Dr. Cole’s presence is heavy and hard to ignore. I tell myself it’s the nerves that linger in my stomach from being here at all when it commands me to spin around and face him.
His masculine voice fills the space. “Unfortunately, I think something has gotten into me. You’re the only patient I’ve been late to see for as far as I can remember.”
“That’s what clocks are for,” I say, more sarcastic than anything. “To remind you of where you’re supposed to be when those little thin arms move to a certain number.”
His golden gaze, colored the same shade as honeyed whiskey draws me in, my own eyes trapped in the stickiness of caramel hues. I know then that I’m never going to get used to having his attention on me. I don’t know why, but the notion presses in on me, my skin heating an additional degree with every step that brings him closer to me.
He grins softly and stops at the edge of his desk. He sits back on it, his hands on his lap as he looks beyond me at his bookcase. “Do you like to read?”
“I prefer the creativity made behind a camera lens,” I tell him. “Not so much the kind that involves stringing sentences together.”
“Not even if those sentences stir emotions that you’d otherwise never feel in your everyday life?”
I shrug and look at the line of book spines facing me. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but I’ve never been a reader. My mother used to bribe me with bags of Twix just so I’d read the summer book list my teachers would give me in middle school.”
“Just didn’t care for it, huh?”
“I preferred walks with my camera.” My voice lowers as I recall all the times my parents would pretend ground me for coming home too late. I got sidetracked easily, my finger glued to the shutter button. “I always thought there was something timeless about capturing moments as they happened and the beauty that could be seized and shared.”
“So, that’s what you were doing out on that rock.”
I nod, hope filling me because at least someone gets it. Or, at the very least, is trying to.
“There was a storm beyond the horizon, and it made for a good moment to capture.”
A sad smile crosses his face, and it’s then that I notice a small circular scar on his neck close to where one would find a pulse. His skin, tanner than mine, is puckered and whiter there. It makes me think of the one that’ll be left behind once my arm heals.
He lifts his hands and plops them down on his brown slacks. It startles me, pulling my attention away from the blemish on his skin. Then, he walks over to his chair and holds a hand out for me, silently asking that I have a seat on his green couch. I comply. It’s what I’m here for, after all.
“I have something I’d like to try during today’s appointment, so long as you feel up to it.”
“Oh,” is all that tumbles from my mouth as I drop to a cushion and clutch my messenger bag on my lap. It’s a lifeline, an object that existed before my accident.
The warmth in his voice grows legs and comes to sit next to me when he says, “Think you can give me your undivided attention for the better part of an hour, Miss Prescott?”
All I do is nod, a surprising alchemy curling around the edges of my heart—because the person I’d love to hear that from is miles away. But even if he were right in front of me, I know I wouldn’t sense the relief and peace that washes over me when Dr. Cole gives me a reassuring chin dip and tells me I can trust him.
“Whatever you do,don’t open your eyes.”
“Okay,” I breathe out, unsure of Dr. Cole’s techniques. The sofa cushions are soft below my body as I lie with my head just below the armrest. My body is parallel to the floor, this pieceof furniture existing in the space between. “Are you sure this narrative thing is going to help?”
“There’s a very large possibility that it’ll help you connect the dots in your memory and fill in those blind spots from the brain injury. If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too. There’s nothing wrong with you if nothing comes to the forefront of your mind.”
I swallow hard, already hating the way my skin heats. Whenever I sit and think about what happened for too long, this clamminess takes over my entire body and I can’t seem to focus straight. “Is it really necessary? Dr. Miso said it’s possible that with more time everything will come back to me. That I don’t need to do anything specific for that to happen.”
“Remembering isn’t just about finding those missing puzzle pieces. It’s also about understanding how certain moments of that day make you feel. Having the ability to reflect on that and process it is important, Emory.”
“I don’t see how,” I mutter, my eyes trained on the backs of my eyelids as my sweat-soaked hands rest on my stomach.
“It’s the equivalent of shoving things down and not addressing them. When people do that, it tends to explode out of them later, usually during a stressful time or when emotions are already heightened. The goal is to avoid that, to recognize what we feel, and to understand it in a way that if it poses a problem, we can come up with a solution that's practical and healthy.”
I open my eyes and shift my head, looking at his profile. He’s so relaxed in that chair of his while I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. Going back there, even in just my mind, spikes my heart rate to the equivalent of a cardio workout. “I know what I feel,” I say, “and what I’m feeling right now is that I don’t want to do this.”
Don’t make me.
He drops his ankle and leans forward, his elbows propped on his knees while his clasped hands rest in front of them. Hisbrows push together as he looks at me and says, “You’re capable of difficult things, Emory. And you deserve the healing that will come during our time together.”
I nibble at the corner of my lip, hating that my gut tells me he’s right. I do deserve all of that, and more. “What if I panic? What if I start to feel weird. What if… ”
