“Are you going to let them X-ray you this time?” She questions.
“Do you know how expensive that’ll be? No.” I shake my head. “It’s not my muscles, Day, I’m healthy as ever. That’s exactly what he’s going to tell us today.”
“Okay,” she concedes. “Then therapy.”
“I’m not having this conversation again,” I shut her down as firmly as I can. A few people she knows shuffle by, and she entertains them with small talk for a moment before turning cold again. It’s a version of Sunday we rarely see.All work, no play, Day.
“You never want to, but it’s clearly the solution. You have to talk to someone about what’s going on up there, to fix that.” She points at my head, then my shaking hands.
“The therapist is as useless as the X-ray.”
Sunday huffs, completely unimpressed by my answer.
“You know what.” She laughs under her breath. “I have too much work to do to argue with this idiot. Just get a scan, please.”
“Sure Day.” I agree, but when the doctor asks, I’ll say no. When she wanders away, Boone turns his head to me and sighs.
“You’re not gonna get the stuff, are you?” He groans when I shake my head.
The doctor tells us exactly what I expect: there’s no apparent damage, and I’m in good physical shape, and then he proposes running a few tests. I politely decline them all.
“One of these days, Sunday is going to drug you, and you’re going to wake up in a fucking care home for the mentally unstable,” Boone grunts as we wander back to the truck.
“Better than her picking at shit she can’t fix with stubborn willpower.” I climb in and slam the door as he follows.
“You know she learned that from you?” Boone turns to me in his seat. “She’s just trying to look out for you, the way you looked out for us.”
“I don’t need you guys to do that,” I tell him.
“Hey,” he clips, and his voice is more serious than before, so I give him the proper attention before turning the engine on. “I’m your brother, and being born three minutes ahead of me isn’t an argument you can use here. Let me help.”
I stare at him, the scruff, the chaos, the gentle nature that rolls off him, and my brain just screams to keep him out of harm's way. To keep him at arm's length from whatever the fuck is stirring around in my brain. I’ve leaned on them enough; it’s my shift to protect.
“I just need to get through these couple of weeks, and it’ll be fine,” I tell him, and I know he’s not buying it because his lips twitch with the urge to fight it.
“Eventually, something is going to give, Bri,” he says quietly. “It’s easy to put out a small fire, but whatever you got going on, it’s bigger than that, and if you snap— None of us is equipped to put out a wildfire.”
“I hear you.”
“I don’t think you do,” he snorts, “but I said my piece. Can we pick Daisy up early and get tacos?”
I nod and start the engine. “Yeah, we can do that.”
The school is quiet when we arrive, and Boone stays in the truck as I wander through to the office. The girl at the desk is sweet and figures out what class Daisy is in, calling down to the room so I can go get her. I snake up through the hallways to the second-floor science lab to find her causing trouble with Lori. When she sees me at the door, she smiles, actually smiles. It’s big and genuine, full of excitement for her jailbreak as she collects her bag and shuffles from the class.
“Uncle B wants tacos,” I tell her as I shut the door and hold my hand out for her backpack.
“Mom’s going to flip if I skip school for that,” she laughs, handing it over.
“I’m not scared of your mother,” I groan and adjust the small bag on my shoulder. “What is in this thing?” I scowl at the weight.
“Rocks,” she declares with a straight face. “I just need to grab something,” she says to me and picks up her pace down the hall to a room at the end of the hall. The door is covered in crap, and the room is practically completely dark, but Daisy disappears inside, and I stand in the doorway to sneak a peek at what’s beyond the frame.
“Brighton?” Rhea’s voice is sharp, lower than normal, and confused.
I clear my throat. “I didn’t realize…”
The sign on the door is covered in crap, but it still reads ART ROOM in bold letters that have been painted over. I turn to look at her as she approaches from behind her desk in a long dark skirt, a white t-shirt, and some sort of harness thing that buckles across her stomach. Her hair is down today, curled around her face in all different directions. It’s the softest I’ve ever seen her, and it’s distracting.
