Page 25 of Chasing Secrets

“I used my GI bill to become a nurse,” Lincoln added. “I went on to become a nurse practitioner.”

“That’s where you can prescribe drugs and stuff, right?” I asked.

He nodded. “My original plan was to work in a hospital, but…”

Lincoln paused for what seemed like forever before finally finishing with, “But things have a way of changing when you least expect it.”

I was desperate to ask him what had changed but knew it was an off-limits question. Not to mention I was already starting to learn things about the man I shouldn’t want to know.

“How did you end up here?” I asked. “I mean, Pelican Bay, it’s so…”

Lincoln chuckled despite the fact that I hadn’t been able to figure out how to finish my observation about the small town.

“I was doing a lot of work with hospice patients. It’s called palliative care.”

“That’s when your goal is to keep a terminal patient comfortable until the end, right?”

“Right,” he responded. “I was able to save a lot of guys on the front lines when I was in the army, but I lost a lot too.”

Lincoln was quiet for a moment before whispering, “The ones I knew I couldn’t save… they were so fucking brave. But they were scared too because they knew what was happening. I might have been able to ease some of their pain with drugs but otherwise I was completely helpless. I couldn’t do anything but hold their hand and listen. And when they couldn’t talk, then I did the talking. Most of the time I just tried to help them imagine they were somewhere else. I’d describe that place… the colors, the sounds, the smells… anything that might help them forget that they were bleeding out in the fucking sand and dirt for a cause most of them didn’t even really understand.”

He fell silent and began twisting his hands together. “Never understood it myself,” he murmured.

His pain was etched into every part of his body. The way he was hunched in on himself, the way he rocked back and forth, the way his hands were nearly bloodless from how hard he was pressing them together…

I knew I couldn’t just sit there pretending he wasn’t hurting. But I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I was completely unequipped to deal with someone else’s pain. I’d spent my entire adult life avoiding building relationships, including just friendships, because I had a role to play and that was hard to do when you were around people.

Any people.

But the man beside me wasn’t just “any people.” And the fact that he was so far from the house where he was unlikely to run into any of his quasi-family members suggested he might be in the very same boat as I was.

Alone.

Hiding.

Better at wearing masks than I’d given him credit for.

So even though my brain was once again telling me to walk away, I ignored the voice and acted on pure instinct.

I reached my hand out and covered Lincoln’s twisting ones with my own. The gesture was meant to be a reminder that he wasn’t alone, and I’d only expected him to stop gripping his hands together so tightly, but to my surprise, he dropped one hand and closed the fingers of his other one around mine. Then he intertwined them.

The strength of his grip scared me but not because it was painful.

No, it was because I liked it.

Too much.

I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d touched someone like this.

To comfort, to ease their pain, to let them know they weren’t alone. To take back those same things in return.

We sat like that for a long time, our bodies separated by a few inches, but our hands linked as if they were one. I felt the exact moment Lincoln relaxed, but he didn’t let go of me.

“Sorry,” was all he said as his eyes focused on the crystal-clear stream running over all sizes and shapes of rocks.

I shook my head and tried to say it was no problem, but the words wouldn’t come out. They just seemed too trite. So I squeezed his hand instead.

Several long seconds passed before Lincoln said, “I didn’t really decide on nursing until I got home from the army and discovered that my—”

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