Chapter 9 #2
“Like I said when you were here last week, this space is as much yours as it is mine. I want all of my patients to feel comfortable when they’re here.” I shrug my shoulders trying to play it cool.
“How’d you know I’d be back?” His deep brown eyes catch the light when he squints at me again and I can’t help but smile wider.
“I didn’t know you were coming back. But I hoped you would,” I reply honestly.
After he left last week, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. From the moment he stepped into my office I knew he had something he was carrying with him. And while I know it isn’t my job to be a savior, I still want to help the people who come to see me as much as I can.
Something shifts in the way he’s looking at me and his smile turns from appreciative to almost alluring.
“Are you saying you were hoping to see me again, doc?”
The way his voice tips up leads me to believe he’s trying to flirt with me. I can’t stop the chuckle that slips out before awkwardly adjusting my glasses even though they don’t need adjusting.
“I’m saying I was hopeful you’d come back and be more willing to talk about why you were sent to me in the first place,” I answer evenly.
“Ahh, yes, talking.” He leans into the word and presses his lips into a tight line. Bringing the coffee cup to his mouth, he takes a long pull and stares at the floor. After a long beat of silence, I try a question.
“You said you had a fight, out in the hall. With someone named Carter. Is that a friend of yours?” My pen is poised and at the ready as I watch his body language to pick up on any silent signals he might communicate without speaking.
“He’s my brother—well, foster brother,” he corrects quickly and I make a note of the relationship while also wondering more about his upbringing. “He’s also one of my company members. He was a paramedic at first but decided it wasn’t for him and became a fireman. We both work at Firehouse Nine.”
I nod my head in response but don’t say anything else. He stares at me intently for a moment before it dawns on him that I’m waiting for him to continue.
“So anyway, we had a fight the other day and his words are just sticking with me I guess. I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks to the floor again.
“What was the fight about?” I ask, hoping I’m not pushing him too quickly.
“He told me I was acting like I don’t care about the company anymore. That I’m lost in my head and don’t seem like I’m interested in anything anymore.”
“Do you think that’s true?”
“Of course not,” he answers sharply. His shoulders sag in defeat as he rubs half his face with a calloused hand. “He said that our family is worried about me. I guess they said something to him at family breakfast last weekend.”
I scribble ‘Close with family. Foster brother. Weekly family breakfast?’ onto my notepad before looking at him.
“Clearly it bothers you that they’re talking about you,” I offer.
“Well, yeah, do you want your family talking about you behind your back?” he scoffs.
I can’t stop myself from laughing. “I have three parents and am an only child. My family is always talking about me behind my back.”
This gets him to scrunch his face up in confusion. “How does someone have three parents?”
“Well, there’s plenty of ways to have three parents but in my case, I have a mom, a dad, and a George. The joys of your father realizing he’s gay later in life and finding love again when you’re an adult,” I hum with a hint of humor in my voice.
His eyebrows lift for his hairline. “Oh. And your mom and him are still tight?”
“The three of them are like the Three Musketeers. They have breakfast together every Monday and conference call me in while I walk to work.” I laugh.
“That’s pretty fucking cool,” he remarks with a soft nod.
“They are very fucking cool,” I reply, feeling grateful for the humans I call family. “Family seems like a pretty big deal to you.”
“My family is everything to me. They’re the only thing more important to me above the men and women I work with.” His voice is soft while he speaks and his eyes are fixated on the ground like he’s lost in a memory.
“That’s probably why having someone question that importance was so painful,” I offer. He glances up at me for a moment before dropping his eyes back to the floor.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s never easy feeling like we’re letting the people we love down,” I speak again.
“I never said I was letting anyone down,” he says defensively.
“Not out loud you didn’t,” I retort.
We hold one another’s gaze for a moment.
Looking at him, I can see the storms raging behind his irises and wish nothing more than to be able to help bring him to shore.
I’ve seen this look before in other patients.
A mix of sadness, shame, and more than anything else, guilt.
And I can already tell that Miles is the type of person to think he’s strong enough to bear the weight of it all on his own when in reality, it’s eating him from the inside out.
“You have to learn to let other people in, especially people who love you and want to help,” I instruct, thinking about his family and other company members. “You have people in your life that want you to be happy and they see that you aren’t allowing yourself that.”
“How do you know what I am and am not doing?” he questions with a haughty tone.
“Call it a heightened sense of observation,” I say with a tip of my brow.
“Until you’re willing to let people help—to let people in—you’ll never be able to get past whatever you’re carrying with you.
Life doesn’t magically get better the more you shove down whatever shit you have inside of you, Miles, that’s not how it works. ”
He seems to mull over what I’ve said to him. Giving me a once over, he looks as if he’s going to say something but instead, chooses to stand from the couch.
“Thank you for being willing to see me so early in the morning. Sorry for showing up without calling. And for letting myself in.”
I guess our impromptu session is over. “My door is always open.”
I follow him out into the lobby where he throws away the now empty coffee cup.
“Here, take this,” I say, extending him a card with my number on it.
I only offer it to clients who seem to need additional support and he seems like the perfect candidate.
“If you ever need another early morning session, give me a call. I’ll give you the code to get in so you don’t have to pick the lock next time. ”
He chuckles at the card before taking it and tucking it into his back pocket. “I’ll keep that in mind, doc. Thanks again.”
“Anytime, I’m always here if you need anything.”
We wave goodbye but as he starts down the hall, I pop my head out and call out.
“Hey, Miles?”
He turns and looks over his broad shoulders at me. “Yeah, doc?”
“If you ever need to talk, I’m here. I hope you know I mean that.”
A boyish smile spreads across his face and I feel my heart do a somersault.
“I’ll keep that in mind. You have a good day now.”
Then he turns and heads down the hall once more and before long, he’s gone completely.