I hugged him extra tight. “What if—”
“You have to stop,” Drew barked. The tone reminded me of his time as a guard at the prison, and I sat back in surprise, but his grip on me didn’t turn painful as he rubbed a gentle hand along my arm.
“I’m here, and I will always listen to you, but you’re clearly torn apart over this. If your son means this much to you, you have to go tell him you’re sorry. Maybe… tell him a bit about what happened to you. There have been articles in the paper. If he pays attention to the news, he might already be guessing at a few things.”
“It’s not that simple,” I snarled and tried to shove away from him, but his arms didn’t budge from around me.
A sharp pain on my earlobe had me grunting. He sucked away the sting he’d caused by nipping me, and I turned to glare at him. “Apologize or don’t. You’re in control of that.”
“I don’t know if he’ll want to see me.” I tried to shove off his lap again, and he didn’t let go, only kissed me until I stopped fighting him.
“I’m here and I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll go with you, or not. I’ll drive you. Or we can forget about it. But it’s all up to you. Was that all that was bothering you?”
I was tempted to lie to him and say yes because my heart already felt like it was in a thousand tiny pieces, but the way he seemed so confident in me and my ability to do things made me grab my courage by the horns. “I’m fucking up school. Don’t know how to fix it. Because I keep… drifting away in my head. To bad things. When it gets difficult.”
He cupped my cheek and stared at me. “I’ll help.”
I searched his eyes, and he was serious. How was this so simple with him? “Okay.”
“But that means I want you to come with me during the day, not sit around here. You have to talk to someone who knows more about the mind than I do. It’s pretty obvious, to me, anyway, there’s something going on you can’t handle alone. You have to go to therapy. We’ll find someone for you to see, and I don’t care if I have to pay for it. And you can bring the computer and work at my school. There are a bunch of spots where you could wait for me while I’m in class. I promise you will be okay.” He kissed me again, and I couldn’t do anything except tremble against him.
“What if someone sees me? Someone who is pissed about me getting involved in talking about the AS?”
He brushed a kiss to my cheek, and his brown eyes glittered with something that scared me a little. “Are you more worried about that or going out of your head here? I’ll figure out something else if you’re afraid. And I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you.”
He might not have known it, but no other words could have pissed me off more. “I’ll come with you. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
“And I’ll keep you safe.”
Tears spilled out of my eyes again, and Drew held me close while they fell.
“I’ll take care of you. It’s all going to work out, I promise. I’ll make it work out,” Drew swore to me over and over again, and by about the hundredth time he said those words, I started to believe them.
15
Drew
“This is some—”
“What is it, Mr. Gaffin?” Bhavna called from where she suspended herself on her hands between the sturdy wooden rails for the small platform where people learned to walk again after strokes. Behind her, the large windows that looked out on the pine trees behind the physical therapy gym were purple with twilight.
We were the very last appointment on her schedule for the day, and she’d been staying late to accommodate my class schedule and Peter’s NA meetings. Her smile made her glow, and the long black braid hanging down over her shoulder fell to her waist. The bracelets on both of her wrists jangled with her movement. While she wore the same white polo and khaki shorts all the other physical therapists here at Jessup and Blythe did, her arms, legs, and today I’d noticed even the palms of her hands were decorated with henna tattoos. She shot a small grin at me where I sat in a chair along the wall near a wooden storage closet with an ethics book open on my lap.
Peter glared at her from his end of the room. He was in the middle of a set of fake wooden steps, and a tiny furrow dug into his brow as he climbed. His dark blond hair was damp with sweat. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the way his black running shorts slipped up his thighs as his legs moved, and the sweat sticking his white tank top to his slim chest was more of a tease than anything. He had his hands on the railings on either side and his knuckles were white. I burned to go over to him and help, but the one time I’d cracked and given in, Bhavna had banished me to the waiting room. Walking was one thing, but the stairs were still giving Peter a load of trouble.
“What, Mr. Gaffin?” she called cheerfully. “I’m tired, so you’re getting both barrels tonight. Is the exercise bullshit? Will it never work? Does it hurt too much? Am I an asshole for making you do it? Old Mr. Brosius called me an evil bitch today because I made him do the same thing. You’re going to have to get creative if you want to upset me.” She touched the tips of her red sneakers to the floor but didn’t put her weight on her feet, simply hung in place. “Come on, tell me all about it.”
“I never called you names!” Peter said, stopping on his step. He glanced at me with a scowl. “I didn’t. Tell him I didn’t!”
She giggled. “No, you didn’t. I wouldn’t get you into trouble with your boyfriend. But I will say this, the less your mouth runs, the better your feet will.”
He snorted and grumbled to himself but lifted his foot and put it on another level. There were only five steps, and he kept up complaining under his breath until he was standing on the small platform at the top.
“Now down the other side,” she said and punctuated her words by pedaling her feet in midair.
“You’re just showing off,” Peter barked, and she laughed but did stand on her feet then.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “You can do it!”
