Chapter 32
Murphy
It had been a week since Odette was discharged from the hospital, and somehow, she agreed to stay with me at my mom’s house so there could be someone to help her at all times.
She had a concussion from when her head hit the steering wheel, and four cracked ribs.
Four. I got sweaty every time I thought of how much pain she must have been in but pushed through.
“Murphy? You with me?” Dr. Rold’s voice infiltrated my thoughts and brought me back to his room.
“Sure. What was the question?”
He looked over his half-moon spectacles and asked, “How are you coping with the after-effects of the accident?”
“I don’t think that’s a question you should be asking me, Doc; that one is better suited for Odette. She was in the accident.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You also suffered a traumatic event, Murphy. So, I’ll ask you again, how are you coping?”
I tried my best to shrug indifferently at him, but he wasn’t buying it. I guess that’s the price I paid for him having been my therapist for the last three years. He knew me.
“Murphy, we don’t lie to each other.”
“I haven’t said anything, Doc.”
“Fine then, we don’t hide from each other, not here.”
He was right, this was my safe space. I knew I had been distant from Odette this past week, and I saw her shooting me worried glances here and there, but my mother’s house was chaotic to say the least. I was doing my best to give her as much space as possible, considering where she was spending her recovery.
Lux was also dealing with seeing her mother injured, and for a few days after the accident, she would cry whenever we tried to separate them.
Now, we were currently all camping out in my mother’s living room.
I sighed in defeat, or maybe it was relief, I wasn’t sure.
“It just reaffirms the fact that I can live without her , but I can’t live in a world where she doesn’t exist. I can’t.
I won’t. If she wants to move on, get married to that doctor Benji, I could live with that.
I made my peace knowing that I would be alone for the rest of my life a long, long time ago, Doc.
But I can’t and I won’t survive in a world where she isn’t here. ”
“What is it that you told me once? Your own personal motto?”
I couldn’t help but blush, even still when asked about it.
“In this life, and the next.”
“And what does that mean?”
“You know.”
“And you know I’m going to ask you to explain it to me, again.”
The buzzer went off on his desk, and he all but swatted it, almost breaking it.
“Ignore that. Continue.”
“Don’t you have other appointments?”
“They can wait. Explain it to me again; what does, in this life, and the next, mean for you?”
“It’s what I live by. I know who I was in this lifetime isn’t good enough for her, isn’t good enough for the unconditional love I feel from my daughter, isn’t good enough for the love Odette once had for me.
I wasn’t good enough. I’m still not good enough.
But I spend every day trying to be the person who would be deserving of them in this life, in hopes that, if I’m lucky enough to get a second chance, my soul meets hers in the next. ”
“So, you spend your time trying to be a person who deserves her across all time and space?”
“Something like that.”
If only I had realized it sooner, but I am who I am because of it. And as much as I hate myself for who I’ve been and what I’ve done, I never would have become the man I am now.
“Don’t you think you deserve some credit in who you’ve become, Murphy?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should ask Odette that question. You might be surprised at her answer.”
He closed his notebook, and I thought a saw a brief tear in his eye.
“Until next time, Doc.”
I got up, closing the door behind me, wondering the entire way home if I should take his advice.