Chapter 8
DR. DAWSON COLE
She hasn’t sat down since she arrived. I can’t help but be pulled in each direction as I watch her tread from side to side, her simple tennis shoes wearing a damn hole in the floor.
Something is bothering her. Something she hasn’t mentioned.
Something I’m not sure if I should bring up, because, in a way, it seems bigger than her accident.
I won’t know if the two things are linked to one another until she opens up.
So far, that hasn’t happened. I’m hoping she’ll turn in my direction, lower her guard, and trust that she can be honest with me.
Her gaze focuses on the walls with every turn of her heel.
I watch as her loose sweater swishes with every step.
It’s nothing more than a thin-looking robe that slips over her shirt, the fabric a creamy beige, like the sand I remember seeing in her photographs.
It’s nothing remarkably special, and yet, it draws my gaze to her slim figure, to her waist and hips as they sway back and forth in an anxious jaunt.
I curl my palm around my ankle, the one that’s lifted and settled on my knee and look away. I’m still trying to put a finger on why I’m drawn to her. Why, when I look at her, a melancholy soaks into my extremities.
You’re going to be alone for the rest of your life.
Those words are forever scripted in my mind, engraved in my brain tissue as a promise that will eventually play out. My ex-girlfriend’s face materializes in my mind; blonde hair, eyes as blue as a clear sky, thin lips that didn’t give me a goddamn ounce of wiggle room after my accident.
She was there one minute and riding off into the sunset the next.
Apparently, she couldn’t handle my post-accident haze—the restless nights, the silence that came over me while I was trying to process what happened to me, my pain, and the scars both left behind.
She didn’t know how to be there for me when I needed someone the most. And because of that, she spit nasty words that sank deep inside of me and came to life. Her leaving was the final straw in making me realize I needed help, that I needed my own therapist.
I think about all of that as I observe Emory, wondering if she’d be like her or if she’d be able to handle someone at their worst. If she would have been able to handle me the weeks after my stabbing. If she would have cleaned my wounds and changed my bandages like my nurses did.
She thinks that her worst is terrifying to others. And maybe to some degree, it is, but it doesn’t scare me. It only ignites a flurry of something unknown in my chest.
Something I shouldn’t name but yearn to give a title to.
“I have an idea,” I say out of the blue.
I can’t fucking take seeing her bristle anymore. I know the best way for her to get through whatever she’s facing—partially—is to move. But if sitting in this room isn’t going to cut it, then we need to do something else.
My words get her to stop, and thank fuck for it, because it gives my dizzying head a reprieve. I rise to my feet and grab my phone from my desk, tucking it into my pocket as I wave a hand at the door. “Let’s go on a field trip.”
She glances between the exit and me. “I-I don’t think we’re supposed to leave this room.”
“Says who, exactly?”
She pulls her lip into her mouth and thinks. “Well, technically, I guess no one.”
I stand and close the few steps that exist between us and offer a quick smile. “Lucky for us, I’m the one who makes the rules here. So, what do you say?” Her eyes drop to my mouth, and I can’t help but think it’s because she feels unsettled in my presence the same way I feel in hers.
I’ve worked hard keeping things professional, but even I can sense myself slipping.
“Are you sure?” Her eyes lift to mine. “You don’t think we’ll get in trouble?”
One corner of my mouth lifts higher than the other, and I slip my hands into my pockets, fingering one of my keys to help keep me grounded. To help keep me from thinking about my ex’s words again and if I really will be alone and sad for all of eternity.
But even if those words were never said to me, Emory isn’t the person for me to try to get back out there with. She’s taken. She’s engaged. She is off-fucking-limits.
I lift a brow and stupid words fall out of my mouth. “Afraid of getting a demerit, Miss Prescott?”
My entire body lights up at the way she challenges me back.
“Emory,” she corrects. “And actually, I’m not.
I just don’t want you getting in trouble.
” She crosses her arms against her light green top.
I kind of like that she matches the room’s attire—that one of my all-time favorite colors looks this good on her.
I step over and pick her bag off the couch. She tossed it there as soon as she came in and has since forgotten about it. I hold it out to her, pressing it against her chest in a way that probably gives away my own antsiness.
Her eyes drop to my neck, to that tiny little scar.
