Page 88 of The Plus One
“Promise.”
“I’m… I’m scared,” he whispered against her shoulder.
“Of course you are, Jude,” she said, dragging her fingers through his hair. “You’ve been through hell. I think your brain may have convinced you that everything you’ve seen and experienced destroys your ability to be happy. That’s not true. You can hurt and also be loved. You can feel sadness and also laugh and feel joy. Good emotions can coexist with hard ones. You can struggle and suffer and learn to heal while you also love. The best place to start is by giving yourself permission to feel with abandon. Feel everything.”
Tears pricked at Jude’s eyes as he held her as close as he could.
And, with a soft, sweet hum of satisfaction that reverberated through his bones, Indira held Jude back.
He pressed his nose into her hair, breathing her in, letting her feel his shuddering breath.
Then he started talking.
He told Indira about people he lost. About all the times he failed. He remembered the faces of every person who died on his table. Women who died from preventable diseases. Children caught in the middle of war and conflict, their futures ripped from them. People dying from random embolisms and plotted acts of violence.
His conscience was heavy, so fucking heavy, but speaking about it slowly unraveled the knot. It felt like for the first time in a long time, he could start to breathe again.
“It’s hard to forgive myself,” he eventually said, staring up at the ceiling.
“Forgive yourself for what, love?”
“For all the people I’ve lost.”
Indira moved to sit cross-legged next to him. “But what about all those you’ve saved?”
Jude followed her lead, sitting up with his back pressed against the scratchy couch cushion.
“Indira,” he said, feeling wrung out, but lighter. “I’ve lost more people than I’ve saved. That is, objectively, a terrible statistic for a doctor.”
Indira opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, her face pinching into a look that could only be described asyikes. Jude saw the gears of her brain whirling around to spin that fact into something positive.
Something came over Jude as he watched his lovely girlfriend think about his awful truth, and he started to…
Well, Jude started to laugh.
It was rough and loud and totally, indescribably inappropriate. Indira’s eyes went so wide, she looked like a horrified emoji.
And Jude laughed even harder.
“I’m so sorry, it’s not funny,” he wheezed, clutching one hand to his chest and shaking the other in front of Indira.
“Not even a little bit funny,” Indira said, giggles of her own tumbling out, nervous but inescapable. She made a hiccupping noise that increased their laughter. “It’s, like, genuinely awful.”
Jude laughed harder still, slipping back down until he was flat on the bed. It just felt sogood, like his whole body was humming on a new frequency.
“Why are we laughing?” Jude asked, snorting.
Indira reached for Jude, holding him close, both shaking as they laughed.
“Because sometimes,” she whispered against the crown of his head, giving him a soft kiss, “the body needs to laugh instead of cry.”
“Does this make me a bad person?” Jude said, eventually catching his breath.
“Laughing in this moment? No,” Indira said with firm finality. “Your general priggish attitude? Jury’s still out.”
Jude laughed one last time. Then, quietly, he started to cry.
And that felt good too.
