23. Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
Colter
“W hat does it feel like?”
Annaliese trails her fingers over the scarred flesh of my inner arm. She traces each line from top to bottom, zigzagging along each slash from beginning to end. She’s still naked, lying on her stomach with her elbows propped, and it’s hard to focus on anything when her breasts are pressed against my bedding.
“What does it feel like to hurt yourself?” I figured she saw my scars at some point. Even if they are faded after all these years, in the right light or right position they are easily spotted. When I first became a surgeon, I made sure to wear compression sleeves or a long-sleeved jacket until I’d gown up for the OR, but the older I got, the more I realized I truly don’t give a shit what people would think once they saw.
She nods slow, exaggerated movements,her head bobbing with the tracing of the lines.
I stretch out on my back, keeping my right arm under Annaliese and tucking my left hand behind my head. The sheets pool to my waist, and I stare at the ceiling fan, watching the slow spin of the blades as I try to bring back those memories from decades ago when I was an angry teenager with not much to give.
“You don’t have to talk about it, if it’s too much.”
Her voice fills the void between us, and I realize I’ve likely been daydreaming long enough she took my silence as avoidance.
“No, I’ll talk about it. I’m trying to think, actually. It was a long time ago, and even though I remember it, I don’t exactly remember it, if that makes sense.”
I turn to watch her again, and she nods, pausing her tracing to lean down and plant a soft kiss to my skin. “I’m sorry you were that sad,” she whispers when she pulls away.
Me too. I spent so long feeling sorry for myself instead of doing something to change my life. Sometimes I still kick myself about it. Wishing I had snapped out of my depression enough to seek help so I didn’t piss away so many years doing nothing.
“I remember feeling like I had no other option. And I remember feeling so numb inside. It sounds cliche, referring to myself as numb, but that’s the best way to put it.” I just wanted to feel something, anything , and if pain was the way to get myself to feel it, that’s what I did. “I don’t know what it feels like for everyone, but for me it was like my head was stuck in a dense fog. A permanent dark cloud living inside my brain. It’s like the cloud stopped me from being able to think, to rationalize, to say hey, what you’re doing to yourself is pretty awful. There were times I wanted to stop, but it was like I couldn’t break through the fog enough to get myself to stop. It was truly a feeling of being trapped in my own mind.”
“How did you get better?”
“It took a lot of time and finding the right combination of medications to finally get myself in shape.” I remember when I started the medication I’m on now, and that cloud went away. It was the first time I could have rational thoughts. The first time I could talk myself out of a spiral. “That, plus therapy, exercise, all that. But the right medication was a game changer.”
People often look at mental illness as something that should be able to be cured without medications, or something to be ashamed about. But I think of it like I think of any physical ailment. If you need medications to lower your blood pressure, then take them. No one would see it as a weakness. If you need one pill a day to be a functioning member of society, then take it.
She kisses my wrist again and goosebumps instantly break out where her lips touch. “When did it start?” Her voice is soft and a little hesitant, like she is nervous to ask me these questions.
“I always felt like I was born sad. I’m an only child; my dad was a useless drunk. He was abusive, cruel, a waste of air, and I’m sure that was the start of my issues.”
“And your mom?”
“My mom was sick, both mentally and physically.” I didn’t quite understand her until I was older and could see that the way my dad treated me was likely the way he had treated her as well. She tried to protect me the best she could, but she lived in a state of constant fear.
“Where’s your dad now?”
“Prison. I think. Maybe he’s out by now. Don’t know, don’t care.”
“That doesn’t scare you? Knowing that he could be out roaming the streets. That you could run into him at any corner?”
I scoff. “Not one bit. I’d fucking dare him to come find me. I’d love a reason to teach him a lesson.”
Annaliese nods in agreement, kissing my wrist once more before inching closer so she can curl herself into my side. Her head rests on my pillow, and I welcome her touch, pulling her closer as she nuzzles in.
“And your mom? Where is she now?”
“My mom died when I was fourteen.”
She snaps up to a seated position, the sheets pooling to her waist and I reach a hand up to run a palm over her stomach. My cock starts to harden under the sheets, conversation be damned, but Annaliese isn’t having it. She grabs my hand and holds it between the two of hers. “I’m sorry you lost her so young, Colt.” She brings my hand to her mouth to plant a kiss on my palm. “What happened then? You weren’t stuck with your awful dad, were you?”
