Page 43 of Doctor Enemy

I don’t answer him. I can’t tell if he’s being genuine in that offer, or if he’s just trying to settle my nerves before he takes off for the next woman.

The silence stretches out, thick between us.

Kurt breaks it again. “Would you like to get dinner sometime?”

Yes.

Yes, I want that desperately. There’s not a single part of my body that doesn’t throb right now, but I keep going back to the fact that a guy like Kurt is not going to want to settle down. Least of all not for someone like me.

So I lie. “No.”

“No?” Kurt pulls back suddenly, seeming startled.

“No,” I repeat. And then I add on, “I think that you should go.”

Kurt stares at me, looking utterly baffled by that answer. And then there’s a flash of something else on his face. Hurt. Disappointment. I’m not sure, but it’s rain cloud heavy.

He stands up, the chair legs scraping over the retro orange and blue linoleum. Kurt doesn’t say anything.

He leaves, silent, without even finishing his coffee. And I’m left there in the studio apartment alone, trying to fight my way through the near-crushing weight of my own decisions.

I push my coffee cup back toward the center of the table and fold my arms against the surface of the wood instead. Groaning, I press my forehead to my arms and just collapse there.

I feel like an idiot.

Both for sleeping with Kurt in the first place and for kicking him out afterward. I lay there for the longest time.

It’s been a long night. It’s somehow managed to be an even longer morning.

When I finally drag myself out of the chair, it’s to go and get a shower, brush my shiny black mane, and try to all around make myself look a little bit less like I’m still staying in the hospital.

I put in a quick call to my mother to let her know that I’m out, but it goes to voicemail, so I just leave a message.

“Hey, Mom. I’m doing a lot better. I’m already home, so give me a call later, okay?” I don’t mention my stepfather. It’s a sore subject.

Family is tricky. It doesn’t stop being tricky just because you aren’t ten any longer.

Relationships, as it turns out, actually get harder the older you get.

Phone in hand, I make my way over to the couch. Maybe what I need is an outside opinion?

I shoot Olivia a text.

>You home?

She responds instantly:No, but I’m on break.

>Can I call?

Rather than send me back a response, Olivia just FaceTimes me. She’s sitting just outside of the hospital, on the curb. The early morning sun catches on her hair, which has been swept out of her face. She’s wearing one of my animal head scrunchies around her wrist, a lion in blue and purple fabric.

“Alright,” says Olivia. “Tell me where it hurts.”

I laugh. “Yeah, it’s nothing like that.’

“Oh? What’s up then?” she asks.

My lower lip is caught between my teeth. I lean sideways, bracing myself against the arm of the couch. The phone rests there, supported by my hand. “It’s about—other stuff. What do you think of Kurt?”

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