Chapter 15 Now

My leg bounces up and down.

It's a nervous habit I developed in med school. Test anxiety. But I haven't done it in years. Though my anxiety seems at an all-time high today. Of course, it hasn't even been two years since my husband died, the man I'd thought was the love of my life. My forever. Yet my leg didn't bounce once through the funeral. Nor once during the police questioning. And not when I opened my desk drawer and found another prescription pad missing. Yet while I watch the clock tick down one moment at a time, waiting for my second appointment with my special patient, my leg gets more exercise than it does on the treadmill at the gym. I'm not sure what that says about me as a wife or doctor.

I could still cancel. It's not too late. I should've canceled already. Lord knows I thought about it enough this week. I'd even drafted an email to Sarah asking her to refer Gabriel to another therapist. But I couldn't bring myself to hit send. Isn't it the very least I can do to help the man get over his loss? He needs me. Sure, it's unprofessional. Probably grounds for losing my medical license. No, definitely grounds. If I got caught…

I hear the door creak open in the outer office, and my bouncing leg goes still. Gabriel's voice booms as he says something to Sarah, and all the anxiety I've been feeling for a week instantly shifts to something different—exhilaration. The two emotions aren't that different. Both cause the blood to swish loudly in my ears. My palms sweat, and I'm certain I'll jump out of my skin with any sudden noise. But I also feel alive. So. Damn. Alive. I imagine it's a lot like jumping out of an airplane—the rush of adrenaline as you lift your arms into the air and let the wind and gravity take you. Only I'm not sure if my parachute works.

I might plunge to the ground at a hundred and twenty miles per hour and splatter like a bug.

Yet as I'm sitting on the edge of the plane, dangling my feet, waiting to lean my weight forward and fall out—I can't wait for it to happen.

Knock. Knock.

Sarah opens the door to my office. "Your twelve o'clock is here. I'm going to run out and grab a coffee from the deli down the block. Do you want something?"

"No, thank you." Who can think about food when you're waiting to jump out of an airplane?

She steps in and closes the door behind her. Smiling, she wiggles her eyebrows and whispers, "Your new patient is really sexy. He's not the type I'd normally be attracted to, but there's just something about him."

Yes, there certainly is.

I clear my throat. "Would you send him in on your way out, please?"

"Sure."

A few seconds later, Gabriel knocks twice and pokes his head in with a smile. "Rumor has it you're ready for me?"

My heart has been pounding nonstop over the last week, ever since he walked into my office the first time. But right now it feels like it's bouncing against my rib cage. I'm terrified.

I should cancel right now. Tell him I'm sick. In fact, I might not even need to say the words, because at the moment I feel pretty queasy.

But I rein it in. Because Gabriel needs me.

And a part of me needs him. Needs to make him better.

So I put on my finest practiced smile and hold out my hand, motioning to the seating area.

"I am ready for you. Please, have a seat, Mr. Wright."

He smiles again. Actually, it's more of a half smile. One that's lopsided and cocky. And it stirs something in me. Something feminine that hasn't been awake in a long time. Something outrageously inappropriate.

"I thought we were past that." He tilts his head. "It's Gabriel, not Mr. Wright, remember?"

Is he flirting? Or is it in my head? I'm not sure, but there's no time to contemplate that now. I nod. "Of course, Gabriel. Sorry. Let me just grab my notepad."

This time I'm careful to pull out a new notebook, not the stalker ledger I inadvertently grabbed last week. I take the seat across from him and cross my legs, smooth out the skirt I'm wearing today.

Gabriel's eyes drop, and I watch his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallows. Then his gaze meets mine head-on.

"So… did you miss me?"

He's teasing, of course. But he has no idea.

"How was your week?" I ask.

He takes a deep breath in and lets it out. "Not bad. I had papers to grade, so it kept me busy. By the way, when did the word anyway become anyways, with an s? Every one of my students says, ‘So anyways…'?" He emphasizes the last letter.

I smile. It's genuine, and it helps me relax a bit. Bad grammar is a pet peeve of mine, too. "I think it was around the time they started beginning sentences with literally. Literally, I have no idea."

He laughs. It's hearty. Unrestrained. And maybe a little sexy.

"That's right up there in my book with slay. Certain words sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. When I tell a student they got an A, and they respond ‘Slay,' I want to drop the grade to a D."

I relax a little more. I could sit here all day and be amused by this man's wit. But we're not two friends having coffee. He's paying me for therapy. So I dig in.

"How did you sleep this week?"

"Not great."

I nod. "When we spoke last time, you said you have a lot of pent-up guilt surrounding your loss. Can we talk about that a little bit? Is the guilt because you were supposed to be with your wife and daughter that day?"

Gabriel's face falls. He looks down into his lap for a long time before speaking again. "My wife and I were having marital problems."

