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"Yeah, there is." Betty crossed her arms over her chest. "So why don't you tell those Type I kids you mentor to just give up now? Before they ever experience a senior prom, or a first love, or a trip to Disneyworld? Just fuck it, go ahead and die because life might be harder for you than other kids. What is the problem? Why are you acting this way?"
"Because I'm sick of it," he exploded. "You don't get it. You can't get it unless you're having to deal with it every fucking day. I'm tired of having to always be on guard. Check this, watch that, eat this, don't eat that. Hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia. Carry a damn suitcase with me everywhere to manage it all. Weigh every fucking decision I make against how it will affect my diabetes, my pancreas, my kidneys..."
"You've always done that." Betty studied him. "Nothing has changed. Except her. That's it, isn't it? Julie."
Julie told herself to go away before she heard where this was going, but she couldn't make herself move, could barely breathe, in the face of Des's anger.
Des kicked the bag of leaves he'd just packed. The plastic exploded from the force of the impact and leaves scattered around his work shoes. He marched away from Betty, muttering, snarling to himself, and he rubbed both hands over his face. Julie had seen that densely packed energy around him before when he was fully in Dom mode with her, an exciting, sexual energy. Right now it was painful and volatile. Betty held fast, but even she looked a little pale in the face of his rage.
As he gathered his thoughts, Betty glanced over and saw her at the crack of the door. Julie didn't draw back. Betty could out her there, or Julie could do the right thing and close the door, but they both made their choice. Julie didn't close the door and Betty shifted her attention back to him as if she hadn't seen her.
As Des turned to face the nurse, there was a defeated look to his expression Julie had never seen before. "We've just started, Betty," he said, a note of despair in his voice that wrenched her heart. "I didn't intend...I told myself I'd never drag someone I care about into this. And I did it anyway. She deserves better than someone who started life broken."
"You listen to me." Betty set her jaw and stepped closer, gripping his forearm. "We're all broken in some way, Desmond Arthurius Hayes. It's how life shapes us for one another. If Julie Ramirez sees what I see, she knows what a treasure she's found. And if she's a good person with a loving heart, you deserve her."
Des shook his head, pulled away. "No one deserves this. God is a heartless bastard."
"You're being a selfish idiot who can't handle being out of control," Betty said with gentle ruthlessness.
"Being out of control is the one thing I've always had to accept. But I don't have to accept it for her."
"That's her decision, not yours."
The portent in Betty's voice was as clear as a whispered cue through a mic. Summoning her courage, Julie stepped out the door. It was a little chilly and she shivered, crossing her arms over her body, but she met Des's eyes without flinching. "I shouldn't have been listening, but I'm not sorry I did. I feel like I do deserve you, Des. Meeting you has been one of the luckiest moments of my life."
He looked torn between anger at them both, and then a desperate, helpless fury captured his expression. "You should have respected my privacy," he told Betty. "And shut the hell up when you knew she was there."
"Des," Julie said sharply, but he shot her a withering look.
"I shouldn't have gone down this road with you. Just...fuck. Please get the hell out of here. I need you...I just need you to be gone right now."
He pivoted and strode away, headed down the path toward the barn. Julie stood frozen, certain this was how it felt to have a spear shoved through her gut, pinning her to the wall behind her. Betty stared after him, her mouth tight. When she noticed Julie's reaction, she climbed the porch steps to put a hand on her arm. "Here, honey. Come sit here."
She directed Julie into a rocking chair. "Breathe. You've gone pale as a sheet. Put your head down if you need to. That bastard. That stubborn, wonderful, pigheaded asshole."
Betty rubbed her back, a soothing touch. "He didn't mean it. You know he didn't. He's been over the moon about you since he met you. I've never seen him react to a woman the way he has you."
Julie pressed her forehead into her arms and straightened. "You warned me, right?" she said with a shaky laugh. "You said it would get ugly when we got into this territory. I guess I just thought we'd gotten through it."
Betty shook her head. "He's always been able to keep relationships at an arm's distance. I guess that's why he's into all that rope stuff. He can get sex and intimacy without commitment. You've kind of messed that up. In a good way."
"Doesn't feel that good at the moment."
"That's because he has his head up his ass," Betty said tenderly, glancing toward the barn. "For truly understandable reasons, though I take issue with him striking out at you. But he'll give himself hell for that himself when he settles down." Betty sighed and touched her hand, a simple, practical stroke. "He's angry and he's scared, that's all."
"I know. I mean, I don't know that, but I can tell he's upset." It still hurt that he'd struck out at her, especially after everything they'd shared up to now.
Some relationships weren't given a lot of time before they had to face the "for better or worse" clause. Maybe someone else in a relationship less than a few weeks old would cut and run in the face of that demand, but she'd waited a long time, not only to feel this way about someone, but to have him feel the same way about her.
"Where's he going?" she asked Betty. "He's getting company, whether he wants it or not."
He was clearing out a shed behind the barn that appeared to be filled with old construction materials. She supposed it was his way of dealing with his emotions, the same way she'd reorganized cords in the sound cabinet the day she'd been frustrated with him.
She took a seat on a nearby stump, watching him. He noticed her, but didn't say anything for a few minutes, pulling boards out and tossing them with a resounding clap on the ground outside the shed door. He was wearing work gloves, which she was glad to see since a lot of the boards had nails sticking out of them. Bugs skittered off the boards and she lifted her feet, letting a spider of an unsettling size scuttle away.
"So what's the real reason you're not on a donor list? Even if it's not a genetic match, why let that stop you? You told me you don't let a doctor or anyone else tell you how long you have to live. And as Betty said, you're pretty darn healthy. Except for the whole kidney failure thing."
She wasn't sure if the mild tease would be useful or not, but anything that would get him talking was worth a shot.