“No, he was in prison by then. Once I went through puberty and hit my growth spurt, I was bigger than him and able to fight back. It all came to a head maybe a year before my mom passed and he finally got arrested. But by then my mom was sick–kidney failure. She was on dialysis and on the transplant list but got too sick to tolerate treatments. She went on hospice and passed a few days later.”
“Colt…” She sniffles as she lies down next to me and tangles her legs with mine. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t even imagine losing a parent like that.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “As weird as it sounds it really is okay.” It’s been twenty-eight years since she passed away. I’ve already gone through every stage of grief one could imagine, sometimes lingering in certain stages for years. I’ve already questioned why shit had to happen to me, and I’ve already accepted that the way my dad chose to treat me was on him. Everyone loses a parent at some stage in their life. Yes, I was younger than most, but I don’t think it would have made it any easier getting to know her for my entire life only to lose her at the end.
“I went to live with my mom’s cousin after that. It was a rough transition going from living with my mom in my childhood home to moving out of the city and into the trailer parks with him.”
“Was he good to you?”
“He really was. He was only in his twenties and not ready to grow up at all, but he didn’t hesitate to take in a grieving teenager. He worked a grueling manual labor job, dabbled in drugs and drank a bit himself, but he was one of the nicest people I have ever met.”
Not many twenty-somethings would take in a teenager when they could barely afford rent for their shitty trailer. He made sure I’d get up in time for school. He’d truck me back and forth from baseball practice. He’d even sit at the kitchen table drinking cheap beer and quizzing me on my science homework. “I would be nothing without him.”
“I’d like to meet him sometime.”
I huff out an awkward laugh then roll on my side to face Annaliese. I tuck one hand under my pillow to mirror her position, the other going to rest on her hip to ground her. “He passed away when I was in med school.”
Her jaw drops, and tears pool in her eyes. I squeeze her hip, wanting to keep her in the moment. “It’s okay,” I tell her again. “ I’m okay.”
“My goodness,” she whispers through a chuckle and reaches up to swipe the tears that threaten to fall. “Like, could anything else have happened to you? Your upbringing rivaled a terrible soap opera. You have gone through more in the first twenty years of life than most will ever experience in a lifetime.”
I chuckle at her watery smile, reaching a hand up to use my thumb to swipe away a lone tear. “Maybe it was pretty rough to start with, but I feel lucky to be where I am today.”
“What happened to your cousin? How’d he die?”
“Cirrhosis.” Apparently he had a rare genetic condition that put him more at risk for developing liver failure, and his nightly cocktail of weed mixed with a six-pack of the cheapest beer man could make caught up to him.
“He was in that gray area. He made too much money to qualify for state aid, but he didn’t make enough to be able to have quality health insurance. He put off going to a doctor for so long because he couldn’t afford it, and by the time he did, there wasn’t much he could do. If there was a free clinic near us, some judgement-free zone where he could have gone and been checked out without getting a bill for thousands of dollars, I could have maybe convinced him to go.”
Realization crosses her face. “That’s why you help out Ryan and Lainey.”
I pull her into my arms, and she comes willingly. Her cheek rests against my chest, and I hold her like that, letting the anxiety fizzle a little. I’ve never opened up to anyone about my upbringing. The most I’ve ever told Richard is that my parents divorced and my mom died. He didn’t need to know my dad landed himself in prison, and he didn’t need to know I was raised in one of the sketchiest neighborhoods in the city with access to drugs on a daily basis. But I can tell Annaliese anything. And as much as I am okay with my past, I can feel the faint prickles in the back of my throat threatening to grow.
“My cousin had a drug and alcohol problem, sure. But he was a good guy. He deserved better than that.”
She wraps her arms around my waist, gently squeezing to accentuate her point. “I believe you. Anyone that’d give up their freedom to raise a teenager is a good person in my book. And I think you turned out just fine. But I’m still so sorry that it happened to you.” Her voice fades with her last sentence, and I know she’s getting in her head about this, likely imagining me as a sad kid with so much emotional pain brewing inside that I did unspeakable things to myself.
“Is that why you became a surgeon?” she asks. “Because of what you saw your family go through?”
I pull her tighter to me and rest my chin on her head. She’s asked me this question quite a few times since we met. A look of hope in her eyes each and every time.
