3. Hailey
“Who do you find worse, rapists or murderers?” His haunted voice grows thinner and heavier at the same time.
If he’d kicked me in the chest, it might have hurt a little less.
I breathe deeply, in through my nose and out through my mouth, quietly. So quietly. It’s my issue, not his. I mask it in the guise of thinking.
“Rapists,” I finally choke out.
“Why?”
“Their victims have to live with the damage. A murderer’s victim is dead. They don’t have to deal with anything.”
“The victim’s family does.”
“Yes, they do.” I pinch the side of my hand to keep my emotions in check. He does not know me. He does not know my past. This is not about me. “Where did you grow up?”
“New York. New York with the Guggenheim in my backyard.”
Upper East Side. Richie Rich from the get-go.
Money. It’s the root of most evil and a lot of narcissism. It can make normally shitty parents absentee in most cases. I imagine Arlo Judge as a little kid in a big empty house with no more than a butler, cook, and driver decades older than him and not giving a fuck about him unless he stirred up trouble.
Just like that, I jumped to conclusions, which isn’t like me and isn’t a good sign. I’m struggling to remain objective with this man, and I don’t know why.
“What kind of home did you live in?”
“What do you mean?”
“Apartment, condo, townhouse, cardboard box on the street? Was it quiet or loud? Was it filled with people or desolate?” I shrug. “Feel free to describe it in any terms you choose.”
“I grew up in a townhome with my parents and brother. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers lived with us until they passed when I was seven and then nine. It was pretty busy with my parents running separate businesses from home, as much as they could before video calls, my Glam and Queenie fighting, and my brother being a regular old asshole.”
There is affection in the expletive. Love in the description. More than I ever expected.
“Brother older or younger?”
“Five years older.”
“Tell me about your parents’ relationship.”
“They danced to no music, fought at full volume, and kissed too much for my liking.”
It sounded like a delight. “And with you?”
“They told me they loved me ten times a day. They attended soccer games and awards ceremonies. They gave me everything I could ever want and required respect and chores done in return.”
More than most could say.
“How did they treat your brother?”
“The same.”
“How did your parents show their affection for you?”
“The appropriate amount of snuggles and hugs, the appropriate placement for kisses.”
“What is the appropriate amount and placement?”
He banks a groan, and I fight my smirk. “You know, a kiss on the head or cheek before you leave, a hug hello when you return, no ass grabbing. A snuggle when you’re sick or it’s Saturday morning and you don’t have to get up and go. Again, no ass grabbing.”
“And your brother?”
“He didn’t grab my ass either,” he snaps. I believe him, yet there’s something here. Whether it’s the ass grabbing or the brother, I’m not sure.
“I meant, how did your parents show their affection for him?”
“Same as me. They didn’t play favorites.”
“What about your brother? How did he show his affection for you?”
“The occasional hug. The frequent toss of whatever was close by. A pillow. A ball. A piece of paper. A book. A Cheeto.”
“And your grandmothers?” My phone vibrates again. Again, I ignore it.
“Too many sloppy kisses and crushing hugs, too much talk, talk, talk, talk, but again, no ass grabbing.”
“Tell me about the first time you were in love.”
“Blakely McAllister.” He sighs, actually sighs after saying her name. It’s damn endearing. I expect to have to pull more from him, but he surprises me once again. “She had the brightest smile I’d ever seen. Even in the dead of winter, you couldn’t be gloomy with her around. And her laugh. It made everything better.”
My eyes are on the clouds in the sky and they are fucking heart-shaped puffs of white. “What was your relationship like?”
“Mild stalker and stalkee.”
My ears perk up, but there’s no possession in his tone. It’s sweet and innocent-sounding, which is a feat coming from the big man behind me. “How so?”
“I was thirteen. She was seventeen and…my brother’s girlfriend.”
“Aah.” A true-blue first and unrequited love. The worst kind.
“What happened to Blakely McAllister?”
“My brother broke her heart.” There’s something in that. His gravelly undertone borders on malice.
“A cheating scandal?”
