For Her Own Good

by Parker, Tamsen

  Starla sits on the couch, leaving a space for me at the corner, and… I don’t sit. Can’t, not with her looking up at me with those big eyes and concern etched on her pretty porcelain features. No, this isn’t what she signed up for, and I should give her what she needs. Provide. That’s what I do.

  So I try to gather up some of my scattered thoughts, only the ones to do with her, and sweep the rest away to be dealt with later, after she’s snoozing in my arms or later still when she’s deep asleep and I’ve snuck out here to deal with my own emotions.

  I drop my messenger bag to the side of the couch and paste a smile on my face, hoping it doesn’t look too grim, and clap my hands together.

  “Well, look at you, little girl. You look darling. I can’t wait—”

  “You stop that this instant.”

  Shock reverberates through me, scattering all my thoughts again. Is she scolding me? This is a turn of the tables I didn’t see coming, at least not tonight. But she’s looking rather serious, arms across her chest and glaring at me from under her brows. It ought to be a bit ridiculous, this little doll of a woman in her ruffly socks and ringlets taking me to task, but it hits me like a punch.

  “Stop what?” I try, willing in some ways for her to let me have this, let me do it, allow me to wrest back the control I’ve lost. Give her what she needs so I can not fail at something today. But she’s not to be deterred.

  “You’re pale, like, more than usual and that’s pretty pasty, you ginger bastard. And you’re scruffy, not like scruffy hot but kind of haggard. You know I think you’re the handsomest man alive, but you look like shit, Low.”

  The way she says it rhymes with bao—I’m hardly a dumpling, and it ought to make me smile, but nothing is working the way it should. Pressing on because I’m so obviously and embarrassingly struggling, she stands, taking a few steps until she’s pressed against me but not so firmly that she can’t tip her head up to look me in the face.

  “Seriously. You’re not fooling me. And stop trying, because it’s insulting. I’m not one of your patients, I haven’t paid for you to attend to me. You’re upset and I want to know why. Help you if I can.”

  The way she sort of mumbles the last bit—as if her efforts would be only that and she doesn’t have much to offer—sends an arrow straight into my heart. I don’t think she will be able to make me feel all that much better, but if anyone on this earth has a shot in hell of lending me some comfort, it’s her. And she’s right. It’s not okay to treat her as though receiving care from me is the only thing she bargained for. It’s hard, though, to give up that role I’m so comfortable in, and wade into one where I’m so very not. Which is why I give it one last try, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her more firmly to me.

  “But you got all dressed up and you look so pretty for me, and I want—”

  Serves me right that she bangs her little fists against my chest.

  “Would you stop it already? I know Scotsmen are supposed to be stubborn, but this is ridiculous. You can talk about your feelings or you can get out of here, Lowry Harrison Campbell. Up to you.”

  When faced with an ultimatum like that—I can’t deny there’s a shred of me that’s tempted to walk out so I don’t have to do this. But I’d so much rather be anywhere doing anything with Starla than be anywhere doing anything without her that it’s only a momentary folly.

  “You drive a hard bargain, lass, but okay.”

  She tips her head and nods in decisive satisfaction of getting her way. Someday when things aren’t so fraught, I’d like to get her to stomp her wee foot in frustration. Not today.

  “Sit,” she commands as she shoves me toward the couch.

  Weary and resigned, I do. She’s still on her feet, hands on her hips.

  “Where would you like me to sit? We’re not fooling around but…”

  Her gaze flicks to my lap, and yes. That is something I want too. Not for sex at the moment, but for comfort. I pat my thigh and her shoulders drop before she climbs on to me, settling herself in the cradle of my body. The feel of her weight, the scent of her skin and her hair, the way she leans against me and strokes the stubble that’s grown overmuch at my jaw. Went to the gym and worked out, hoping to sweat out some of the angst, and went through the motion of showering, but didn’t clean up my facial hair.

