Page 116 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Mel isn’t a part of a they. She’s not like anyone else. When she said she was leaving, she meant it,” I said, and fuck, the words tasted bitter on my tongue. “Believe me, I’ve spent the last two weeks of my life trying to get her to talk to me.”

“They always fucking mean it,” Thatch boomed, holding out his hand toward me and looking to the others in a gesture of Do you believe this guy? “But they very rarely want it. They just want you to stop fucking up.”

Somehow, for some insane reason, I found myself looking to Thatch, of all people, for advice. “And how do I do that?” My voice sounded desperate even to my own ears.

“You don’t. You’re a dude. But you can work out a system where your fuck-ups line up with her tolerance, and everything comes together in a neat little package.”

“Start by opening the clinic,” Wes advised.

“We did already do all the paperwork,” Kline mused.

“And ponied up the money,” Thatch added.

Was it all that simple? Could a new medical facility and an honest effort on my part make it all better? Was it the big gesture? The kind of gesture that I’d been trying to figure out, but couldn’t find…

“Uh-uh,” Thatch clucked. “I can tell by your face you need to stop thinking right now. This isn’t going to solve any of your problems. Not at all. In fact,” he emphasized, “it’s probably going to make it worse.”

Kline nodded. “But only until you make it better.”

Huh?

“I don’t know what the fuck you guys are talking about. Is the clinic good or is it bad?”

They all looked to one another and smiled. I’d love to know what’s so fucking funny.

“It’s good,” Kline promised. “But there’s a chance she’s gonna be pissed about it, but that only lasts until you can convince her it’s a symbol of what you’re willing to do for her.”

“You see, William,” Thatch cooed. “Women are very complicated creatures.”

I flipped him off. Kline looked to the others and nodded to the door. “We’ll get out of your hair. Just look through the paperwork and think about it, okay?”

“Me, think about it?” I asked. “You guys are the ones who are going to lose money.”

Thatch turned back as he was moving through the door, his hands going to the top of the frame so he could lean back in. He filled the entire space. “Some things, young William, are worth the money,” he said and followed it up with a wink and a smirk. “Plus, we could all use the tax deduction in the form of good charity and the ultimate gesture.”

As they all filed out, giving waves and jerks of their chins, I looked down at the stack of papers on my desk and read the first few lines.

“Those do-gooding bastards,” I muttered, the absurd amount of money they’d each pledged to the formation and operation of the clinic blinding me with the reality.

Frustrated by my own discord, by how conversely happy and twisted inside-out miserable I was, I banged around on my desk like it held important things and yanked open the middle drawer to toss some knickknacks inside.

I didn’t have a purpose, just a fuse to burn out, but as soon as the old drawer squeaked to a stop, so did I.

Right there, on top of everything else, was that very first tongue depressor.

Open wide! Everything you’re looking for is inside yourself.

It was Mel. It was me. It was everything that was us, together.

And it was the only reminder I needed to make a plan.

It was time to get my shit together.

This should have been an awesome day. I should have felt liberated and free and excited as I unpacked my belongings from their cardboard boxes and filled my new apartment with everything that was me, but I had never felt more alone.

It was a soul-crushing kind of loneliness, and it made it damn near impossible to set up my apartment without doing something ridiculous like painting everything black or impulsively running to the nearest shelter and bringing home a cat.

I didn’t even like cats. I was more of a dog person, but I had a feeling me and a sassy feline would have more in common in this miserable moment than a happy, tail-wagging puppy.