Oh, hell no.
I finally took myself downstairs and tried to settle in for the night but that was out of the question. There would be no settling. Not after…everything.
I couldn't keep doing this with Sebastian. I couldn't keep taking his bait. And I couldn't confide in him ever again. The only explanation I had for telling him about my recovery was nausea-induced delirium. I couldn't find any other reason. It wasn't as though I wanted him to know, that I wanted him to understand how difficult it was for me to participate in the simple ritual of eating with other people, that I wasn't the relentlessly hostile woman he took me for but someone who was just trying to keep it together while he turned my life upside down with his side-eyes and his penis and his scowls.
I didn't want any of those things, but most of all I didn't want anyone to use my private mental health and medical history against me. All doctors were held to an odd double standard—we weren't supposed to get sick or experience chronic illnesses—and female docs had an extra layer of that double standard. If we had to menstruate, get pregnant, or progress through menopause, we were expected to do it without anyone else becoming aware of those conditions.
But the truly exponential standard came in the form of mental illness. I knew people who'd been exited from internships, residencies, and fellowships as a result of their mental health concerns. That was never the official reason. It was always something like inadequate clinical skills or misfit in the specialty or failure to keep up with the coursework—and I'd nearly killed myself avoiding that fate.
I wasn't ashamed of myself, my disease, or my recovery, but I wasn't ready to let others into this side of my life.
Yet somehow I was certain Sebastian wouldn't divulge anything I'd said to him tonight to anyone else. He'd silently judge me for it but he wouldn't gossip.
At the same time, I was certain we were very, very bad together. We clashed and scraped and wounded each other, and we couldn't seem to stop. I couldn't keep doing that. I wasn't in the business of harming myself anymore and that meant I couldn't allow him to upturn my safe, healthy life. Yes, he'd listened and he'd helped me tonight—
Oh my god.
He'd held my hand the whole time.
There had been some doctoring but he'd held my hand.
While I'd been deep-breathing away the reflux and spasms.
He'd held my hand.
Chapter21
Sara
I glareddown at my paper. "You're giving me terrible directions."
"You're terrible at listening," Sebastian replied.
"I'm listening to you give me terrible directions," I said, nudging his flank with my elbow. "'It's round and sometimes wooden.' What the fuck is that?"
"It's the best description I can give you based on the rules," he said, elbowing me back. "Can you stop squirming? Jesus Christ, you're like a sack of angry cats."
"Why would anyone ever have asackofcats? No wonder they're angry, they're in a sack being carried around by some maniac like you."
I capped the marker and shoved it in the cup on the coffee table. We were sitting back-to-back on the floor of Milana's office, Sebastian holding a card with an object on it while I attempted to draw that item based on his vague clues.
It wasn't going well.
We'd walked in here with a cloud of awkward hanging over us. Aside from the very weird way we left things over the weekend, we hadn't seen much of each other all week. It could've been a product of my schedule being chaotic or he could've been avoiding me. I didn't know which one it was, though the part of my brain that liked to believe everything was my faultandI could make everything better if I just tried hard enough was eager to dismiss all matter of my schedule. Even if it was especially chaotic on account of an upcoming event. I'd shared so much personal information—all the uncomfortable, unpleasant stuff too—and no one liked that. No one wanted my problems.
"The object was a fruit bowl," Milana said in that warm,marveling at the whole damn worldway of hers. "A fruit bowl. Sara, you had the right idea going. Sebastian, you offered some good clues. It was a tricky challenge that tested your ability to hear each other and process that information through your own filters. Well done."
Without any warning at all, Sebastian pushed to his feet which had the pleasant effect of sending me sprawling back on the floor. "Thanks for nothing," I said.
He rolled his eyes at me and offered his hand, but I didn't need it.Nope, all good here.But then he barked out a laugh, a mile-deep belly laugh that filled me with heat like I'd been doused with actual fire. Pointing at my t-shirt, he said, "Wrong. Completely wrong."
I glanced down at my shirt. Inside an anatomically correct rib cage sat a hot pink cartoon heart. The text readThe way to my heart is through the fifth and sixth ribs.On the back it saidAnd also food. Don't forget food.
"Any idiot would aim for the ninth and tenth. Same result, half the mess." He shook his head at me like I'd insulted him to his core. "Really, Shap. I expected more from you."
"I thought you didn't make a habit of expecting anything at all."
He lifted his brows as though he hadn't hammered me over his thoughts on expectations in the jousting ring. "When it comes to you"—he dropped a glance to my shirt—"I guess I expect better than bad practice."
