Page 48 of None Of Your Business

“Then the vault isn’t sealed,” I say, leaning forward just enough to emphasize my point. “Professional discretion is one thing. A pinky promise is legally binding.”

“In what world?”

“My world. Wrap your finger around mine, or I’m taking my medical secrets back.”

A long, suffering exhale escapes him.

“Do it.”

He gives in with a groan. His hand is massive compared to mine, his skin warm.

“Happy?” he asks, pulling his hand away.

“Thrilled. Thank you.”

I almost forget my head is glued together and my heart is doing 110 beats per minute while I sit still.

“Why psychiatry?” I ask, resting my head back on the cushions. “Why not something where you get to use a scalpel? You have the hands for it.”

He looks down at his palms, flexing his fingers. A flash of old pain crosses his face before he smooths it over. “Long story.”

“Seriously? I just told you my biggest secret.”

He leans back. “My mother had a stroke when I was eighteen. She survived, but the woman who came back wasn’t the one who left. Her personality wasn’t the same, and her memories were… rearranged. I wanted to know if you could find someone again after their brain had changed.”

It’s the first thing he’s said that doesn’t sound like a clinical paper. He sounds like a boy who lost his mother while she was still standing in front of him.

But there’s more. His pain runs so much deeper. I can see it on his face.

“That’s not the entire story, is it?”

He shakes his head but doesn’t answer.

I don’t press him. I know what it’s like to have secrets you aren’t ready to share.

“Did you?” I ask. “Find her?”

“Bits and pieces. In the way she likes her tea. In the way she laughs at the same bad jokes. I think people are just a collection of those bits, even when the wiring is faulty.”

It’s late. Too late for conversations like this with a man who was supposed to be a spectator in my life. The room feels suddenly too warm, the air thick with a dangerous kind of closeness.

He just handed me a piece of his story, and I don’t know where to put it without letting him see how much it shook me.

So I build the wall back up.

“You can go, you know. I mean it. I’m not going to die.”

The muscle in his jaw ticks, but he dips his chin and stands.

A cold disappointment settles in my stomach, which is ridiculous because I was the one who told him to leave.

“Don’t go into your studio tonight,” he says, adjusting his collar.

“I won’t.”

He searches my face with sharp blue eyes. “I’m serious, Rowan.”

“I won’t,” I lie.