Page 11 of As Long As You'll Have Me
“Han? You okay?” Turning around, my dad is taking a few steps closer to me, not having stopped to watch the truck drive by.
“Ye–yeah, I’m fine.” I nod my head and force a smile.
“Something the matter? You look a little upset.” He reaches over and gives me a reassuring pat on the arm.
“I promise, I’m okay. The siren just surprised me, that’s all.” Shaking my head, I continue down the sidewalk next to him in silence. My ears can’t help but lock onto the sound of the siren, listening hard until it’s completely disappeared into the distance. Even when it’s gone, I can still feel myself searching for the sound.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, sunshine?”
“Can I ask you a patient question?”
I see him mule over my question, pressing his lips together like he does when he’s thinking deeply. “As long as it doesn’t go against doctor patient confidentiality, sure.”
“Oh, no, it won’t.” I bite down on my lip and try to formulate my question. “Have you ever known something about a patient that they didn’t know you knew?”
His eyebrows twist up in confusion. “You know something about them that they don’t know you know?”
“Yeah, exactly,” I confirm.
“I’m not one to look up my patients before they come and see me,” he responds, looking at me questioningly.
“No, Dad, come on. Do you think I’d do that?” I scoff,offended by his accusation. “No, this patient was referred to me by a superior and their superior told me why they were having the patient come and see me.”
“Ahh, I understand.”
“But when I saw the patient, let’s call them Turtle, they acted like they were fine when I know they aren’t. Going through something like they have, I know there’s a lot of emotional damage there that needs to be unpacked and healed.”
“Hanna, you know as well as I do that we can’t force people to come and see us. We also can’t force people to face their demons until they’re ready,” he reminds me with a comforting smile. There’s so much understanding in his gaze that it almost makes my heart hurt.
I purse my lips together. “I know. I just…I worry, that’s all. They work a pretty intense job and I worry that something bad will happen on the job because they haven’t worked through things.”
I could see the pain in Miles’s eyes when he sat across from me in my office. He put on a pretty good front but my innate ability to read people’s emotions wasn’t immune to his hard exterior. I could see the pain and the hurt he’s carrying with him, and when he walked out of my office without sharing anything, I worried he’d be left carrying that hurt with him for a very long time.
“You have a big heart, Hanna Smith, and I love you for it. But we can only help people who want to be helped. Maybe one day soon, Turtle will come back and pop out of their shell with you. The only thing you can do is be there in case they do.”
When he reaches for my hand and gives it a shake, I can’t help but smile at him. He’s right, I know he is. But that still doesn’t stop me from worrying about Miles and thatsomething might happen because he isn’t willing to face what he’s survived.
“Now, let’s go finish this walk and maybe, if we have time, I can show you more of my moves back at your apartment before I have to go home.”
Then, as we turn another corner, he starts to dance in the most horribly embarrassing way right there for everyone to see and I can’t help but groan.
“Dad,stoooooop.”
7
MILES
My truck sways as I pull off the main road and onto an old, gravel driveway. I’ve driven far beyond the city limits out into the older parts of Charleston the tourists never make it to. The parts where families have been living for generations and the people know everyone by their first name. The parts of Charleston that haven’t been touched by big developers or city people looking to make an easy dollar on short-term rentals or vacation homes.
Carter is in the passenger seat with the window rolled down and his arm hanging out of it, letting the fall breeze fill the cab. When the radio switches over to an old Scotty McCreery song, he turns it up and starts to belt out the lyrics as ifhehad wonAmerican Idol. I let out a chuckle and turn the radio up even further to drown him out until we pull up to the old house we like to call ‘home.’
He and I grew up together as foster brothers after our own fair share of shitty childhood upbringings led us to the same home and the woman who was brave enough to bring us in and raise us as her own. We were hell on wheels growing up but somehow Ivy managed to hold tight to thereins and make sure we made it to adulthood as unscathed as possible.
“Is Coop coming?” Carter asks, turning the knob of the radio to the left to silence the music.
“I think so. He texted me last night that he was.”
