She offers a small nod, and her shoulders relax a little bit. Almost like she’s glad I don’t confirm her worries. The thing is, I’m good at my job, at talking to people who feel like they’ve been beaten down by life’s cruel events.
“You’re not crazy,” I tell her next, watching as her focus snaps up to my gaze again. A thrill washes over my skin. This is clearly our first encounter, but there’s something about the way she looks at me that reminds me how hard it is to find a real connection with someone that isn’t shallow or materialistic.
I don’t know where the thought comes from, or why it pushes in, but I swat it away just as quickly, knowing damn well that what happens between Emory and me must stay professional. I’ve never steered into boundaryless territory with any of my patients, and I’m not going to start now.
While I can admit she has this ethereal beauty and realness to her, our counseling sessions are as far as our interactions will go.
“You’re the first person to say that to me,” she murmurs. “But I’m not sure that matters much. I can tell when someone looks at me whether they believe that to be true or not.”
“Traumatic moments hold the possibility of altering the way we operate and think, but we also have the choice to work through that so it doesn’t impact us on a large enough scale that it hinders our ability to live and heal. Do you want that, Emory? Do you want to move past this?”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to stay stuck in whateverthisis.”
“Did you feelthisbefore your accident?”
Despite me telling her that she hasn’t lost her mind, I need to figure out if she actually did go out there to hurt herself. I need to break down the corners of her mind gently enough that she lets me in and can reaffirm that it was a total accident.
She doesn’t say anything for a minute, and in the silence, my stomach drops multiple levels. Mostly because I don’t want this for her. I never want it for anyone who I help. But life is greedy in the way that it seeks out victims. There’s not a damn soul in the world who possesses a golden ticket that lets them out scot-free.
“Emory, if you did?—”
“I did and I didn’t,” she says, stopping my stomach's freefall.
“Do you want to tell me what that means?”
She blows out a huff of air. “Not really.”
“We have to be able to talk to each other, to trust that the other will listen, for this to work,” I tell her, hoping she understands that this is a two-way street.
Again, she doesn’t answer.
“Your doctor talked to you about the extent of your injuries, yes?”
She nods and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Pneumonia, a brain injury—which is probably responsible for my memory being patchy—a concussion, the explanation for the ache in my head currently, and this glorious trophy.” She points to the white bandage on the outside of her arm that spans from her shoulder down to her elbow, medical tape keeping it fastened in place.
My eyes skim down the material. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious about what it looks like underneath. Not because I’m morbid and into that kind of thing, but because there’s this underlying curiosity that plagues me.
Does her scar look as mangled as mine?
“Tell me more about what you do remember,” I say seconds later, pulling myself back from that dreadful cliff of thoughts. I’ve done the work to move past what happened to me, but the mind is a powerful thing—if you don’t keep it in line, it’ll go off on its own and lead a person to ruins.
Even if that person is trained in how the brain processes emotions and trauma.
When her bottom lip quivers, I get this nagging feeling that tries to push me out of my chair. It tells me to stand and move closer to her, to offer an embrace as a means of helping her through this moment.
I keep my ass glued to the chair, ignoring the strange pull she seems to have on me. This shouldn’t be happening after meeting someone for the first time.
Get it the fuck together, Dawson. She’s your patient. And it doesn’t matter what her scar looks like.
I can’t make sense of why the hell this is happening. Why I’m drawn to these minute details of her. Maybe because I see the same shadows that lurked in my eyes in hers.
“The water,” she says quietly. “I remember the water and how it surrounded me, covered me… I didn’t see it coming,” she admits, swiping a tear off her cheek that slowly slides down the apple of it. I know right then and there that she never tried to take her own life.
There’s no fucking possibility. Not with the way her face shatters into a million broken pieces as a quiet sob rushes out of her. A sob that wracks my ribs even though it doesn’t live inside of me.
I grab a box of tissues from the table beside me and stretch them across to her. She’s quick to take them, blowing her nose into one after she rids her skin of wetness.
“Whether the other moments of that day come back to me or not, I know I’ll never forget the helplessness that filled my entire body when I sank underneath the current. It was like the ocean was holding me down. Like I wasn’t allowed to move unless it told me to.”
