Worth the Fall (21 page)

Now a sophomore at Tech, he
’d been seeing Alison, at his parents’ urging and encouragement, since his first week in the Copper Country.

In some ways, the Copper Country was a good place for him—calm, peaceful, laid back. In others? Not so much. He was in a high-risk category: male in his early twenties, high intelligence, away from home.

The isolation, the high academic pressure at Tech, and the long winters were all possible triggers for any setbacks with James.

And there had been a couple.

So, no chance to revel in memories of the night before. Which really was just as well.

James made himself comfortable on the couch, sitting in the same corner as he typically did—the one nearest Alison
’s chair. His hands, always in nervous motion, slid up and down his pants from thigh to knee.

He took a deep breath and then another. Alison waited.

He shrugged, his hands now pulling at the bottom hem of his grey sweater. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t have much to say today.”

“
That’s okay. Some days I don’t have much to say either. How is your roommate?”

“
Good. We went to a movie last Saturday night.”

“
Did you enjoy it?”

“
The movie? Or the night out with Bryce?”

“
I meant the night, but either.”

He went with the movie, describing the action sequences in far more detail than Alison needed, but she let him go. Just having him talk so freely was a good sign from when he
’d begun seeing her two years ago.

His IQ was off the charts, but his mind, oh that high-functioning brain, was sometimes his biggest enemy.

She knew what that was like.

“
But it was good to hang out with Bryce, too. To go out, and not study for a night.” He looked up at her from his lap. “That’s good, right?”

She nodded.
“That’s very good. You need to be able to get away from the books—we talked about that. And you can never have too many friends.”

He was nodding, but she could tell that his mind was already off in another direction.

“What are you thinking right now, James?” He took a second too long, and she knew he was debating what to tell her.

“
Oh, just that it’d be cool if they made a sequel to that movie.”

He wasn
’t telling her the truth.

Alison continued to ask him questions on how he
’d spent the time since their last session. She was trying to lead him somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where he needed to go.

His fingers now clasped and unclasped, as if he were trying to warm them, though he
’d been inside long enough that any residual cold from the outside would have worn off by now.

He talked about one of his classes he found interesting. It was a diversionary tactic, and usually she
’d call him on it and get him back on track. Other times she sensed he wasn’t going to get back on track no matter how much she tried to corral his train of thoughts with pointed questions. She let him talk of things that seemed unimportant. She tended to think nothing James said was unimportant, even if he thought that.

As they were wrapping up, she began the assessment of James
’s current stability that she did every session. She began by softly asking, “James? Have you had any thoughts of suicide since we last met?” Which had been last week. They were at two sessions a week.

“
Not really, no.”

“
That didn’t sound definite.”

“
It’s not that I thought about…that. It’s just that I’ve thought about how nice it would be to just fall asleep and never wake up. But not necessarily die or anything. Just…”

“
Not wake up.”

“
Right. Just like one long nap.”

Actually, that sounded pretty good to her, too.

“I wouldn’t do it, though,” he added.

“
Do you currently have anything in your dorm room that could be used to hurt yourself? That would include pills.”

“
No, nothing. And the only pills are the meds Dr. Thompson prescribed.”

“
And you’re taking them?”

His eyes darted away as he nodded.
“Mmm-hmm. Yeah.”

“
It’s important to stay on them, James.”

“
I know,” he said, but Alison doubted him.

“
If you were to try to kill yourself, do you know how you would do it? Do you currently have a plan?”

“
Well, I’d obviously choose a different route,” he said, holding up his wrists, the scars from his previous attempt covered by his sweater. He then tried a half-hearted shrug/smile combination.

She wasn
’t going to let him off the hook with that.

“
Do you have a different route chosen, James?”

He looked her in the eye and shook his head just slightly, his body quiet for a moment.
“No.”

She let out an internal sigh.
“So, let’s get back to your idea of falling asleep forever.”

He went on for a little while describing what sounded to Alison like a lovely passing of time, while also mentally filing it all away to think about later, as she made her notes on the session.

She did some follow-up assessment questions and just barely got them in before James’s restlessness got the best of him just as the session was up.

He rose, then moved to the other side of the room and started putting on his outerwear. He struggled with his boots, and Alison resisted the temptation to kneel down and lace him up like a mother would for a small child.