“No.” The easy innocence is gone.
I think for a moment. “Seventeen, eighteen. Senior year. Different college plans?”
“They both planned to go to Harvard. They even planned the same campus preview day. My parents were supposed to drive them since hers were on vacation. Only she got the flu and couldn’t go.” He pauses for just a moment. “It saved her life.”
My spine turns to ice.
“The autopsy showed the driver of the rig had a massive aneurysm. He slumped onto the wheel dead and took my family with him.”
“Fucking hell.” I should have canceled when I had the chance. I’m breaking protocol left and right. I can’t react to that news. Not like that. It won’t help him.
“Yes, it was the start of fucking hell.” He grunts. “Funny enough, I got my wish.”
My blood stills in my veins, waiting for him to complete the thought. Surely, he hadn’t wanted his family to die. Right? If he had, he wouldn’t be the first. His family sounded great. A damn dream you never want to wake from, only he’d woken to a nightmare. Right?
“Blakely McAllister hugged me and kissed my cheek. Of course, that was after we sobbed together at the side of my family’s graves.”
I manage to keep my blood pumping and my mouth shut, allowing him to continue. He’s done, though. Why wouldn’t he be? He just shared his fucking trauma. And I’m not sure that’s all of it.
I’m pretty sure it’s not.
The death of your parents is a lot, but when not at the scene, when given a stable foundation, it shouldn’t make someone withdraw from physical contact.
“Did you keep in touch with Blakely McAllister?”
“We talked once a week on Sundays, even after I…” He trails off, and I don’t push. “She was the only bright part of my life for a while. The thing I clung to until she moved into her dorm at Harvard. Her calls became less regular. The hope she’d maintain slowly bled out. Then a few months into her freshman year, she died. Overdose. That’s what they said. I’m pretty sure it was a broken heart.”
Poor fucking kid. He’d lost everything and the only stable beacon in his life after extinguishing her light. “Did you withdraw because of her death?”
“No.”
My phone vibrates with an incoming call. I hadn’t realized it slid toward the front of the chair. It hits against the metal frame at the arm and creates a ruckus that jolts through me, and Mr. Judge too, I’m sure of it.
I snatch up the phone, and the noise quiets. My face burns. “I’m so sorry.”
After a stunned beat, I look at my phone, and after several more, I register the number calling. It’s the hospital. The psych ward. The suicide watch. I shouldn’t answer. I’m not going to. But Matt might need me.
“I have a patient…”
Before I can finish speaking or decide whether to answer, the call dies.
The notifications from earlier appear on the screen.
One is a text from an acquaintance who is a nurse on the floor, telling me to call her as soon as I can.
The other notification is from the app for my patients’ portal.
Matthew Banett: Patient Discharge Orders, Death
Something inside me dies too.
I gasp and cover my mouth, trapping my scream between my lips and turning into a moan.
No. No. No.
What a way to find out Matt succeeded. That he is no more. I can’t do this right now. Another patient needs me to get my ever-loving shit together. As fast as I can, I shove my emotions in a tiny box in the recesses of my mind and hold the lid down tight. The small box holds so much. I’m afraid this latest won’t fit.
I draw a shallow breath. It can’t go deep, or I’ll explode. The box will burst.
“I’m sorry. That was unprofessional.” I swat at a tear and am thankful Mr. Judge is behind me. I shove my phone under my thigh, hide any trace of it behind my trousers, and straighten.
“It’s fine. We were done anyway.”
I would look at my watch, but I don’t want to see the notifications. “We weren’t,” I insist. Whether we were out of time or not, we were in the middle of something big. His big fucking trauma.
“Then I was,” he counters.
My lips part, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I can say anything without sobbing. So I let him go. The door whispers open and, after a moment, closes with an abrupt snap.
I crumple. My hands engulf my face, and I wail. Thoughts of Matt’s handsome face and his bright and tortured eyes haunt me. Sobs burn in and out of my lungs as though they might catch fire. I cry for what seems like forever. My abs cramp, and my fingers begin to tingle.
