was his nurse.
So I took a deep breath and got into the driver’s seat next to him.
The silent ride home was the exact opposite of the warm, teasing ride there. At the stoplight at Four Corners, I hazarded one quick glance at him. He was turned away and staring out the window into the gray drizzle. His jaw was tense and his eyes were narrowed. Was I seeing anger or pain? That connection between us seemed to have broken, leaving me adrift.
The next day was no different. He grunted answers to my questions and refused to stand to make it easier for me to check his dressing. “How’s your pain level?” I asked pointedly, unable—no, unwilling—to stand his silence any longer.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, but pain was written all over his face.
I wanted to reach for him, but he pulled back when he saw my hand rise. I let it fall back down to my side, then silently gathered my things and left his house. My lips ached for his kiss, my body craved his embrace, and I tried to remind myself what normal was for me. In reality nothing had changed.
Except I had.
And when the silent treatment stretched out into its fourth day, I’d had enough. “You’re in pain,” I told him as I helped him into his shirt.
He wasn’t meeting my eyes, but I could tell by the set of his jaw that he’d heard me.
“It’s time you stop messing around with the ibuprofen.” There was a note of pleading in my voice and I cleared my thro
at in an futile attempt to get rid of it. Just kiss me again, my brain was screaming, but my pride insisted I be angry with him rather than beg. “I know you have prescriptions for stronger pain relief. Stop being stubborn and take them!”
His eyes flicked to me, the first time he’d looked me in the eye in days, and the pure fury in them made me step back. He blinked and it was gone, replaced with that stubborn gleam. “I’m fine,” he said, but at least this time he was saying it to me rather than at me.
I shook my head. “You’re not yourself.”
“You’d know that, huh?” he shot back.
I opened my mouth, closed it, and stepped back grimly. “Fair point,” I said, trying to keep the hurt from my voice. “How about I ask Jonah if he thinks you’re fine?” He glared at me and I lifted my chin in challenge. Yeah, didn’t think of that, huh? “Or Beau.” I added. “Is he gonna agree that you’re fine?”
He eyed me slowly, letting his gaze drop down to my body before flicking back up to my face. “You can go,” he finally said.
The utter dismissal in his voice was so abrupt that it extinguished the last hopeful light inside of me as efficiently as snuffing out a candle flame. “You’re firing me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You pretty much did.”
“I’m just saying I don’t need your help today.” He looked away.
I took a step back…
And then shook my head. “Hell no,” I snarled. “You need my help every day. That’s why your family hired me. To take care of you.”
“I didn’t want them to,” he said.
“Liar.”
“You’re calling me a liar?”
“Yup. Right to your face.” I stepped forward again. “Liar.”
“I don’t need your help!”
“Yeah?” I challenged. “Go on,” I said, gesturing to the floor. “Stand up on your own then.”
He glared at me. He didn’t rise to his feet the way he’d been able to do before that disaster of a therapy session. “Right,” I said, crossing my arms. “It’s time to stop acting like a spoiled brat and take those painkillers.”
“It’s time to stop acting like a bitch and get out of here,” he snapped, eyes blazing.
I stepped back and pressed my hands to my belly, where I would have sworn he’d plunged a knife. “Did you really just say that?”
“Jesus Christ, Everly,” he said with a heavy sigh. He looked to the ceiling. “Look, that wasn’t the right way to say that—”
“Oh, so you meant to dismiss me more politely? You called me a terrible name by accident?”
“Look, I’m tired, and—”
“In pain,” I finished for him as I went to the door. I paused with my hand on the doorframe and waited. He watched me with sorrow in his eyes but he made no move to stop me. I shook my head at the thought. He was in too much pain to stand. How in the world could he stop me now? “Take the fucking pills, Gabe,” I said, and then I left to try and reassemble the pieces of my broken heart.
Chapter Twenty
Gabe
The silence she left behind was total.
“Fuck,” I whispered. I wanted to fall back into my bed, but everything hurt. Including my heart.
I’d driven her away.
I’d made a huge fucking mistake.
That night the ibuprofen couldn’t even touch the throbbing. I grabbed my crutches and hopped to the bathroom. I stood by the sink and pulled the pill bottle, never opened, of opioids out of the medicine cabinet.
It fit so neatly in my hand. Like it belonged there, nestled into the crook of my palm. Just holding it seemed to give a measure of relief as every cell in my body went quiet in anticipation of the hit.
It sat heavy in my palm, too heavy, it seemed, for me to lift it. I looked down and stared at my name on the label.
It had my name on it. The pills were literally calling my name.
When the prescription came home with me I was too out of it to flush them. I’d had ample time to flush them in the weeks since, but something had stopped me.
I must have known I’d need something to help with this. Driving Everly away was a different kind of pain.
Numb, I moved to twist open the bottle. The grooves slid into place, the child-lock came loose. The cap was untwisted, ready to fall off into my other hand.
