Page 75 of Torn In Two

I grappled to maintain a professional distance when watching her break down felt like pins being stabbed into my skin one at a time. “No, it’s not—”

“I took her back there, Grayson! I stayed for five whole years, convincing myself that her future could be different than mine, when I knew all along she was never going to be safe. I’m a failure. In so many ways. As a mother. A wife. A woman.”

I wanted to help, but the doctor part of my brain had completely left the building. All I could focus on was the way her heart was breaking and the pain spilling from it, brimming over, right onto me.

“What do you need?” I asked, voice graveled and choked by the rush of need to protect her from everything hurting her.

She shook her head, but then she laughed bitterly, wiping at her eyes. “I don’t know. A hug, maybe? Someone to just hold me and tell me it’s going to be okay.”

Despite her efforts, tears rolled down her cheeks, silently at first, but then they turned into sobs, her shoulders shaking as her body released the weight that had been sitting on her soul for far too long.

It wasn’t unusual. Patients cried in my office on a daily basis.

But I didn’t typically feel my own heart breaking when they did. I didn’t normally gather them into my arms and hug them, because the sounds of their sorrow were too hard on my heart to bear it.

“You’re not a failure,” I whispered back. “Don’t ever say that.”

I smoothed my hand down her back in gentle circles, not knowing what else to do but wanting to take the hurt away from her in any way I knew how.

I was walking a dangerous line and I knew it.

One of complete and utter unprofessionalism. One I could be reported for, and probably even lose my license.

But in that moment, with Kara staring up at me with big brown eyes and needing reassurance, I would have ripped up my own damn medical certificate. She’d asked for human contact. Touch. Assurance. I wasn’t going to tell her no.

“What if she never speaks again?”

It was clear to me that was Kara’s biggest fear. That her actions had permanently damaged her daughter. Without even talking to Hayley Jade, I knew it was Kara who needed this therapy more.

Maybe she knew too.

I brushed her tears away with the back of my hand. I wanted to promise her everything would be fine, but I also knew I couldn’t make promises I might not be able to keep.

Instead, I just pulled her closer and let her cry.

It had been so long since I’d held anyone like this. Since I’d cared enough about their feelings to feel their pain with them. I hated that she’d been betrayed by people who were supposed to love her.

I knew exactly what that felt like. It cut deep and never healed, the wound always there, weeping, just waiting to end your life if you let it take hold and drain you dry.

I didn’t want Kara feeling that pain the way I had. I didn’t want it festering inside her, the way I’d let the pain of losing my wife and my shitty upbringing eat away at me. The places those feelings took you were bleak.

So I held her, murmuring soothing things in her ear, even though it wasn’t my place or my right.

The door crashed open, Hawk in the doorway.

Kara jumped a mile, skittering away from me on the bed.

Hawk’s gaze landed on me, his eyes darkening. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Ah, shit.

“He wasn’t doing anything. I was upset—” Kara’s leg bounced, her nervous energy filling the room.

Hawk’s anger fed on it. “And what? He thought he could just use your vulnerable state to put his hands all over you?” His gaze went hot with fury. “I fucking trusted you with her!”

Irritation bubbled up inside me. “Settle down.” I instantly regretted it. It was probably the worst thing to say, but all the right words had up and left the building a long time ago. All I had left was pathetic attempts at explaining myself. Which truthfully, I couldn’t. But Hawk was going to kill me if I didn’t try. “I hugged her when she was crying. That’s all.”

“You hug all your patients like that?” he demanded. “Tucked in tight to your chest, inhaling her fucking hair while getting a hard-on?”

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