Chapter 21

Tuesday was a long, horrible day. I met Tricia at her locker like normal and reminded her that I was going to be at Harvard most of the day. I missed her and told her so. I wished we could spend more time together, but between her father, the study and my ill-fated cheer career, I hadn’t seen her in days. I hugged her tight when I dropped her off at her class and smiled at her. My classes seemed to drag as if they knew I was only here for a short time and were punishing me for my freedom.

At 11:30, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was meeting Patty out front in fifteen minutes so we could have lunch before she dropped me off for my afternoon of testing. I was engrossed in my lectures, trying to kill the last minutes when I heard my name called over the PA.

I groaned and packed up, heading to the office where I found myself in Mr. Peterson’s office wondering what I was doing here. I texted Patty to let her know where I was and I’d be out as soon as I could.

When the principal joined me, he wasn’t alone. Coach Mullins followed him in and I could feel the headache starting.

He took a seat and I spoke before either of them could start. “Mr. Peterson, I’m scheduled for testing on campus all afternoon and my ride should be here any moment. Is this urgent?”

“I don’t think it’s urgent,” he admitted. “It shouldn’t take long though and then you can be on your way. I understand that you’ve joined the cheerleading team here. I’m very impressed by that. Most boys your age would look on it as a less prestigious sport.”

“That was my intention. It hasn’t precisely worked out that way though,” I said.

“Yes, Coach Mullins was telling me about it. She had hoped to speak to you before classes, but you didn’t go to your locker this morning.”

“I actually went to my locker first thing this morning, but my custom is to get what I need and then go wait at my girlfriend’s locker since I only get a few minutes a day to talk to her,” I said simply. “Regardless, I wasn’t aware there was more to discuss on the matter. Coach Mullins made it clear that my behavior was unbecoming of a cheer ambassador for our school. I bowed to her authority and left practice, informing her that I was crystal clear about the decision she’d made.”

“Well, I think there was a bit of a misunderstanding about that,” he said gently.

I shrugged. “That’s entirely possible. After all, I’ve been known to have trouble focusing on what’s going on around me,” I said with a slight smile since that had been his assessment of me the first time we met.

“Touche,” he said with a chuckle. “Alright, why don’t you tell me what happened from your point of view and we can go from there.”

“I’d be only too happy to,” I told him, “but can we do it tomorrow morning? I really DO have to go for tests. The neuroscience department gets cranky if I’m late.”

“We can certainly talk tomorrow morning,” he said with a nod. “We’ll see you at 8:30.”

I thanked them and was out the door just as Patty was pulling up.

“What’s up?” she asked, taking in my stressed look.

“Cheerleading coach had me called to the office to talk about how she kicked me off the team,” I said sourly.

“Oh. I heard about that,” she said, pulling away from the curb. “How’re you going to handle it?”

“I dunno. She had the principal doing all the talking today. I guess we’ll see tomorrow,” I admitted. “I like Mr. Peterson. I’m not sure I like her at all.”

“Well, figure it out and do what’s right for you,” she said firmly before changing subjects. “I also wanted to thank you. Those lock boxes were a good idea. Lana and Becky and I talked about them and why you suggested them last night after Lilly went home. The girls want you to have the spare keys for them.”

“You should keep them. Search them while they’re at school. Don’t read the things they’re putting in there, but make sure they’re not keeping anything they shouldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” she asked warily. “What would they be keeping?”

“Oh no! I’m not going to rat them out unless necessary. You’ll know it when you see it though. I guarantee it.”

“I see,” she said sourly. She knew what I was talking about. “When did you find this out?”

“Yesterday. I told Lana to get help. God help me, I told her if it helped her get the help she needed, to consider it an order and tell her sister the same.”

“Then I should have known about it yesterday,” she told me irritably.

“Not to be indelicate, but I wouldn’t announce I’d had a wet fart where Lilly could hear let alone give her more damaging information.”

“That’s going too far, Matt,” she said gently, trying to pull me back from the edge.