  It’s a comfort to have her in my lap, to be able to wind my arms around her body—the warm and very much alive flesh of her, which is the thought that tightens my throat. If I had lost her, if she hadn’t survived me leaving, what would I have done? I never would’ve been able to forgive myself.

  Thinking about it makes my chest hurt and my arms tighten reflexively around her. As though holding her is going to make her immune to the disease that whispers awful things to her, as though my will is strong enough to overpower the demons that haunt her, who might be strong enough to drag her away from me and into the darkness she’s only ever given me glimpses of, but that I know is constantly nipping at her heels, beating at the firmly shut door of her sanity.

  My breath is ragged when I inhale and I fairly crush her to me because I’ve allowed myself to think the unthinkable. It haunted me for months after I moved to Chicago. It was years before I stopped waking up in cold sweats having dreams about her and now it’s all coming back. Grief, yes, for what’s happened in the present, but also those years of crushing worry fall on me and tears press at my eyes as my sinuses burn. I cannot, absolutely cannot, put this on her.

  But if I don’t let it out, where’s it all going to go? My hands are starting to shake already. I have the ridiculous notion that I might be able to get away with this if I splash some water on my face.

  “Darling, if you’ll excuse me for a moment…”

  Starla looks at me in a considering way and then declares, “No. You said you would have feelings and I’m going to hold you to that.”

  “Yes, well.” My jaw tightens and flexes because weeping in front of her is not precisely what I signed up for and my feelings are trending toward frustration and embarrassment. “It’s not precisely a turn-on to see your daddy cry, now, is it? I don’t know if I can stop it, and I’d really rather not in front of you, because…because…”

  “Did you think any less of me all the times you’ve seen me cry?”

  “No, of course not. But it’s different for men.”

  “Which is foolish. You can take your toxic masculinity and shove it. I have no use for it.”

  She says it so kindly and in such a straightforward way. She may as well have said, “Lowry, don’t be a numpty. Cry, for fuck’s sake, if you need to.”

  It’s been half a lifetime since I did. I’ve forgotten the sweet relief of letting the moisture that’s been stinging and burning at the corners of my eyes spill over. The tears are hot and wet, cooling rapidly as they roll down my cheeks. It’s such a foreign sensation and I…I don’t know what to do with them. Not swipe at them with my sleeve. Starla solves my dilemma by kissing them away, her soft lips pressing against my cheeks and her kitten tongue darting out to sweep the salty moisture into her mouth.

  “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”

  Clearing my throat so my voice doesn’t crack, I say, “And I’m sorry I brought this to your doorstep. I didn’t mean to, and it’ll be over soon, I swear. I didn’t mean for you to see me like this, so I apologize.”

  “Don’t you dare. I’m not sorry. I want you to come to me when you’re upset. It means you trust me. And that you think I’m strong enough to help you and not just the other way around. Don’t get me wrong. I love when you take care of me, when I get to be your little girl. But I can give you more than that and it means a lot that you’ll let me. Or at least let me try.”

  “You being right here helps.” I give my heels a bounce and she lets out a surprised giggle, clings to me a smidge tighter and God, does that feel good.

  “So, what is this about, really? Can you talk about it? I know if it’s one of your patients, it’s
—”

  “One of my patients died by suicide this morning.”

  No use beating around the bush. There’s not a nice way to say it. Took his own life? Is that any better? Perhaps I should’ve tried harder to temper my language because Starla sucks in a breath.

  “Oh, Lowry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I close my eyes and think of Tony. Of the pictures I’ve seen of his wife and his daughters. Beautiful family and now he’s torn it all to shreds. Or blown it up, same way he blew his brains out with a revolver at the desk in his home office. His wife found him. At least it wasn’t one of the girls.

