This was wrong.
It was so wrong on so many levels.
How could something that felt so good in the moment feel so awful after it ended?
All I knew was one moment I was thoroughly enjoying myself for the first time in years, and the next, this strong wave of guilt and remorse came over me. It wrapped around my neck like a noose, strangling my very essence.
But it wasn’t Samir’s fault. It was never Samir’s fault. It was mine and mine alone. Because I was broken.
I was so completely and utterly broken it wasn’t even funny or cute anymore. It was frustrating. It was infuriating. It was gross.
What business did I have running around with a charming kind man and giving him false hope when I was so broken I might never be fixed?
So I hid. I ran. I shied away. What else could I do? How could I explain the mess in my head?
Of course I hid away. I went back to work. Buried myself in my routine. Buried myself in the past I thought I could outrun. Put myself back to square one because that’s where I deserved to be. That way I didn’t hurt people. That way I didn’t hurt myself.
It was surprising how easily I managed to slip back to old habits. Surprising and depressing. I worked on Sunday, and I worked on Monday too even though I wasn’t supposed to.
And yet the more I worked, the more I thought about him. About Samir and me. Together. In bed. Our limbs tangled under sheets. Our lips knotted in a passionate kiss. Our fingers interlocked as if we were meant to be one. It was impossible to stop running through the events of last week in my mind over and over again. It was impossible to stop picturing us in unison. To stop fantasizing about who we were that night in Boston and who we could be forever more.
And somehow, the shame and guilt and remorse turned into want and need. But I had no right to feel that way. I had no right to mess Samir about like that when it was clear I was unwell. That I shouldn’t be anywhere near other people for fear of poisoning them with my toxicity.
When Monday turned to Tuesday, and I tried to clock back in to work, Grayson, my battalion chief, pulled me aside and into his office.
“You can’t stay, Williams,” he said.
“Oh, but I can. I don’t mind. I’m fi?—”
Grayson glared at me and huffed.
“Cole, I don’t give a shit if you can or if you want to. I’m telling you to go home.”
“Chief, with all due respect, I want to stay. I need to.”
Grayson stood up and raised his arm, slamming it to my shoulder, and gave me a good shake.
“I don’t know what’s going on with you, Williams, but pull yourself together. You’ve got a kid. Do you really want her to grow up without you?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he glared at me even more intensely, and I shut up.
“Go home. Sleep. Wake up tomorrow and try again,” he said.
I laughed.
As if it was that easy. Nothing about me and my life was easy. I was a walking, breathing, sometimes talking disaster.
“I can’t, chief. I… I need to work. I need to forget, to…”
Grayson pressed his lips together and squeezed my shoulder again.
“Work won’t solve your problems, Cole. Trust me. I would know. Now go home. You know it’s against protocol to work more than one shift, but I turned a blind eye yesterday. I won’t let you work a third shift in a row.”
I started to protest, but Grayson raised his voice and shut me up.
“That’s an order. I can’t have you out in the field collapsing from exhaustion and putting yourself and others at risk in the middle of an emergency. Now go. Get before I call to tell on you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
