“What happened?” I asked. “It couldn’t have just been Brad.”
“It was my mom,” she whispered against my skin.
I frowned. “I thought your mom passed away.”
She stiffened.
Fuck. I probably should have kept that bit of knowledge to myself.
She pulled back enough to meet my eyes, not bothering to hide the tears that slowly leaked from hers. “You’re so nice that sometimes I forget what a creep you are.”
A sarcastic response was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it in check. “What do you mean, something happened with your mom?”
She sighed and started to pull away, but I hung on, unwilling to let her put any space between us. She must not have truly wanted to escape because she gave up when she realized my intent and snuggled back in. “I killed her.”
It was my turn to go stiff as a board. What the hell was she talking about? “I thought she passed in a car accident.”
“She did,” Aly said. “I was driving. She was trying to teach me how to operate a manual transmission, and it was our first time out on a real road. Before that, we’d practiced in empty parking lots, and she thought I was ready for the next step. I almost stalled out at a red light and panicked when the car jerked forward, slamming my foot down, only I missed the brake and hit the gas, and we shot into the intersection.”
Oh, fuck.
“A car clipped the rear end, spinning us around, and a work truck rammed us head-on,” she said. “The truck driver managed to hit his brakes at the last second, but the impact was still hard enough that all our airbags deployed, and both of my ankles were broken when the front end crumpled. I hit my head hard enough that everything went fuzzy for a few minutes, and when it all came back into focus, I was in so much pain that it took me a moment to notice the pipe sticking out of my mom’s chest. It came loose from the truck during impact and impaled her.”
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I said, squeezing Aly tight. The words felt useless. Why wasn’t there a better way to verbalize empathy in moments like this? Some way to say that you were sorry that encompassed how your heart broke for someone and that you’d do anything you could to take their pain away.
Aly’s sides shook as she lost the fight against her tears, her next words coming out between sobs. “I couldn’t save her.”
Everything clicked into place. Aly couldn’t save her mother, so now she spent every waking hour of her life trying to save everyone else, to the detriment of her own mental and physical health. It made me even more protective of her. Someone so unselfish and caring should be safeguarded at all costs, even from themselves, if necessary.
“There was a car accident tonight,” she said. “The woman looked like Mom, and I just…lost it. I couldn’t treat her.”
I strode from the kitchen into the living room and sank onto the couch with Aly still in my arms. “No one could blame you for that.”
She sniffled. “I blame me.”
I brushed her hair over her shoulder and stroked my hand up and down her back. “You shouldn’t. Retraumatizing yourself isn’t the answer.”
“It’s been almost ten years. I shouldn’t still be traumatized.”
I pressed my fabric-covered lips to her temple. “There isn’t a time limit on grief or trauma.”
She pulled back enough to look at me, eyes red, cheeks blotchy, all the more beautiful for trusting me with her vulnerability. “You sound like my therapist.”
My answering laugh was humorless. “Probably because I’ve been in therapy for so long that I know what one would say right now.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, studying my eyes.
“A therapist would tell you that you didn’t kill your mother. What happened was an accident.”
“Fair enough,” Aly said with another sniffle. “But it’s still my fault she’s dead.”
“Counterpoint: it’s that truck driver’s fault for not swerving around you. Or that first driver’s for clipping you. Or even your mom’s for taking you onto the road before you were ready.”
“Hey,” she said, eyes flashing with reproach as she started to slide off my lap.
I tightened my arms around her and tugged her back to my chest. “I’m serious, Aly. Everyone involved is just at complicit as you. It’s not fair to put all the blame on yourself. Would you tell another sixteen-year-old in your shoes that it was their fault their parent died?”
She shuddered. “God. Never.”
“So why are you doing it to yourself?” She had nothing to say to that, so I pushed my advantage. “I didn’t know your mom, but I bet she wouldn’t want you punishing yourself for her death. She’d want you to live your life free from guilt. She’d want you to be healthy and happy, and by neglecting yourself and pulling these non-stop shifts, you’re actively headed in the opposite direction.”
“It’s so hard, though,” she said, digging her fingers into my shirt. “The hospital is so short-staffed.”
I hefted her by the thighs and hauled her closer, wanting to banish what little space remained between us, wishing I could crawl right inside of her and fix the thoughts in her head.
“I know,” I told her. “But you’ll be no help to anyone if you run yourself into the ground. Exhausted people are sloppy people. They make mistakes that get them caught.” Goddamn thoughts of my father slipping into every conversation. “I mean in trouble. You’d never forgive yourself if you treated someone after pushing past your limit and slipped up in a way that made them worse instead of better.”
Her warm breath heated my neck as she blew out a heavy exhale. “You’re right. I know you are, but it’s almost a compulsion at this point.” She sounded better than a moment ago, more like herself, and it made me want to needle her a little.
“Well, we have the next two weeks off to fix that,” I said.
She reared back, and I should have gotten a medal for keeping my gaze on her face instead of dropping it to where her robe had slipped open, revealing a line of olive skin all the way to her navel. Even lower, in my periphery, I realized her robe had parted below the tie as well, and Aly was nude beneath it.
Fuck.
“How did you know my vacation got bumped up?” she asked. “And what do you mean when you say “we” have two weeks off?”
I ignored her first question. She already knew the answer. “I took a vacation, too. I thought we could spend some quality time together as a family. You, me. Our maladjusted son who just scooted his butt across the carpet behind you.”
She spun around, robe gaping even wider. “Fred, ew! Do you have worms again?”
He lifted his head from where he’d been fast asleep in his little felt house by the TV and gave her a look like, “Me? What the fuck did I do?”
She turned back around, features shifting into a long-suffering expression. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Not when it’s so easy to get a rise out of you.”
The hint of a grin tilted up the corners of her mouth, and something unwound inside me to see it. She had every right to be upset, and I was sure this wasn’t the last of our “you push yourself too hard” conversation, but it was still nice to know that I could get her to smile, even at the worst of times. That had to mean something, didn’t it? That this was bigger than a hookup, more than casual dating. This had real long-term potential, and I hadn’t been deluding myself when I formed my plan to make her fall in love with me.
I shifted my legs up, jostling her forward so she fell against me, hiding all that beautiful skin before I gave in to the urge to touch it.
She rested her cheek on my shoulder. “That was you on the ER line earlier, right?”