Page 71 of None Of Your Business

I already know I’m not going to like this. “What?”

“You. You’ve spent years learning how to fix things people can’t see. You changed your whole life after Ethan.”

“That wasn’t the only reason.”

Emergency medicine stopped feeling like where I belonged long before that night. Ethan didn’t spark my interest in psychiatry, but he made it impossible to ignore.

After he died, every patient who rolled through those ER doors took on his face. Every resuscitation felt like another attempt to bring my brother back.

I still remember staring at the paramedics that night, wondering why someone was screaming, before the cold realization hit that the voice tearing through Ethan’s bedroom was my own.

I started compressions before the ambulance arrived. I kept going until one of the paramedics put his hands over mine and told me they had him.

Beckett was part of the team waiting when the ambulance arrived. With one look at my face, he knew.

But I trusted Beckett with him. I knew he wouldn’t give up unless he had no other option.

For the first time in my career, I wasn’t allowed to help. I was his brother.

Transitioning to psychiatry wasn’t a sudden pivot. It was a matter of survival.

My mother squeezes my hand, breaking the flood of memories.

“You help people talk. You study why they don’t. You spend your days looking for anything that will save them.” Her expression breaks something in me. “My beautiful boy. I am so proud of you. But sometimes I wonder whether part of you is still standing in that house, thinking that if you get good enough at seeing people, nobody will ever surprise you like that again.”

I can’t answer. The words are stuck in the back of my throat.

She turns her hand until our palms meet. “You’ve dedicated so much of your life to looking after people.”

“It’s my job.”

“Not always.”

For no reason at all, I think of copper hair. A bruise. A cushion and lumbar support on a chair, placed there before she even walked into the room.

Mom studies my face. “Who looks after you?”

“I’m thirty-seven.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I don’t need looking after.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Apparently, I raised a psychiatrist.”

“Terrible mistake on your part.”

I smile, and she smiles back, though it fades fast.

“I just don’t want you to spend your whole life being the person who notices everyone else while nobody notices you.”

The words settle between us before she lifts my hand and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “Stay for coffee?”

“Of course.”