His lips curved. “That’s not exactly what I’d call you.”
“I’m sure you’d choose something more blunt.”
“No,” he said, but that was all he said. And now she wanted to know what he’d been thinking. Too late; he swept the conversation along. “So what changed? What made you start thinking of your life in two halves—before and after?”
Her heart stuttered for one dangerous moment. “I . . . how did you—?”
“I have some experience with that feeling myself,” he said, raking a hand through the silken sunset of his hair. He sounded vaguely sad. “I guess I recognize it in you.”
“Yes,” she murmured, because that made sense. “I see it in your paintings.”
His eyes widened for a moment and color appeared on his high cheekbones. “Oh.”
Now she was blushing, too. She hadn’t meant to embarrass him. She certainly hadn’t meant to admit so much knowledge of his art. She got too comfortable around him and things slipped out when they shouldn’t. “I only meant—I was researching, for the website, and I found some of your older work, and there’s a distinct—”
With a kindness she didn’t really deserve, he cut her off. “I know what you mean. It’s fine.” He studied her for a moment as if her skin were translucent, and he could peer inside her head if only the light hit her just right. She felt uncomfortably like the light was hitting her just right. “You know, for someone who happily admits to being rude, you seem to care a lot about hurting my feelings.”
Her derisive snort was automatic, a familiar shield. “Don’t flatter yourself. I care about everyone’s feelings.”
“Yeah? What about your own?”
She sucked in a breath to say something cutting or witty or otherwise distracting, only it got caught in a tangle at the back of her throat.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, his proximity turning her pulse into a tempest. “Tell me about your before.”
Chapter Ten
Red didn’t know why he was pushing, why he felt so ravenous for any scrap of the woman sitting before him. But when she curled her knees under her and faced him completely, when those spilled-ink eyes met his and her velvet voice wrapped around him, it felt right. It felt like exactly what he’d wanted.
Even though her quiet words ripped into his chest.
“I used to have friends. I used to have a fiancé, even.” She said that with a wry smile and an arch of those winged eyebrows, like she thought that might surprise him. It did, and it didn’t. She wasn’t a social person, exactly, but she was damned hypnotic. Of course she’d had friends. And yet, apparently, she’d also lost them.
“I suppose the end of all that started when I got pneumonia,” she said, hooking her arm around a nearby cushion, pressing it to her chest. “Apparently, I nearly died. All I remember is how it felt.” He wondered if she noticed she was squeezing that cushion, the sort of vulnerable move she usually avoided like the plague. Probably not. In the space of a few seconds, she’d somehow become so distant.
“My bones were like eggshells. There was this cold, wet toad squatting on my chest, too heavy and chilling for me to breathe right.” She said it so steadily, but he saw a hint of remembered panic in her eyes. “I remember being so angry with myself, because it was so silly, the way I got sick. I used to play netball, and I’d been nervous about a particular game. I stayed out in the rain with some of my friends, running drills. We won the match, but I was in the hospital a few days later. Obviously, I survived,” she quipped, as if he needed a reminder of her continued existence.
He didn’t laugh. “But . . . ?”
“But,” she went on grimly, “my body was different. The weight on my chest, and the cold—they faded, as I got better. But my bones still felt fragile. It never went away. Over the months, I noticed more and more problems. I was exhausted all the time. I got these awful headaches for no reason. And there was the pain—always, so much pain. I’d go for a walk and feel like I’d worked every muscle to the point of tearing. If I spent too long on my laptop, my hands would hurt so badly I cried. I started feeling afraid of my own body, like it was a torture chamber I’d been trapped inside.
“But when I asked for help, no one would listen. I’m lucky my family believed me, because for years, they were the only ones. I remember one doctor asked to speak with my father, even though I was an adult. He told my dad I was physically fine, but they should look into my mental health.” She laughed, but the sound was too loud, too edgy, grating against his skin.
Red curled his hands into useless fists in his lap, fighting the urge to touch her. To stroke her hair or pull her into a hug, the way he might if she were someone—anyone—else. Usually, he offered comfort to help other people. But she looked so determinedly brittle right now, eyes sharp, jaw hard, chin up, he knew comfort wasn’t what she wanted. He’d only be doing it for himself, because he could see how trapped she’d felt, and it made him feel hollow inside.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” she said dryly, “my mental health was a mess at that point. And having actual medical professionals dismiss me really didn’t help, so . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
“Of course it didn’t,” he said, his voice rough, almost rusty, with the anger he didn’t want to show. “Whether something bad is coming from your body or your brain, it makes no difference. Still feels like shit, right? Still hurts. Still needs fixing. They shouldn’t have dismissed you, even if it was in your head. When it comes down to it, everything we feel is in our heads.”
She opened her eyes. Wet her lips. Nodded slowly, and looked a little bit less tortured. When she spoke again, her voice was smooth and arch and familiar. “I do hate to admit when you’re right, but you happen to have stumbled upon a sensible opinion, there.”
Somehow, for her, he dredged up a smile. “Must be a blue moon. Keep going.”
She swallowed so hard, he heard it. “Right. Yes. Well. I was diagnosed, in the end. My consultant believes major physical trauma can trigger conditions like mine. She thinks it was the pneumonia. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that, for years, I had no idea what was really happening to my body. No painkillers, no physical therapy, no medical support whatsoever. So I did what I had to do. I developed my own coping mechanisms. The problem is, they weren’t particularly healthy.”
He wondered what it was like, to cope constantly. Tiring, probably. Stressful, definitely. Doing it alone didn’t sound healthy at all.