West leans forward. “I have another question, but it might seem insensitive after you basically just poured your heart out about losing your husband and all the pain you went through.”
Leaning my elbows on the table, I nod at her. “Go on.”
“Would you tell me to do this job, or should I pick literally anything else? Because I hadn’t considered I’d have patients like you who were dealing with overwhelming loss. I kind of pictured all that shit from the movies, you know?” She waves her hand in the air. “Like a montage of parallel bars, struggling to put one foot in front of the other, and each session gets better and better until there’s a smash-cut to them running a marathon. I get that’s unrealistic, but…I assumed that’s what most of the job would be like.”
I grin. I like that she’s honest. “Well, I guess I need to know what’s motivating you to do this before I can give you an answer.”
West pales for a second, and then color rushes into her cheeks. “My dad hurt someone. Well, he hurt a lot of people, but when I was younger, he hurt someone really badly, and I visited him two years later, after my dad got sentenced and went to prison. I was in a foster home at the time and I snuck out after I googled him and found out he was still in town.”
That was not what I expected her to say. “Oh.”
“My dad was a bad person. A really bad person. He hurt my brother a lot, and my mom.”
I can tell from her tone she doesn’t want to talk about her family. “Was the man angry at you? The one who got hurt?”
West’s eyes widen a bit, and she shakes her head. “At first, yeah. He didn’t really want to see me. He definitely didn’t want my apologies,” she said, her voice quiet. There’s a loud crash,which makes us both jump, and she leans back to look toward the front counter before turning her attention back to me. “I was only thirteen at the time so I was also probably very annoying.”
I snort. “I’m sure you weren’t that bad.”
“Trust me, I was.”
With a small smile, I gesture for her to go on.
She shrugs. “Anyway, things got complicated for a while after that, but right before I turned seventeen, my mom got sober and we got to come home. I started looking for him again, but it wasn’t until I started college that we ran into each other. He was working at the library and he recognized me before I recognized him.”
My eyes widen. “Oh. That’s…”
She flushes. “Maybe fate? We started talking and he was a lot less angry now that he was several years into his recovery. He talked to me about his rehab, and everything he went through. Then one thing led to another…”
I lean back in my chair. “And?”
“And he proposed to me last week.”
That was the wrong moment to sip on my latte. I choke and have to pound on my chest. That happens too often since my injury, especially when I’m surprised, and the corners of my vision go white for a second as I clear my lungs.
“Sorry,” West gasps. “Shit, I didn’t mean to kill you.”
I wave her off and wheeze, “No. Not your fault. It’s just a thing that happens.” I cough several times, then swipe my hand over my teary eyes. “I was not expecting you to say that.”
She laughs and glances away. “Yeah. I know it’s probably weird as fuck. My mom can’t really look him in the face, but mostly because she blames herself for what my dad did. I don’t think my brother likes him very much either, but I don’t care. He’s my person and the fact that he wants to love me forever in spite of where I came from means something.”
Something in my chest softens. The feeling is encased in envy, but not in a bitter way. I want that—I don’t actually want to be this lonely. But my whole life is so fucking complicated, I don’t have much of a choice.
The only man who’s shown any real interest in me is Easton’s best friend, and I’m pretty sure half that hand job was out of sheer pity.
“And he’s why you want to get into OT?” I ask.
West nods and rests her elbows on the table as she leans in toward me. “He’ll never be the person he was before my dad…” She stops and swallows hard. “He uses a wheelchair sometimes or walks with crutches. Sometimes he has this speech thing…god, I’m blanking on the name. He uses the wrong words and stuff sometimes.”
“Aphasia,” I say. I’m a little too familiar.
“Yes,” she says, smacking the table. I jump, but she doesn’t seem to notice. “Anyway, there’s not going to be some, you know, miracle, and suddenly, he’s cured of his disability. But I see how strong he is, and he could have given up when it got hard, but he didn’t. I realized I want to help other people the way his therapists helped him.”
My chest warms and softens. I can tell she means it. And not some hero complex thing, but as a person who just cares about other people. It’s a rare quality I don’t see very often anymore. “I think it’s a good career if you have the stomach for it. And an Everest-sized mountain of patience.”
“Would you ever consider it?” she asks.
I blink at her, then laugh. “Oh,godno. No, patience is not my thing.”