“No it’s not. She went over to breakfast Friday and made up a lie to cause the most damage possible to the largest number of people possible. It’s fine to have sympathy for her because she’s thirteen and her mother is not well, but she’s not rampaging through my life any more. For example, she doesn’t know that the hospital settled yesterday. I could leave any time once the check clears. If I do, I promise I’ll keep you and Dan informed on where I am and what I’m doing.”

She thanked me and we drove in silence after that, each lost in our own thoughts.

After lunch, everything seemed to go wrong. The equipment wasn’t working right, the scans were off, the machines needed to be calibrated, techs were irritated and tempers flared. I tried to ignore it and spent a lot of the afternoon meditating. Things finally hit the fan when one of the techs snapped back at Carl and things started spiraling out of control.

“HEY!” I shouted, getting everyone’s attention. “Calm down! You’re professionals. Think about how you’re acting. How would your mentors feel about you if they could see you right now? How would your friends and family? Take a deep breath and STOP ASSIGNING BLAME! Work the problem. If the scan’s not working, is it diagnostic or systemic? If it’s systemic, can we fix it with our expertise and tools on hand or do we need to call in a specialist? Stop what you’re doing. Step back. Assess the problem. Come back with a solution. Everyone out for ten minutes. Go for a walk, get a drink, take a leak, masturbate, do whatever you need to do to shed some hostility and then come back and tackle it as a team. Now go. No one back for at least ten minutes.”

I checked my watch and then gave them a look that said I wasn’t kidding. They filed out one by one until it was just me and Carl in the room.

“You too,” I said and nodded to the door.

“Me?!” he said, shocked. “Why me?”

“Because you were as out of line as everyone else. Go find your center and come back in control. I’ll be here.”

He sputtered and protested. “This is MY lab!”

“Your ten minutes don’t start until you’re outside,” I told him mildly.

“You can’t kick me out of my own lab!” he bellowed.

“If you don’t go, I’ll throw you out, Carl. You’re screaming at me for telling you that you’re having a bad day and need a break. Which of us would you prefer to call Victoria?”

That got his attention and he backed down. “You spend too much time with her,” he growled irritably.

“Impossible,” I told him with a smile. “If I spent the rest of my life with her, I couldn’t ever make everything up to her.”

“That sounds ominous,” he said. “Falling for your doctor?”

“You’re stalling. If you don’t leave now, it’s twenty minutes, not ten.”

“FINE! I’m going, I’m going!” He threw up his hands and went for a walk.

“Alone at last,” I muttered and started deliberately checking the connections on the ‘thinking cap’ that they used for measuring the electrical activity in my brain. I unplugged every connector and then plugged it back in until I found one that slipped out of the socket as soon as I touched it.

I reconnected it and put the cap on. I wheeled my chair over to the panel and started the diagnostic cycle, performing the test and checking the data. It looked good this time. I did several more of the tests and realized that a fair amount of time had passed and no one was here. I finished the panel, muttering to myself that it was a good thing the MRI scanner hadn’t broken. I finally took off the cap and set it back on the mannequin’s head we were using to store it.

I turned around and they were all standing there. They’d all come in while I was running the tests and had stood back.

Carl was looking at me strangely. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I checked the connections. There was a loose one so I tightened it and ran the first test. The scan came back like it should, so I went to the next test and just finished the whole series. I figured that should help put us back on schedule.”

They all returned to their stations and looked like they were doing a little better. The rest of the tests passed without more glitches, but there was still a lot of tension in the lab when they were getting ready to shut it down for the night.

I took a few minutes to talk to each person as they were getting everything shut down, telling them that they did well today and that glitches like this happened from time to time. I knew what a few words of encouragement did for me and decided to hand out a few today instead of soaking them up.

Finally, it was just Carl and I. He still seemed flustered. “You okay, Carl?” I asked, clapping him on the shoulder.

He nodded. “I’m a little disturbed by a few things though.”

I took one of the seats nearby and gestured for him to do the same. “How did you know what was wrong?” he asked.

“I didn’t,” I said. “I decided that the easiest thing I could check is the physical connection points. If that hadn’t turned up anything at either end, I’d have checked the cables for crimping and then looked at the cap for signs of damage, like scuffs. At least then I could tell you I eliminated a couple of the possibilities when you came back and were ready to work the problem.”

