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There was nothing I could respond with that would satisfy him, so I stayed quiet and looked down at the grass at my feet. It was getting long. I’d have to mow it soon.
“We’re fixing this today,” he said firmly, more awake.
“What if there’s nothing to fix?”
“Until he says he doesn’t want us, I’m not giving up.”
“You don’t have to stay with me, Val. If Corbin leaves, you should go too.”
“Jesus, do you even hear yourself?”
Corbin chose that moment to open the sliding door and step outside. His hair was damp, and his light blue T-shirt had moisture seeping through in spots from where it clung to his still wet skin. Tan khaki shorts adorned his toned legs. “Why are we outside?”
“Because Xaiden’s falling apart, you refuse to talk to us, and I’ve reached the end of my damn rope. You have some explaining to do. I don’t give a single fuck if you don’t want to talk about it. You’ve been walking around like a zombie. You’ve checked out, Doc. You’re here, but you’re not. You can’t get enough of us in bed. Outside of it, you might as well be somewhere else.”
Corbin dropped his chin to his chest. His shoulders slumped as he hunched in on himself. “I’m failing,” he whispered.
“What do you mean you’re failing?”
“I lost another patient Thursday night. Everything I touch falls apart. I can’t help the people I’m supposed to.”
I stepped onto the stone, my feet leaving a wet trail in my wake. “You’re not failing, sweetheart.”
His beautiful brown eyes filled with tears behind his glasses. “It’s falling apart.” His bottom lip trembled. “Work. Us. I don’t know what to do.”
As much as it would hurt if he pulled away, I still got closer so I could put my arms around him, bringing him to my chest. He gripped my shirt at my back and let his tears fall.
Val went to the door, which was still open, and motioned with his head for me to bring Corbin inside. Luckily, Corbin went when I began walking us in that direction, though I would have carried him if I needed to. Val slid the door shut behind us then led us to the bedroom. He kept his clothes on as he climbed onto the bed which had the blanket pushed to one side, the sheet to the other. The comforter pooled at the bottom.
“Get on the bed, Doc,” Val said. “We’re going to talk and we’re not leaving this room until we get everything straight, at least with us. I don’t know shit about medicine and treating patients, but I do know you’re damn good at it. So yeah. Get on the bed. This is our safe space where we don’t hold back. Talking or fucking, it makes no difference. But we’re not fucking right now.”
I glared at Val. No way was I going to push Corbin for sex when he was obviously upset.
“Just putting it out there,” Val said. “Now’s not the time for that.”
Corbin got onto the bed without further coaxing, wiping his eyes once he got settled in the middle with his back to the headboard. He reached for the blanket, and brought it over his lap, his fingers toying with the edge. Val stayed on one side; I got on the other. As much as I wanted to reach out and pull Corbin into my arms again, I resisted, even kept a few inches of space between us. He had the power to destroy me, both of them did. I had to create a measure of distance, no matter how small it was.
“How can I be the person you both deserve in here when I can’t do anything right outside of us?” Corbin asked. “Cody came to me, the boy who lost his parents, whose mom I couldn’t save. I can’t go into details, but he asked me for help. I told him the truth, which wasn’t what he wanted to hear. And he… he didn’t explicitly say it, but he implied I didn’t do my job that night. I didn’t do enough to save his mom.” Tears ran down Corbin’s cheeks.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
“All it would have done was show you I’m not enough.”
“No,” Val firmly stated. “You let him get into your head. You did everything you could to save his mom. You give a hundred and ten percent when you’re at work.”
“And the man who came in with pneumonia, struggling to breathe? I should have been able to save him.”
“How long had he been sick before he sought help? How far advanced was his illness?”
Corbin shook his head.
“I thought so. You’re not going to be able to save everyone. It’s a shitty thing for me to say, I get it, but you both know I don’t sugarcoat. Instead of focusing on who you lost, you should focus on who you saved. Tell me about a person you helped on your last shift.”
More tears in tiny rivers ran down Corbin’s cheeks. “It won’t do any good.”
“Tell me. Just one.”
“Twenty-one-year-old presented with difficulty breathing. She had driven herself to the hospital, how I don’t know. She was wheezing, couldn’t get enough air in. We treated her fast and kept her under close observation until we were able to discharge her with strict instructions to meet with an allergist.”
