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“How was your day? Anything exciting happen?”
Hudson laughs lightly into the phone. “Nope. Went to class and met Cardin for lunch. Worked my shift at the library this evening and now I’m tucked away in my dorm for the night like a good little boy.”
I was so out of touch with reality, I never paid attention to Hudson’s dreams and aspirations. The entire time I was using, he had already been accepted into college and if he told me, I never actually listened. It wasn’t that I didn’t give a shit. I just didn’t have it in me to care about anything that was going on with anyone else.
He had always talked about going to school to be a teacher. I always laughed it off because I was the one who never had a clue as to what I was going to do with my life. I wanted to go visit Europe and then go to college. If it were up to my parents, they would have picked my career and everything for me.
“I’m really proud of you too, dude,” I tell him honestly, feeling the emotion well inside. “You didn’t follow the same path that I did. You are actually doing what you wanted to do with your life. I’m so happy for you. And that you have Cardin too.”
“Okay, okay.” Hudson breaks through my emotional ramble. “What’s really going on? Something happened today because you are never this emotional.”
I sigh into the phone. “We got a new admission at work today.”
“Is he hot?” Hudson asks with unwarranted curiosity.
“I never said that it was a he?” I retort back.
Hudson chuckles. “You didn’t have to, babe. I can hear the frustration in your voice and I know that you’re not into girls, so it has to be a guy then.”
I swallow hard over the knives lodged in my throat. “You’re right.”
“So, spill. Tell me about the new mystery guy at work.”
“You already know him,” I whisper, pausing as I force back my tears. “It was Killian.”
SIX
KILLIAN
My footsteps are loud on the tile floor as I pace up and down the hall. I’m fucking restless today. I have been since I got here. Nothing is working. My treatment plan isn’t doing shit for me. Therapy isn’t helping.
It feels like the four walls of this building are constantly closing in on me, sucking the oxygen from my lungs. I can’t fucking breathe in this place. I need to get out of here and there’s no way for me to leave.
“Killian, you good?” Dr. Conrad asks as he hangs in the doorway of his office. “Did you want to come in and sit down for a little bit?”
“No,” I bark at him as I continue to pace. “I need to get out of here. I gotta get the fuck out.”
Dr. Conrad stays where he’s standing, watching me carefully as I lose my shit in the hallway. My footsteps are heavier, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. Being in here is killing me, knowing that Ainsley is right on the other side of the door at the end of the hallway.
I’m like a fucking stalker, constantly waiting to see her come through that doorway. It’s been a week. A week of knowing that she’s here, in the same place as me. It’s been a fucking week after seeing her for the first time in a year.
I’m coming undone. I’m losing my fucking mind in here.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on and we can see what we can do to help you,” Dr. Conrad offers as he steps into the hallway, blocking my way as I continue to pace. I stop abruptly, facing him at eye level. He narrows his eyes at me. “If the treatment that we’re giving you here isn’t working, we are here to find out what will work. The only way that we can know that is if you talk to us, Killian. Believe it or not, I’m not a damn mind reader.”
My jaw clenches as I hold his gaze with a cold, hard stare. “Nothing is going to fucking help me. Can’t you see that? I’m a lost cause, a waste of fucking space. Just let me the hell out of here.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Dr. Conrad reminds me, his voice low and calm. “Even if you weren’t court ordered to be here, we still wouldn’t give up on you, Killian. No one is a lost cause. Not a single fucking person who comes here is a waste of space.”
I step away from him, the emotion bursting from the fucking seams as I begin to come apart. It’s too much and I can’t handle it. I turn away from him, a roar ripping through my chest as I drive my fist into the wall. “Fuck you!” I yell at him, my voice echoing through the hallway.
Dr. Conrad takes a step away, moving to the other side of the hall as I pull my fist from the hole that I left in the drywall. He doesn’t say a word, giving me my space as I drive my fist back into the wall, creating a much larger hole than there was from the first blow.
My knuckles are bloodied, bruised and battered. My shoulders sag in defeat as my chest rapidly rises and falls with every exaggerated breath I take. I pull my hand up to my face, inspecting my wounds as the adrenaline begins to wear off.
The adrenaline leaves, taking every bit of serotonin that it gave me as I assaulted the wall. I’m left with an empty hole in my chest as every emotion I’ve been avoiding begins to fill the void. My back hits the wall and I slowly slide down as I crumble onto the floor.
For the first time in a long fucking time, I let myself cry. The tears break through my guard and it crashes to the floor, shattering into a million pieces around my pathetic form. Ignoring the pain in my hand, I wrap my arms around my legs and bury my face in my knees as I submit to my emotions.
