Page 125 of The Diamond in the Rough

After a little while, he let out a long breath. “So… did you ever finishRed Mars?”

26

He wantedto do something nice for Rayn. Something that would make him smile, or at least make things a little less awful after everything he’d been through.

It was at leastthe dozenth time that I’d skimmed through the impressions of Raj’s thoughts, slight as they were, because that was as close as I could get to spending time with him. Because even though he’d brought me dinner, I knew that was just to make me feel better. A follow-up to make sure I was okay. A professional courtesy.

I hadn’t seen or heard from him since, not that three days was all that long. Especially since we weren’t… anything. Not even friends. Barely even friendly acquaintances.

My arm hurt—it would be another two weeks before they evaluated whether they were going to remove the fixator—and I felt… adrift.

The case was… not over, but wrapping up. There was nothing more for me to do, at least not at the moment. Ward had made it clear that I shouldn’t come in to work until after my arm was doing better.

I felt like I was losing my mind.

I was both restless and exhausted. Sleep eluded me, and when I did manage to drift off, it was broken by nightmares. Revisiting Tranquil Brook or the dingy room in Garraway’s mansion or the bottom of the well. Or some combination of them. At least I’d kept them out of anybody else’s dreams.

And yet I felt like my whole body itched—not literally, the way my arm was starting to, but metaphorically. Like I couldn’t sit still. Like I had to bedoingsomething, but there wasn’t anything for me to do.

I’d given in and ordered groceries to be delivered, since I couldn’t very well carry things home with my broken arm, and I’d baked cookies and made lasagna, including slow simmering my own tomato sauce just to make sure it took me an entire day.

I touchedeverything.

I’d gone, in a few months, from never wanting to touch anything to desperately trying to find something that resembled companionship from the objects in my apartment.

I wanted to call Raj. To ask him to come over. Offer lasagna and cookies. Or whatever he wanted, really.

Part of me was very,verytempted to visit him in his dreams again.

But while he might have allowed me to do it when I was trapped at the bottom of a well, he undoubtedly wouldn’t be as forgiving if I did it again simply because I was restless and bored.

So I kept my dream-hands to myself and satisfied myself—or didn’t—with running my fingers over my mug again and again to experience that snatch of Raj’s thoughts.Evidence that he didn’t despise me. That he might even like me.

But even if that was true, he’d been clear in the car when he’d dropped me off that nothing would ever happen between us. That I was too young. That because we’d have to work together, it wouldn’t be professional.

That I’d betrayed his trust.

He hadn’t said that one, of course, but I knew it was true.

Because I had.

I may not have caused him physical harm or been cruel to him, but I’d hurt him all the same.

There maybe were degrees of difference between me and someone like Garraway or my uncle, but only degrees. When it came right down to it, we were the same.

Self-centered and ego-driven. Selfish.

“Oh, you poor thing!”Melissa hugged me gently, and I shielded myself not to get any thoughts from her shirt as I hugged her back. “Does it still hurt a lot?” she asked, her hazel eyes focused on the cast and the fixator still sticking out of it.

I shrugged. “It’s not bad,” I said honestly. “Sore, and itchy, but it only reallyhurtsif I bump it on something.” I grimaced. “Showering sucks, though.”

“Ugh, I bet,” Sam said, giving me a one-armed hug so that he didn’t hit me with the bulging tote bag he was carrying. “You gotta put a garbage bag on that thing?”

I smiled. “Not specifically, but it looks a lot like one.” The hospital had given me a big plastic bag thing that wrapped around my upper arm with a stretchy latex bit that created a seal against my skin.

“Bet it makes washing your hair super awkward,” Sam said with a lopsided smile.

“That, too,” I replied, and he laughed.