  “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t help him. He didn’t trust me enough or believe in me enough to call me when he was thinking about it. How did I not see this coming? I thought we had a plan. I thought we’d made an agreement. I thought…”

  It’s been a while since I’ve lost a patient. Always a risk in my line of work, with the populations I’m drawn to. And every time, it’s a punch to the gut. Like someone’s forced a balled-up hand into my midsection at speed, grabbed a fistful of entrails and dragged it out of my body, forcing me to look at it. Here are your worst fears come true. And you are as powerless as you were then to stop it.

  It’s selfish of me, I know, to be thinking so much about what this has done to me. I should be contacting his family and seeing if there’s anything I can do, any help I can offer. I will. I may have failed Tony in allowing this to happen, but I won’t fail him in this. It’s the least I could do to offer anything I have to his grieving widow and the children he left behind.

  The anger I feel toward him isn’t fair either. It’s there anyhow, yelling and stomping and wanting to shake him because How could you? How could you do this to the people you loved and who loved you? But that’s the shitty thing about depression, isn’t it? He probably believed they’d be better off. That perhaps they didn’t love him. And I didn’t think so the last time I saw him, but perhaps he was so far gone down the path that he didn’t think he loved them either. Perhaps he looked at them and felt nothing but icy numbness. I’ll never know. Even if I did, would it satisfy? No, nothing will. Because nothing could.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she says softly, her breath warm on my neck. “But this isn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done. If he was determined and sure and his depression was screaming so loud he couldn’t hear anything else, no one could do anything. You know that, right?”

  She rests a hand on my chest, over my heart, and it’s not anatomically possible, but I swear it lets in more blood so it can swell toward her touch, beats hard to let her know she was heard. Heard, yes, but believed?

  In my head, I know that’s true. Intellectually, I can repeat her words, and I would say the same to any of my colleagues who were in this situation. Have, in fact, done precisely that. But in my chest? In this muscle where the ache of loss seems to be centered?

  “I know. But—”

  “No buts.” She sits up, not taking her hand off my chest. “Who’s the expert in depression here, me or you? Not like the DSM and Psychiatrist Weekly and peer-reviewed journals and shit like that—you can wear that crown, I don’t want it. But of the two of us, who is viscerally familiar with what depression can do to a person?”

  The words come to my lips, ready to give Starla her due, but what comes out is a choked sob. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’m a mess. All I can do is close my hand around hers and bring it to my lips, kiss her knuckles and assure myself she’s here, and I don’t need to worry anymore about losing her to the darkness. I say a prayer over her fingertips that that’s true.

  “You are. And I’ve thought about that every time I’ve lost a patient since I left. Every single goddamn time. It would’ve been awful enough without that added ton of guilt, but every time…every time.”

  Which is not her burden to bear and I’m a right tosser for mentioning it to her. I have no right to ask her to absolve me of any of my sins, but particularly that one. I shouldn’t have handed that weight to her, but I can’t take it back now. She’ll have to carry it too.

  Chapter 26

  Starla

  It’s disconcerting, having Lowry hunched over my fingers and in such obvious pain. I had no idea… But of course, I wouldn’t have. When he left, I convinced myself it was because he didn’t care for me, that I’d worn him out, used up all the nurturing and watching over he was capable of giving. That horrible thought was only borne out by never hearing from him once he’d gone. I had no idea he’d fretted over me, that he worried I would take my life, and that if I had, he would’ve believed it was his fault.

  I don’t think words will do any good at this point; I know they couldn’t reach me when I was at my lowest. It would’ve been like someone trying to talk to me through a blizzard. So, I do what I can and thread the hand he’s not clutching through his hair, murmuring things to him like how I am still here. I am very much here. I am not going anywhere. And the fact that I’m here is due in large part to him.

  I doubt he takes enough credit for the lives he’s saved, and takes on far too much blame for the ones he’s lost. And as I told him, those are not his fault. Nor is it the fault of the people who killed themselves. It’s near impossible, I think, for people who’ve never experienced it to understand exactly what depression is like. Not the occasional period of being blue, but a hole so deep you have no expectation, and indeed not even any hope, of climbing out. But when the call is coming from inside the house—inside your own mind—it’s exponentially worse.