“To tell you the truth…” I pause, feeling her ears perk up. “I went into the field hoping some day I’d befriend the Chief of Surgery, and that he’d have a super hot daughter that I could—” I grunt when Annaliese squeezes my sides, trying to climb on top of me to tickle but I easily hold her arms back. “Seriously,” I grunt, grasping her hands to stop her attack. “You should see her. She’s so hot, so smart, so—”
“I’m trying to be serious, you jerk!” she squeals playfully as I hold both of her hands with one of mine, using my free one to tickle her sides, eventually giving up and crawling into my arms. We lie in silence for a minute, and I stroke the long path from her hip up to her shoulder.
“Do you remember when you asked me if I believe in silver linings? When you told me about Asha?”
She nods against my bare chest.
I hadn’t thought much about silver linings before. I thought that any success I had was because I made it happen for myself. My cousin passed when I was nearing the end of med school, and I met Richard the year after. At the time, I thought of him as a father figure. He taught me things a dad should have taught his son. We went on weekend trips together. Hell, we’ve even picked up women together, but Annaliese doesn’t need to know that.
“I hadn’t ever believed in silver linings before. It seemed like some weird hippie voodoo something-or-other.”
She playfully squeezes me, and I grip her arms to hold her back from tickling me.
“Just listen before you attack,” I tease, using my grip on her arms to pull her on top of me. She lies on me, chest to chest, sweeping her long dark hair over the opposite shoulder so she can lay her head next to mine.
“Maybe everything I went through was meant to happen, because it brought me to this moment right here. With you.”
Her body tenses a little, and she adjusts her head. When she doesn’t run away screaming, I continue, “If I hadn’t been so alone prior to starting my residency, maybe meeting your dad wouldn’t have had the impact on me that it did. If I wasn’t as close to him, he likely wouldn’t have asked me to mentor you when you came back for your residency. We wouldn’t have ever met, and I wouldn’t get to be lucky enough to be lying here with you tonight, with your hot little body tempting me even though I’m an old man and you have successfully worn me out.” I’d do it all again. I’d go through every shitty moment with my dad, I’d watch my cousin die a slow death all over again if it meant I’d get to meet Annaliese.
She chuckles a little, but keeps her body still and her head tucked against mine. It isn’t until I feel the trickle of tears against my neck that I realize she’s crying.
“Annie?”
I force her to roll to the side, and I move out from under her, lying her on her back so I can hover over her.
I swipe her thick curls away from her face, smoothing them back and over her forehead while I give her a moment to talk.
She stares at the ceiling behind me, refusing to meet my gaze, and I wonder if maybe I said too much. Leave it to me to fall head over heels for a woman and confess shit that should wait until we’ve at least had a proper first date.
“Does that freak you out?”
“No,” she croaks, sniffling as she does. “No, that’s…” She blows out a heavy breath, and then her chocolate eyes finally fall to mine. “I have already thought the same thing. I was so sad when my grant fell through. When the director found me on the ship and said I’d have to fly back to the States, it was like a kick in the gut.”
I grimace a little, knowing the reasoning behind her grant falling through, and that I can’t continue to keep that secret from her.
“I was pissed at the world. Pissed at my dad for assigning me to you like I was a child. For not treating me like any other resident would have been treated.”
She finally meets my gaze and reaches her hands up to grip my face. She wiggles her legs out from under me to wrap them around my hips. My cock comes to life, nestling in between her legs like he’s found his favorite home.
“But then I got to know you, and it all made sense, I guess. I’m leaving in a few months—”
“I know,” I interrupt, wanting her to know that while my feelings for her are so fucking complicated, I won’t hold her back from her dreams.
“I’m leaving,” she says again. “But for the first time since I was a teenager, I’m not sure I want to leave.”
My eyes fall to hers, and another unspoken truth volleys back and forth between us. We both know what we mean to one another; we know what we have together is really something, but we both know it has to come to an end.
In a way, I think I care about her too much to even let her think of staying. If she gave up her dream to stay here and work with me, to have to suffer through the complicated and awkward relationship she has with her dad, I think she’d regret it. She might come back eventually. God, I hope she does. But if she does, it has to be on her terms. I don’t ever want her to wake up some day and wonder what she missed out on, or if her life would have been better off if she hadn’t met me.
“But we don’t need to think about that right now,” I tell her, pulling her to me to brush my lips against her neck. I tease her with soft kisses, feeling her twist her body to give me better access. Once she’s warm and wet and rocking her hips against me, I quickly slip on a condom and line myself up. As I sink into her, I wrap my arms around her and send up a silent thank-you for silver linings.