Oh. Wow. I hadn't been expecting that. "I see."

"We fought all the time." He frowns. "Including the night she died. That's why I wasn't with her that evening, and why she was out walking around with our daughter so late at night. The last thing I said to her before she stormed out was ‘Go to hell.'?"

My heart clenches. How many times has he replayed those last moments over and over in his head? Regret is like an anchor that wraps around the heart and weighs it down, keeping it from sailing free. I certainly understand that feeling. Connor and I had both said some hateful things before he left that last time, too. I understand the weight of guilt on a deeply personal level. I hate Connor for what he did, yet not a day goes by when I don't think to myself, if I'd only done something when I found that first prescription pad missing, gotten him help instead of burying my head in the sand.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to guide this man to get over that guilt, when I can't even get over my own. So I give him the textbook answer and plow through.

"Well, that's obviously a very difficult memory to let go of. But you can't reduce your entire relationship to only the last moments. May I ask what led to the breakdown of your relationship?"

"I found out my wife was cheating on me with a coworker. I'd suspected it for a while, but she wouldn't admit it." Gabriel looks into my eyes. "So I followed her. And caught them in the act."

My eyes widen. Followed her.

"I know." He shrugs. "Not my finest moment."

He's mistaken the shock on my face as judgment, when really it's only the thought of him following someone the way I followed him that rattles me. "No, no, no." I wave my hands. "I wasn't thinking you did anything inappropriate. I was thinking it must have been horrible for you to catch them."

"Oh." He nods. "Yeah, it was." His eyes roam my face. "You married?"

"Divorced."

As a rule, I never divulge personal information about my family to a patient. But his question catches me so off guard that the lie tumbles out before I can even consider that the proper answer would be not to answer at all.

"Did he cheat?"

I shake my head. "No."

"How long ago was your divorce?"

I feel like I'm barreling down a bumpy road, but I don't know how to stop it.

"About eighteen months ago."

He nods. "I went on a date a few weeks ago. She invited me back to her place after. I wanted to sleep with her. But I felt guilty. Part of me still feels like I'm married. I think it's probably easier to jump back into things after a divorce. Is it? My wife died about the same time you got divorced. Have you been with anyone yet?"

"No."

Gabriel's eyes drop to my lips for a fraction of a second. It's so quick that I'm already second-guessing whether it even happened. Maybe I imagined it. I don't know. But the one thing I'm certain of is that I need to stop this line of discussion before it gets any worse. I should've never answered his first question, much less whether I've slept with anyone. So I straighten my back and sit taller in my chair, redirecting our conversation to how he felt when he walked in on his wife with another man. We spend a good deal of time there today, and by the time the conversation lulls, I almost feel like he's a routine patient. Almost.

"This is good progress," I say. "The first step in getting over guilt is acknowledging it exists."

"I've known it existed for a long time. What's the second step?"

"Forgiveness. Your wife was human. She made a mistake. You need to find a way to forgive her before you can truly move forward."

"How do I do that when she's dead?"

"Sometimes it helps to talk to the person. They don't need to be there for you to say what needs to be said. Perhaps you might write a letter, letting her know how much she's hurt you."

Gabriel rakes a hand through his hair. "Life is really one big circle, isn't it? I used to write Ellen letters when we first started dating."

I smile sadly. "That's sweet. No one writes letters anymore."

"Not unless you count the messages you send on a dating app when you're getting to know someone."

A dating app…

Like the one I was chatting on only last night. There I was, sipping a glass of wine and flirting with a random stranger, while Gabriel couldn't sleep. I shouldn't be allowed to smile until this man is truly happy again.

God, how can he ever be happy again after what he's lost?

Poor little Rose.

And there goes my heart, racing again. It feels like I'm doing intermittent exercise today. Speed up. Slow down. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. But I need to keep my head screwed on straight to do my job. So I force myself back to our discussion.

"Are you active on one of those? Dating apps, I mean?"

He nods. "I am."

"Meet anyone interesting?"

"I'm getting to know a few people. It's my first time not meeting a woman the old-fashioned way. You know, in a bar after some liquid courage. I felt like a dinosaur when I first joined."

I smile. "So much has changed in the dating world over the last decade."

"How about you?" he asks. "Have you tried online dating since your divorce?"

I open my mouth to answer, to again talk about my personal life, which is completely inappropriate. Luckily my buzzer saves me this time. I can't believe an hour has already gone by. I reach over and turn it off.

Gabriel meets my eyes and smiles. "Guess we pick up with our adventures in dinosaur dating next week? Maybe we can swap stories about the most bizarre people we've talked to?"

"Sure," I say and rise from my chair. Though I'm pretty sure the most bizarre woman he's currently talking to is standing right in front of him.