“Fuck!” I scream for all I’m worth, thankful for soundproofing, and wish I could have it installed in my brain. Where I could turn it on with the click of a button.
Sobs pull a vacuum on my lungs. My chest feels like it may cave in on itself. If I pass out, I can at least avoid this for a little while.
“Hailey?”
My epic cries stop instantly, caught in my shock.
The heavy whispering voice is still in the room and closer than ever. He’s just over my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
I leap from my seat and rush to the window, wiping at my tears and commanding control over my sorrow as I go. My legs wobble but hold me up.
“You weren’t supposed to see that.” My shaking hands smooth down my pants. “The door opened and closed. I thought you were gone.”
“Your aunt…I was going to get her for you, but she’s not here.”
I’m nodding and not understanding anything.
Why is he still here? Why is Matt dead? Why couldn’t I save him?
I stare out at the endless sky.
Mr. Judge’s large frame fills my periphery. He stands no more than a foot away to my left. He faces the window.
“I could tell the call you got wasn’t a good one. I thought your aunt could help.”
No one can help.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminds me as if I’m the patient and he’s my therapist. It’s apt for the moment.
I swallow, knowing I shouldn’t say anything. Knowing I can corrupt his treatment more than I already have. If he knows I’ve failed one client, what would that mean for him? Plus, confiding goes beyond the realm of professionalism.
“I just lost a patient.” I choke down a sob. “My first.”
He stuffs his hand into nice slacks. “Patient or loss?”
“First patient and first patient loss.” He’s taller than me by a lot, and I’m not considered short.
“How long have you been doing this?”
I notice a cross-hatched design on the sleeve of his suit jacket before I force my eyes away and back to the sky. The sunset is just beginning to blend its colors into the clouds that are no longer heart-shaped but gray and droopy. They promise rain.
Cold. Darkness. Sorrow.
“Six years licensed with my PhD. Thirteen, if you include all the practicums and internships.”
“It’s never good to lose someone, but it seems almost inevitable in your line of work.” His words are soft.
Sure, colleagues of mine have lost patients. But I don’t specialize in suicide prevention. I’d tried to talk Matt into seeing a psychologist who does. I even set up appointments for him. Time and again, he refused to show up at a single one.
“I specialize in cognitive and behavioral therapy. In the beginning, I saw patients dealing with severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Slowly, that shifted into phobias, relationships, and sexual disorders. I’ve been lucky.”
“Or good at your job,” he offers.
My throat aches from my cries and screams. It’s thick and cumbersome. Because of his kindness, the threat of more raging sentiments sits on the precipice of erupting.
“Considering I left you raw and vulnerable with no resolution, cried in front of you, and told you things I shouldn’t, I’ll go with luck.”
The room goes quiet for a long time. We stand side by side, staring at the birds, the trees, the people, the nothingness and everythingness of life in front of us. There’s a calming reassurance in the silence, in his disposition.
“I am sorry.” His words vibrate with meaning.
“Whatever for? You’ve done nothing wrong.” I breathe.
He takes his hand out of his pockets. They hang by his side. He has long fingers, and when he balls them into fists, the veins and muscles in his hands bulge.
“I can’t offer you comfort.”
For a moment, I want to cry for him. For all the comfort and pleasure that he’s lost. For all the connections he’s been unable to make in his life. For his discomfort. For his perennial solitude.
“You don’t have to touch, talk, or even allow me to look at you to provide me comfort, Mr. Judge.” I pull my sneaking gaze away from him and focus on the horizon. The sky has turned dark, drained of all its color. For this moment, it looks brighter than it did thirty minutes ago. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness and presence.”
He nods. I can barely see the movement in my periphery.
“Can I call someone for you?”
There is no one to call.
“No. You’ve helped quite a lot. Thank you.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it.”
I nod. "Goodbye, Mr. Judge.”
He retreats from view. This time, I watch his silhouette as it appears in the light of the exit room in the reflection of the window. He stalls in the doorway.
“Goodbye, Hailey.”
Then he leaves and closes the door behind him.