For a reason unbeknownst to me, I step closer and reach up, smoothing my fingers over a piece of her hair and letting it slip through my fingertips way too quickly.
I play it off like it isn’t anything major and say, “There was a fuzzy in your hair.” But there wasn’t. It’s one of the biggest goddamn lies I’ve ever told.
The truth is that I just wanted to touch her, to feel her silky hair against my fingertips.
I wanted to feel what it would be like to have her close for a fraction of a second.
“Oh,” she breathes out, finally lifting a hand to take her bag. “Thank you.”
My smile stretches a little wider. A silent you’re welcome.
“Now, what do you have in mind, Dr. Cole?”
I walk over to the door, twist the knob, and pull. “Before we get too far into this excursion, there’s one thing you should know.”
She stops in front of me, right on the threshold of exiting while I dangle on the precipice of professional and personal. I toe the line for one measly second, and then I step over it.
“If you want me to call you by your first name, then we’re dropping all titles.”
Confusion mars her beautiful features, her perfect eyebrows pulling together tight. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“No more ‘Dr. Cole.’”
“What exactly am I supposed to call you then?” she asks, those doe eyes looking up at me as the question falls from her mouth.
I refrain from dropping my gaze to it. I’m already feeling the effects of her being so close.
I don’t need the dizzying symptoms of her glossed lips falling over me on top of it.
“You can call me Dawson.”
She lets out a breath, like she’s ready for what’s to come, but also not. “Okay, then. Are you going to tell me where you’re taking me, Dawson?”
We spend fifteen minutes walking down winding paths of the hospital’s campus until we settle on one of the benches along the trail that leads from the hospital to my office building.
People mill about, coming and going as Emory and I take a break.
A tall, overreaching willow hangs above us, offering us shade from the late summer sun.
A soft breeze pushes through here and there, tangling Emory’s hair and swishing it around in a way that almost mesmerizes me, even if I’m not looking at her directly the entire time.
I chance another glance her way, watching as she lifts a Styrofoam cup to her mouth. We stopped at a coffee truck a little way back—the same one I go to every day. I ordered my usual coffee, but she wanted a hot tea.
I find now is as good a time as any to breach that mind of hers. “So, do you want to tell me what has you so worked up today?”
I look away before she looks over, knowing my question is going to get a reaction out of her. Whether she’s aware of it or not, she reacts to everything. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fascinated by that. By the way she subtly works through her thoughts.
“It’s my job to know when something is bothering you, Emory,” I say before she has the chance to respond.
She sighs, resting her cup on her lap. “My fiancé and I… We’re having issues.”
My stomach jolts at the news. I don’t want Emory to have relationship problems with her partner.
But, at the same time, there’s a part of me that isn’t surprised—though that could have a lot to do with my own experiences.
With Emory struggling the way she is, I can’t help but ask myself if she’s getting what she needs.
If she feels heard and understood. If she has a supportive outlet outside of therapy.
I walk a fine line in my questioning, knowing how sensitive of a topic this is.
I need to stay professional. I don’t want her to feel like I’m pushing her into a corner, but I do want her to know that she deserves to have someone there who can be a sounding board when needed, as well as someone who can absorb the hits and blows of whatever emotional struggles she faces.
“What kind of issues?”
She gives a short shake of her head. “We used to be close. I used to be able to go to him with whatever was on my mind, but now… It just seems like there’s so much distance between us. We’re not who we used to be.”
“Is anyone?” I ask. “You’re never going to be the same person you were yesterday or even three years ago. Who the two of you were when you first started dating isn’t going to be who you are ten years from now.”
Ultimately, I just want her to be happy, but I can’t lie—it hits deep knowing that she could spend a lifetime with someone who doesn’t fill her cup.
“He’s just been so…indifferent.” She runs her fingertip over the rough side of her cup. “Then again, maybe he’s just reflecting what I’m giving him. I don’t know…”
“Have you talked to him about it? Perhaps he needs to hear how you feel and vice versa. Having a steady foundation of support around you is important. Even without challenges, people need community, to feel heard. They need that safety and sense of inclusion.”
“Do you know what I wish?” She asks it suddenly, abruptly. Like we aren’t already in conversation.