Her eyebrows lift. “Really.”
“I tried to push him out of a window.”
The relief falls from her features. “That doesn’t help your case.”
A gust of wind whips through the courtyard, sending a ribbon of hair across her face. I’m entranced as she glides her rounded nails across her lips to clear the strands, drawing my gaze irresistibly to her mouth.
A shadow edges into my thoughts, infecting the moment.
Dull pain throbs behind my eyes, forcing me to press the heel of my hand to my temple. I blink hard, chasing back the pain. “Headaches,” I say, answering the unspoken concern creasing her brow.
She offers a light nod. “Because of the accident,” she says knowingly.
On reflex, I touch the side of my forehead below my hairline. Even through the leather, I can feel the raised scar.
It’s been six years since that night. As a man of science, I don’t entertain notions like karma or all-powerful entities that mete out consequences. There are no vengeful gods balancing some cosmic scale. And though many of my disgruntled colleagues may claim my arrogant ass had it coming, the truth of the matter is so tragically, sorely simple.
Pushing dangerous speeds, I took a curve too fast. Flipped my bike several times, resulting in three cracked ribs, a fractured clavicle, shattered wrist, broken radius, and a severe skull fracture. Months spent in the hospital, followed by a grueling year of rehabilitation.
I rotate my left wrist, the residual pain always present. Chasing an adrenaline rush dulls the ache of old breaks some. But nothing kills the guilt.
Even if I’d made it to her while she was still breathing, fucking Leo was right. There was nothing I could’ve done to help Emma. The undiagnosed subarachnoid hemorrhage was sudden. The brain bleed taking her before the paramedics even arrived. Before we even had a chance.
I wait for a hint of pity to surface in Collins’s eyes, but all I see isthe iridescent glimmer of her irises picking up the autumn hues all around.
Collins says, “Your university file states there was no long-term damage after the wreck.”
No matter how many professionals signed off, the fact remains: I’m damaged goods. The once brilliant astrophysicist who was going to field the research to define dark matter decades ahead of time—in my fucking lifetime—suffered a devastating setback.
“And yet, here I am, confined to this hellscape.” My smile’s as cutting as my words. Still bleeding bitterness over the loss of my grant, my tenure, and research funding.
My truth hangs abandoned in the gloom, the reality of which blisters like the fiery pinpricks of stars appearing in the evening sky, the atmosphere becoming as transparent as this moment between us.
“It has to be difficult,” Collins says delicately. “Haphephobia, or what we call touch aversion, is a challenging condition.” She seems to weigh her next words before she continues. “I happen to specialize in obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
I groan, dragging a fisted hand over my mouth. “Of course.”
“Hey, we’re just talking,” she says, meeting my dismissive tone with soft assurance. “Orion, please look at me.”
I do, moving in a daring inch too close to challenge not only her boundaries, but mine. “It’s hard to look anywhere but you,” I tell her, my gaze shamelessly roving down her body.
“You’re still trying to make me uncomfortable.” The faintest catch of her breath gives her away.
“I’d say it’s working.” The low rasp of my voice scrapes the air between us.
She hesitates, and I read everything I need to know in that single pause. “No, it’s not. Because I understand sexually intrusive thoughts are a symptom of the disorder. And while these thoughts are typically obsessional and rarely acted on, they can still be debilitating.”
The falling dark does little to hinder her sharp gaze from slicing right through me. Twice now, my little archer has slinked past the weakest area of my defenses to sink her arrow.
“Maybe it would be less painful if you did punch me,” I mutter sullenly. Still, I can’t take my eyes off her, even as she peers right down to the sick core of me.
Her delicate brows knit together, a frown touching her lips. “Therapy can be painful, but with psychoanalysis and the right medication?—”
“I have it under control.” I bite off each word as I mentally chew hers, an echo banging through my mind like crashing piano chords.Control control control.
I tap in sequence—one, one, two, three, five, one—each beat timed with the blink of my eyes, my left foot striking the ground in count. And because there is always the need for symmetry, I repeat the ritual with the right.
Her smile tries for consoling, but she assesses me in that way doctors do.