“And how did you know how to run those tests?”

“I’ve been watching you set them up for months,” I laughed.

“When are you going to tell Victoria you love her?” he asked, changing topics.

“I tell her all the time,” I said without missing a beat. “I tell her when I give her carte blanche to discuss my case, when I tell her I trust her with my life, when I tell her how attractive I find her, when I leave her drawings at the end of our sessions, when I turn to her for guidance. I tell her every day when I make just a little progress toward fixing my issues and getting past them.”

He considered that and I smiled. “I know what you were actually asking,” I told him. “You were asking me when I was going to confess to being IN love with her,” I clarified.

“And?” he asked.

“The answer’s the same. I don’t ever say those words, but what does it mean to be in love versus loving someone? It’s the passion that drives the one and the deep emotional connection that drives the other. When you have both, it’s a powerful force. I would gladly take a bullet for Victoria. I would count the cost of my own life as a bargain to save hers. Is that loving someone or being in love with them? If we ever crossed that line between patient and doctor, there would be whole days just gone from our consciousness. We’d lose ourselves in each other so completely there’d be no day or night. Time would stand still and the world would have to wait for us to be sated. There’s no doubt that there’s passion. At the same time, she would have to come to me because I love her enough not to push that choice forward. I suspect some time over the next five years, she and I may find ourselves sorely tempted to express that passion and when that day comes, if she’s not ready to embrace it, I love her enough to say no because in the aftermath, she would regret it. Does that answer your question?” I asked. I felt serene in my answer. It felt right.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was a lot of words for a simple question.”

I shrugged. “It’s the truth. What’s on your mind, Carl? Are you thinking about settling down with her and want me to take a step back?”

“No!” he said quickly and then shook his head again to emphasize it. “I’m worried about the two of you, how close you are and how much of her I see in you.”

I grinned at that, taking it for praise. “I admire her, possibly more than any person I have ever met. Don’t get me wrong, I admire you too and I think of you as more of a mentor than I think of her as. But she’s performed miracles with me. She’s taught me to be calm in the face of adversity. Maybe that’s what you saw today when I banished everyone from the lab,” I suggested, amused. “The point is that she’s done so much for me that I can’t even measure all the ways she’s shaped my personality. I take it as the highest of compliments when you say you see her in me.” I paused and smirked. “I’d personally rather it the other way around though.”

He barked a laugh. “So you haven’t...”

I shook my head. “Not for lack of interest and maybe I flatter myself, but I think some of that interest is mutual. We have very clear focus on what crossing that line would mean to each of us though. Right now, the cost is higher than the benefit. Tomorrow though? Who can say. If something changes, the cost might be far outstripped by the benefit.”

“What could possibly change that much?” he asked skeptically.

I shrugged. “If she got news that she has a medical problem and had only a short window if she wanted to be a mother, she could very well ask me to assist her, being the most gifted person she’s likely to find on short notice. Nuclear war could break out, leaving her and me the only two survivors in a thousand miles. I could suffer a catastrophic loss in my life and she could judge it to be the last best hope to reach me before my mind spirals out of control.”

“Do you stay up at night thinking about these things?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Nope, but you’re not the first person to ask me to generate a list of circumstances under which unlikely outcomes seem like optimal solutions.”

“I see,” he said. “I suppose that’s understandable.”

“What’s going on, Carl?” I asked, trying to get to the bottom of what was bothering him. “Something’s gotten under your skin. You weren’t that mad at the techs earlier. You’re better than that. Something else has you tied up in knots. What is it?”

He sat quietly or a few minutes and I waited him out. “Cancer,” he said finally. “This is just between you and me. I don’t intend to tell anyone about it until it takes over my life.”

I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach. “No!” I whispered. I was horrified. “How serious is it? Can it be treated?”

He shook his head and sighed. “It’s advanced and it’s spread. They tell me I’ll have about six months.”

I swallowed hard and struggled to breathe. “Fuck!” I said softly, tears starting to spill over my cheeks. My shoulders trembled with the effort of keeping myself together. I wept bitter tears. I had no words for this loss. I don’t know how long we sat there but when I finally calmed, both our cheeks were wet.