22. Greer
Greer
Habits form anywhere between eighteen and two hundred and fifty-four days of repeated behaviour.
Beckett Davis becomes one in significantly less time than that.
As far as habits go, it could be worse.
It’s not a habit that would kill most people, but I do worry it might kill me.
Not the sex.
It’s the way he smiles. How his laugh strolls across my spine before wrapping around me and clasping itself in the centre of my chest. How the dimple in his left cheek scores, and I think each time it does, it carves another scar on the left side of my ribs to match the one on the right.
Like it might take another organ from me—one that lives just above in my chest, right behind and slightly to the left of my sternum.
I left his house that night and didn’t think I’d end up back there.
But I did.
And all it took was him sending me a few facts about the French Revolution he thought I’d find interesting.
Somehow, that had my brain shutting up, lulling it into a false sense of security. Because what was that, if not friendly? It’s not like he’s been waxing poetic about his undying love for me. His body likes mine and my body likes his. A mutually beneficial arrangement that keeps my heart in its cage but feels more than good for everyone involved. Just sex.
But he might need to work on his definition of interesting—I’ve heard about Napoleon’s alleged intense dislike of cats, that he was apparently afraid of open doors, and about his unrivalled sense of smell.
Those things had me back at his house. On his couch. In his bed. Even sitting at his island in one of his sweaters while he made me what he swore was a nutritious, post-sex meal.
He wasn’t wrong. It covered all the bases—lean protein, complex carbs, and vegetables.
But it turns out he’s not as lackadaisical as he might have you believe. He’s serious about what he puts into his body during the season, and there wasn’t much in the way of seasoning.
Earlier, he told me about the temperature Napoleon liked his bath.
Beckett swears all this knowledge is going to be a hit with my patients.
I test it out on Rav first.
“Did you know that Napoleon loved a scalding-hot bath?”
One eyebrow kicks up and amusement glints in his eyes. It echoes in his voice, too. “No, I can’t say I did. Where’d you learn that?”
I wave a hand in the air. “I happen to know an expert on the French Revolution. Fascinating stuff.”
Rav leans back, resting his feet on the coffee table between us. “How’s your anxiety been? Any recent panic attacks?”
“Fine.” It’s not a lie.
I haven’t worn the earmuffs since the game, but sometimes, I feel like maybe I never took them off. Nothing sounds as sharp or as jarring.
I think a lot of things in my life have dulled to the same quiet, pleasant murmur.
If my life were one of the books I read, it would be explained by the presence of Beckett, this person made just for me by whatever benevolent gods ruled the sky.
But here, in this life, it’s just science. I’m having more orgasms. That equals more endorphins. Serotonin, dopamine. All the things that calm my brain.
My heart beats a bit funny at the thought—and it whispers, Liar.
“I’ve noticed something.” Rav props his head up on his hand, elbow digging into the arm of the leather couch. “The closer we’ve gotten to the end of your fellowship, the more closed off you’ve gotten. You were close to an open book when we started seeing one another.”
“I’m not sure anyone in my life would have defined me as an open book, Rav,” I answer truthfully.
I’m not an intentionally closed-off person. I don’t always mean to lie.
I think there are things I would like to share. But there’s this weird code we learned when we were kids. I’m not sure where we picked it up because our mother wasn’t around to enforce it, but even as children, we kept our father’s secrets.
You don’t tell your friends on the playground your father drinks too much. That he’s not violent, but he can be unpleasant and just not a real dad. That you tuck yourself in because he needs bourbon more than he needs you. You certainly don’t tell anyone that he drives you around like that and one time, he drove you off a bridge and you had to give him a part of your liver as a result because his wasn’t healing properly and it was going to kill him.
I’m not even sure why it was a secret, but it was. I don’t remember being particularly scared someone was going to come take us away. Those were just the confines of the cage we lived in.
The irony is that it is sort of a tenet of sobriety. Sobriety isn’t yours to share.
Somewhere along the way, Stella shed the shackles clamping her mouth closed, and I think maybe during the car accident—the water rusted mine shut.
It took me all of college and too many bottles of wine to finally tell Willa and Kate.
Rav nods thoughtfully, before conceding, “An open book with me, then. I didn’t know you before, but I’d wager your feelings of resentment about your donation have grown as your fellowship has progressed. How do you think you ended up here?”
“We were in the car and then we weren’t and then I was short part of my liver and then I was in college and then I was in med school. I blinked and it was residency, and I took one step and here I was. Taking from people.”
“You don’t take from people,” Rav interjects. You’d think he’d be tired of it by now—Willa said my whole “live life for me” was a diatribe, but this is probably the only sermon I make.
“Someone took from me.” My voice fractures when I say it; it cracks my scar open too, revealing all that empty space in me, and I think little me peeks around the corner from wherever it is she hides in there, and she wonders where all the pieces of her have gone.
With an air of maddening patience, he shifts forward. “You gave your consent, Greer.”
“I was eighteen.” A tear escapes, tracking a path down my cheek.
“Have you ever told your father or your sister this?”
“How would you suggest I do that?” I choke a laugh and raise my hands. “Hey, Stella, Dad, I know I gave you my liver so we could try to be a family, and I did it without knowing if you’d stay sober, so thanks for doing that. But I think I regret it?”
“He stopped drinking, Greer. Do you think maybe that had anything to do with what you gave?”
I inhale and narrow my eyes. “No. Addiction doesn’t work that way, and you know it. No one will get sober for anyone but themselves. And I don’t say that with judgement. It’s one person versus a disease we still don’t understand. He did it for himself, and I am thankful he did. It would have been rather unfortunate if he killed my liver, too.”
Rav says nothing, but today, it all feels so heavy in my chest, my scar twinges, and he wins. The edges of my vision blur, and I don’t bother to wipe at my eyes. “I thought that maybe—I don’t know. That it would make me better at this. More understanding. Give me unique compassion in a system that’s meant to beat it out of us.”
“If you could pick a different specialty, a different residency, would you? What would you pick?”
Blinking, I open my mouth and I’m about to tell him I’m not sure. But I think, despite it all, I am sure. I think of Theo. I think of Jer. I think of the people who died and breathed life into someone else. I press down on my rib cage and remember that it is a beautiful thing. I just wish it looked different. “I’d invent a specialty where I grew livers and pancreases and kidneys on trees and plucked them off for my patients instead of cutting someone else open.”
“There’s always regenerative medicine.” The corners of Rav’s eyes crinkle with a smile. “You could do research.”
“Maybe,” I say softly, offering him a tentative smile, watered by the tears staining my cheeks.
He sits up, swinging his feet off the coffee table. “Are you still seeing the football player?”
I purse my lips, those lines and boundaries and the bars making up the cage of my heart darken. “It’s just sex. Surely, I don’t have to explain base physical needs to you?”
“Can I offer one more thought before we’re done for the day?” He pauses, but he’s not waiting for permission. “Your mother left, and though that had to do with your father, I’m sure there’s a subconscious part of you that told yourself there was something you could have done differently. That if you just gave more, it would have been enough for her. And then you did give more. You gave a piece of yourself away, and instead of acknowledging that it was a very painful thing you shouldn’t have had to do, you’ve spun this tale about never really living for yourself and being unable to draw lines and boundaries. That if you can just be enough for you—you’ll be enough for everyone.”
Rav pauses and he says this thing I sort of wish he did ask permission to tell me because I’m not sure I’m ready to hear it.
“You don’t have to be alone to be enough.”