Page 117 of Near Miss

“I’m perfectly polite, if that’s what you’re asking.” I narrow my eyes.

“And Dr. Davis? His sister?”

“Good. We see them more. We have dinner, they come over. I have coffee with Nathaniel at work sometimes. Sarah and I go shopping. Her partner’s pregnant, so everyone’s excited about that.” I nod, lips twitching with a smile. They’re easier than his parents, but it’s all just learning—a work in progress. I hold my palms up. “Beckett’s excellent with a boundary now. Who knew? You’d be proud of him.”

“I’m proud of you,” he whispers it, and I can’t be sure I heard him right, but he gives me this sort of resigned smile. “I’m not supposed to say that to patients. I’m proud of everyone who walks through that door. But you. You’re—”

“Special?” I raise a shoulder.

He laughs, this full, big thing—and it’s just a laugh, just a sound, but I think I hear the years we’ve spent together in this room echoing.

“—still excellent at deflection,” he finishes, but he’s smiling.

He doesn’t wait for me to fill the silence before he asks another question. “Your dad?”

“Good. I went with him to a meeting last week. He invited me. The whole thing was strange. I felt uncomfortable the entire time, and I sort of wished I hadn’t gone. But before we left this ... a boy came up to me.” My voice catches in my throat. I bite down on my lip, and I offer Rav a shrug while a tear tracks down my cheek. “He was maybe Stella’s age. Probably closer to twenty-five. And he said he just wanted to thank me. For my dad. Because if I hadn’t—” I tip my head back and press my hands to my cheeks before I shake my head on an inhale. “If I hadn’t saved my dad, my dad wouldn’t have saved him.”

Tears bite my cheeks, and I wipe at my eyes. “What do they call that? The butterfly effect?”

“Saving lives,” Rav corrects. “I think they call that saving lives.”

“Huh.” I smile at him, but he’s all blurred edges as more tears slip across my face.

He spares me from sitting in whatever this is—because I’ve already stretched my lines, and they only go so far.

For now.

Rav taps his pen against his thigh. “Your anxiety?”

“Okay.” I lift one shoulder. “For the most part. Beckett and I were driving across Lakeshore last weekend and there was an accident two lanes over from us. Just your old, run-of-the-mill rear-end. But it was loud and...” I blink up at him, my voice this sort of hopeless and hopeful thing all at the same time. “Do you think my nervous system will ever catch up? That it’s ever going to learn?”

“Maybe.” Rav nods. The pen hits his leg, and he shrugs. “Maybe not.”

I inhale again, and Beckett’s right there like he was last week—hand on the back of my neck, holding me up, fingers pressing against my scalp, counting out my breaths with me. Eyes cutting between me and the road, his thumb tapping against the steering wheel of his truck in time with our breathing.

I’m about to tell Rav that it’s okay. There’s someone who wants to breathe with me, and that makes the whole thing easier.

But my phone goes off.

I glance down at the screen, and I hold it up. I don’t feel vindicated this time. There’s not really anything in here I’m trying to escape.

“How does that feel?” He points his pen towards my phone.

“Not always like it used to,” I offer when I stand.

“So, surgery, then?” he asks.

I tip my head, smiling quietly. “For now.”

Rav’s eyebrows rise. “I’ll see you in a few months?”

“A few months.” I nod, and I raise a hand to him before I leave.

I feel a bit like a hypocrite when I get to the elevator. But I press my shoulders against the wall, I close my eyes, and I breathe.

And it passes because these wonderful, magnificent, emerald eyes wait for me right there. A dimple carving a line through a stubbled cheek, and a smile that might be able to light up the world.

A beautiful boy I love so very much who loves me, too.

---