It took a moment, but I shambled to my feet, to the door, and opened it.
Bear hovered over me in a long white nightshirt, her expression set in a frown. “Hey. You all right?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Not since last summer.”
She nodded. “Murphy,” she said.
“Feels like my fault,” I said.
“Because you survived,” she said. “And she didn’t.”
“At the end…” I hesitated and then said, feeling afresh the horror and pain of that night, “Her lips were blue. And she was so pale. Like she was freezing.”
“Deep breath,” said Bear. “Go on.”
I took a deep breath, like when meditating. I felt some of the horror ease. I’d practiced breathing and calming myself so much over the past months.
“I miss her,” I said. “And when she went, I…I did things I’m not proud of. To friends. And I’m ashamed to talk to anyone about it.”
Bear blew out a heavy breath.
Then she said, “Man the fuck up, Dresden.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You got hurt,” she said. “In a bad situation, you did some things you wish you hadn’t. Surprise, surprise, you’re human. You make mistakes. You screw things up. That part isn’t even a question. Humans do that. Life came along and knocked you onto your ass.” She lifted a hand, made a fist, and drove it gently into my shoulder. “It’s okay to get knocked down. It’s not okay to stay there. That isn’t who you are, or who you are meant to be. So gather up your testosterone, think of a wonderful thought, do whatever it is you need to do, andget back up off the ground.”
“That’s so compassionate,” I said.
“Sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do for someone is give them a gentle, firm boot to the ass,” she said seriously. “Wake up. Events are in motion. There’s not a lot of time. There are massive things on the wind. And we need you. Make things as right as you can and move the fuck on.”
I think any night before that, I would have gotten angry. Really, really angry.
But the part of me that was tired of hurting thought that maybe I should consider what she’d said.
I looked at her for a long moment and then nodded slowly.
“Observation to make,” Bear said. “More personal than I usually do.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“If you weren’t a decent person, with a conscience and a soul,” she said, “one who genuinely cares about trying to be a good man, you’d never be torturing yourself like this. If anyone else was treating someone the way you’ve been treating yourself, you’d hat up and take action. Why the hell should it be any different when you are the person being treated badly?”
I blinked a few times at that.
I hadn’t ever thought of it that way before.
“So do something about it,” Bear said. “Go to sleep. Leg day tomorrow.”
“I…” I said. “Uh. Yeah.” I looked up at her. “Thank you, Bear.”
She nodded gravely.
I went to bed, exhausted.
And before I knew it, I’d fallen asleep.
Chapter
