Page 25 of For Her Own Good

“I told my father about it.”

“That seems sensible, if it upset you. That’s what he’s there for.”

Her full mouth wrenched to the side, and she looked down at her hands wringing in her lap. “Not really. I mean, he’s already got all this to deal with, so anything on top of that actually seems unreasonable.”

“What do you mean by ‘all this’?”

I was met with one of her trademark withering glares, and she waved a hand in front of her face. “You know, this. Me. I’m… I take up a lot of time. I know he feels bad and that it tires him out. All the doctors, the appointments, me being in and out of the hospital. He’s had to put up with a lot, so on top of all that, I guess normal kid stuff seems like the last straw.”

I’m not in the habit of yelling at my patients, or shaking them senseless, but that’s what I’d wanted to do with Starla.

Tell her it wasn’t her responsibility to fret over her father, that he was a grown man with effectively unlimited resources, so if he wanted help, hell, if he wanted anything, he could have it. Except of course a cure for his daughter’s depression. No amount of money was likely to ever “fix” her. It was her father’s job to care for her, and that should include letting her be a regular kid. How awful must it have been for Starla when her father made her feel as though she wasn’t allowed to express normal teenage frustrations because it was too much for him to bear? I had suspected it wasn’t limited to boys at school, but any complaint she might have, any risk she might take.

“I don’t think that’s true, but let’s say for the sake of argument it is. What would be the worst thing that could possibly happen?”

She looked at me with those big, heavy eyes of her, and I swear, I don’t know how she hadn’t been crushed into dust by everything that was weighing on her.

“He could kill himself like my mother did.”

Ah, Christ. I’d known this since before I ever met Starla. But I’d also been told in no uncertain terms that I was never to mention it to Starla because she didn’t know. Her father had never told her when she was smaller, and by the time he thought she could handle it, she was depressed herself and he didn’t want to give her any ideas. I’d lobbied for telling her because knowledge is power, and perhaps knowing her mother also struggled would make her feel not so alone. Perhaps, too, make her more determined to not give in because she might be able to see how people missed her mother even if she couldn’t see how she would be missed. But no, Jameson refused and I’d kept my word.

“You—”

“Aren’t supposed to know about that? Well, I do. Why does everyone think kids are so fucking stupid?”

Anger’s better than blankness, though I resented her father for putting me in this position. This didn’t have to be the way we talked about her mother’s suicide, but there we were, and I’d do the best I could.

“I certainly don’t think you’re stupid. You’re one of the smartest people I know, and that includes grown-ups. And your father doesn’t think you’re stupid. He’s constantly going on about how bright you are”—and how frustrating it was that depression was sapping so much of that from her.

“I can’t speak for everyone else, obviously,” I continued, which got me a well-deserved Nerf ball to the face. “No one thinks you’re stupid. What we do think is that it’s our job to protect you, and you’ve got a hard enough road to hoe already. No one wants to make it any harder, that’s all. Especially since your father has spent so much time making your mother into some sort of fallen angel as far as I can tell. Vittoria was a saint, the prettiest, kindest, most beautiful woman to walk the earth, to hear him tell it. And all of that might be true, but she also suffered from really severe depression, like you. So, you understand that her suicide—”

“Wasn’t my fault? Yeah, whatever.”

Except that she clearly didn’t. Now if only I couldGood Will Huntingher into believing it…

I’m not sure I ever succeeded at that. One thing about clever patients is that many of them can fool you, tell you what you want to hear, or hide the things they’re embarrassed about. Starla’s always been fairly good at that, even as a kid. But never mind that. Never mind the past. She’s better now, has her depression under control.

At the moment, Starla’s skipping and spinning down the wide pathways of the Common, graceful in a way she most definitely wasn’t on skates. And more than her grace, it’s her joy I’m loving. She looks happy, carefree, like she can fully breathe.

She heads toward a set of steps that leads up to Beacon Hill, and I think about calling out my caution again, but I doubt it will stop her, and she’s a grown woman. I don’t relish being the overbearing, paternalistic arsehole who makes her feel as though I don’t trust her. If I could look after her in a way that wouldn’t make me a domineering, egotistic bawheid, I’d be only too glad to.

She dances on the stairs, up three and down two—she looks like she could be in one of those old musicals my mum used to love, and she’d scream at us boys to pipe down because she was trying to listen and of course, there wasn’t any OnDemand or TiVo or what have you back then. If you missed it, you were shite out of luck. If Starla were truly on one of those soundstage monstrosities though, she’d probably have an umbrella for this scene.

Nearing the top, she makes a few more jubilant leaps and I’m half expecting her to slide down the metal banister that bisects the steps. But then her foot goes wrong, and she’s not dancing anymore. She’s more flailing than anything else, and then, then…she’s falling.

Chapter 9

Starla

There’s a secondthat seems to last much longer than that, after my foot slips on a patch of ice I didn’t notice while doing my best Rockette impression. It’s that weightless sensation you get when you take a hill too fast in a car. I’ve heard roller coasters can cause that stomach-dropping-while-the-rest-of-you-floats feeling too, but I wouldn’t know. Never been on one. All too soon, though, that weightlessness is gone and I am meeting the stone stairs, hard.

My hip takes the brunt of it, a teeth-chattering jar that’s so stunning I lose my breath. It doesn’t hurt, not yet, just feels like an impact when flesh and bone meet granite steps. But then my ribs, my elbow, and yeah, the back of my head make contact with the stone also and…ow.Ow. Motherfuck, that hurts.

Everything hurts and to add to the ignominy, there are a ton of people on the Common right now and they all fucking saw that. I curl up onto my side and try to catch my breath and do my best not to cry. Yeah, I’m going to have some bruises, not fun ones, and I feel incredibly foolish after Lowry warned me—

“Starla, love, are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Lowry’s head blocks the light from an overhead streetlamp, the ends of his ginger hair set on fire by the glow. And he looks worried, oh so worried. Which he shouldn’t be. It does warm me some, though.Starla, love? I know it’s a Scottish thing, it doesn’t mean anything, but I’d take a meaningless endearment from Lowry over a sincere one from just about anyone else, so it’ll do.

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