  If you can’t trust your own mind, who can you trust? If your brain is trying to kill you, why shouldn’t you listen? Is anything you can experience with your muted emotions going to be worth the agony of walking this earth one more day? These are the questions I asked myself. And I was so, so lucky to have someone like him there to give me a hand up and out of the abyss.

  Yes, it took effort and struggle on my part, and sometimes I feel myself slipping back toward that deep, dark well where I could drown, but I also appreciate how he and my entire medical team were racing around at the top of the crevasse trying to figure out how to get me out, like baby Jessica in the well. I couldn’t see it then, I was convinced I was very much alone. But when it worked—I could see them and everything they’d done for me, and I felt—still feel—tremendous gratitude. And some other stuff because I was a teenager and hormones and adolescence are confusing enough even without the threat of serious mental illness looming over you, but my enduring feeling is gratitude. I am so very grateful for still being here, and to everyone who helped make that a possibility.

  I try to pour some of that gratitude over him, into him, make him feel and not just know that he has helped people, that he hasn’t been a failure. I’d ask how many more people wouldn’t be here without his help, but I don’t think that would be helpful right now. That would likely bring on more despair.

  I comfort and soothe him until his broad shoulders stop quaking and then I hold him. Willing him to know how deeply I love him without having to say the words.

  “Have I talked about my feelings enough?” His voice is gravelly, his eyes rimmed with red, and he’s looking at me with a ravenous hunger. I don’t have much in the house, but I don’t think he’s craving food anyway.

  “You could be done for now, if you want.”

  “I want. Christ, I knew how draining it can be for my patients to talk to me, but I feel hollowed out.”

  I remember that sensation, one that would last for weeks on end, sometimes months. Well, I’m not going to let that happen to Lowry. Not that it could in the same way since his brain doesn’t have that unfortunate wiring that predisposes him to be depressed, but still. For as many times as he’s given me something to hold onto, I’m going to fill him so he doesn’t feel empty any longer.

  “And do you have any thoughts on what you’d like to do now?” I check my watch as if I don’t know the time. “Our reservation is soon. We could clean up an
d head over if you’d like.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t stomach the idea of being out in the world. I only want to be here with you. And if you’re up for it…”

  He looks me up and down, the intensity of his gaze singeing my skin as it travels the length of my body. “The only sustenance I want to consume right now is you.”

  Oh. Yes, I could do that. Let him devour me.

  “I think that could be arranged.”

  “Yes? And I’ll finally get to see what’s under that skirt of yours.”

  I roll my lips between my teeth and nod, starting to cede control back to him. Which is frankly a relief. I’d been wired when he arrived, and being the one to provide support and succor didn’t alleviate the burden. If anything, it’s become heavier and I don’t want to carry it anymore, not if he’s recovered sufficiently to take on some of the load.

  We kiss and I can feel his hunger, feel the way things around us have shifted, and as he plunders my mouth with that clever tongue of his, I feel too the way I’ve been keyed up turn into desire for him, desire to be his.

  “Come on then, love.”

  Lowry sits down at the edge of the bed, grabs BB-8, and places it to his side. I wasn’t sure if he’d want to do any of this what with the emotional roller coaster we’ve already endured this evening, but perhaps this will make him feel as though he has control over something, even if he couldn’t save his patient. Or maybe he just likes to spank me and he could use a little pleasure right now. Does it matter? At the moment, I think not. Especially because I’m eager to surrender myself to him, let him do as he will with me. And if that’s spanking my bottom? So much the better.

  I crawl onto the bed and drape myself over his lap, clutching BB-8 to my head. Well, the side of him that’s soft and doesn’t look like the droid. I mean, BB-8 must’ve seen some things in Poe’s service, but I don’t want him being corrupted here.