I froze in place. My heart stalled in my chest. I was so close to popping the pill, but…
I didn’t take the cap off.
Slowly I exhaled. I ducked away from my reflection in the mirror, feeling like it was watching me, disappointed. Pleading. Reminding me of all those nights in rehab where I’d felt the same compulsion. The devil on my shoulder whispering encouraging words about risking it all. He’d never gone away. I’d been drowning out his voice with thoughts of Everly.
“Fuck,” I whispered again. I’d been right. I didn’t need her help. I needed…
Her.
Her hard-won smiles, her sass, her determination. I needed her physical presence in the room with me, her body’s nearness to mine. I needed her, and I’d driven her away. Lost in my frustration at my weakness, I’d driven away the very person I needed to make me strong again.
With calm resolve, I re-latched the bottlecap and set it deliberately back into the cabinet. I shut the door on the pills.
It was only then that I realized my entire body was shaking. In fear. And in anticipation of the beautiful hit, that wonderful bliss.
“Fucking weak,” I snarled in the back of my throat. Enraged, I slammed my fist into the wall, but the sting in my knuckles didn’t make me feel any stronger. “I hate this shit,” I muttered. All of this shit. The pain, the weakness, the helplessness. The Gabe I was before, the old me, he took these giant risks every goddamn day, put his body and his self on the line just to feel something. And here I was hiding in the bathroom after sending away the only thing that had made me feel in months. Fuck, I’d found her again, after months of wondering, and I was gonna push her away because I felt sorry for myself?
Fuck you, the old, risk-taker Gabe said to this new, wimpy Gabe. Fucking call her and tell her you’re sorry.
I nodded and cleared my throat. “Fuck.” I repeated it one more time because it felt necessary, but my throat was tight and dry and I couldn’t get a full breath. Don’t pussy out now, the part of me that still had pride insisted. If you’re not gonna call her then fucking text her, you weak piece of shit.
I nodded and hopped back to my bedroom, then grabbed my phone from its place at my bedside table. Quickly, before the weakness could take hold again, I flicked to her contact and started typing.
Me: Are you up?
Lame. But it was a start.
I waited, glancing down out of my window. Her house was nestled down there by the raging creek, dark and shut up for the night. I hoped she was too pissed at me to go right to sleep.
She was.
Everly: Do you need something?
Cold. Professional. I deserved that.
Me: Yeah. I need to tell you that I’m sorry.
I waited, but she didn’t reply. I glanced down at her house again. The light was still on, so I took a deep breath.
Me: I do need you. I need you around. You make everything better.
Me: And I’m sorry I haven’t said that until now.
Me: Fuck, I mean I just found you.
Me: I might be an idiot, but I’m not going to let you go again.
Me: I promise.
The light went off. With my heart in my throat, I watched my screen, but there was no sign of a reply. With a heavy heart, I set my phone back down on the nightstand.
Where it glowed with a new text alert.
Everly: Open your door. I forgot my key.
Chapter Twenty-One
Everly
He threw open the door with such violence that it hit the wall next to it. I winced, but he didn’t seem to care as he stared at me. “You came over?”
“I hate texti
ng,” I declared.
A wash of relief flooded his face and before I could say another word he had the door open and me in his arms. “I fucked up,” he murmured, leaning down to cup my face in his hand, pressing tender kisses to my eyebrow, my lips, my jaw. “I’m really fucking sorry.”
I sighed against his shoulder, bracing myself so he could set his crutch aside and put his arm around me.
We stood still like that for one heartbeat, ten heartbeats. As I relaxed into the sound of his breathing, a silvery light appeared at his feet. “Gabe?” I breathed, standing up and stepping back. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“Your feet! They’re glowing!”
He looked down in shock and then started laughing. “Babe,” he said, reaching out and gently cupping my chin. “It’s the moon.”
He tilted my face towards the window in the door. There, hanging in the sky, was a huge, fat full moon peeking in between the racing clouds. “Oh my god,” I giggled. “It’s been raining for so long I forgot what the moon looked like.” I buried my face in my hands.
Chuckling, he reached out and gently tugged my hands away from my face. “Come with me,” he murmured. “I have something I want to tell you, but my parents’ bedroom is down here and…”
“You want to sneak me into your bedroom while your parents are asleep?” I teased.
He shook his head ruefully. “I never got a chance to do that.” Then he brightened as a mischievous smile spread across his face. “So yeah. I totally want to sneak a pretty girl into my bedroom for the first time tonight.”
As I followed him, grinning about the scandal of it all, I wanted to keep my heart light. After all, he’d apologized in the best way possible, and my training had prepared me for how much people in pain could lash out. I was grateful for that lesson.
But my training also meant that I knew exactly how much he struggled with putting weight on his ankles. Instead of making a clinical observation, I pressed my hand to my heart in sympathy. What I saw as I watched him hobble up the stairs hurt my heart. His limp was so pronounced on his left side. When he reached the top there was no mistaking the grunt of pain as he had to pivot to reach his door.