James was not a child, and she was not anyone’s mother.

After they confirmed she would see him in two days and James left her office, she moved to her desk to make notes in his electronic file. She typed for a good fifteen minutes, trying to objectively transcribe her thoughts on James
’s mental health.

She looked up James
’s contact info, then picked up the phone and dialed. When a receptionist answered she identified herself and asked to speak with Dr. Thompson. Scott was a general physician in the area that happened to be the physician to several of her patients. Like most doctors in the area, he took his turn being on-call in the local emergency room. His offices also happened to be in an office park right across from the hospital, which was convenient.

“
Alison,” he asked when he came on the line. “What can I do for you? Is Petey okay?”

Oh, right, Petey. She pushed all thoughts of the hulking jock out of her head—though the word
“jock” made her mentally pause—and said, “Petey’s fine. Well, he was still sleeping this morning when I left the house, so I’m assuming he’s still fine.” She thought about how that sounded and quickly added, “At least, I heard him snoring as I walked by his room.”

“
That’s good. His knee obviously isn’t interfering with being able to get good sleep.”

It wasn
’t interfering with other activities either, but she kept that bit of information to herself.

“
Actually, I’m calling about James Jurgeson.”

“
Is he okay?” Scott quickly asked with concern.

“
Yes. I mean I think so. He just left a session. I wanted to check with you that he was still on his meds. I mean, as much as you could possibly know.”

She heard the typing of a keyboard as Scott answered her.
“Let’s see. He said he was when I last saw him. But…yes…it says he refilled the prescription two weeks ago, which would have been right on target if he was taking them regularly.”

Relief seeped into her. But still, you never knew.
“You haven’t prescribed any sleep aids, have you?”

When he had first started seeing her, James had given consent for Alison and Scott to discuss his treatment—which they did on a fairly regular basis.

“No. No sleep aids of any kind. Has he been having trouble sleeping? Or are you worrying about something else?”

“
Something else. Suicidal thoughts in particular.”

“
I see. He’s not scheduled to come in for another six weeks. Do you think I should get him in here sooner?”

“
No, I don’t think that’s necessary. Not yet, anyway. I’ll certainly let you know if that changes.”

“
Okay. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

“
Of course.”

“
And Alison?”

“
Yes?”

His voice went lower. More personal, less doctor.
“Are
you
doing okay?”

“
Yes, of course,” she quickly answered.

“
Really? You’re taking care of a lot of people right now. Don’t forget to take care of yourself.”

“
Hey, who’s the shrink here?”

He chuckled.
“I don’t have to be a shrink to know you need a break.”

“
I’ve had one,” she said, thinking about being flat on her back on the kitchen table, her legs in the air.

The table which she
’d vigorously scrubbed this morning before leaving for work.

“
That’s good, that’s good,” Scott said. “Make sure you take more of them.”

Well, that wasn
’t going to happen.

“
Thanks, Scott. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“
Sounds good,” he said and hung up.

Alison set the phone back in the cradle, finished up with James
’s file and then turned off her computer. She turned her chair so she could look out over the canal.

It had snowed again last night (big surprise!), and the area looked like one white blanket. She watched as two snowmobilers raced down the frozen canal. Checking her watch, she debated calling Lizzie to see if somebody was going to check in on Petey during the day, then decided against it.

She didn’t trust herself to talk about Petey’s recovery with Lizzie right now. Besides, of course Lizzie—or Petey’s mom for that matter—would make sure their precious darling had what he needed.

She wouldn
’t give it another thought, she told herself. And maybe she wouldn’t think about how he was doing right now—the man wasn’t going to starve to death with that loaded fridge. But damn, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what he’d done last night.

To her.

***

Much as it had sucked to have Darío standing guard as he
’d showered yesterday, it was better than having his father here.

Which is what Petey was dealing with today.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad, if he was being honest.

They
’d gotten through the basics of making sure Petey could get up, showered, and dressed with minimal verbal bloodshed and now sat at the kitchen table sharing coffee and Finnish pastry that his father had brought with him.

Petey sat in the same chair he had last night when Al had come home. The same chair he
’d pushed out of his way so he could hold down her small but curvy body and pound himself into her.

The obviously well-scrubbed table reeked of Pine-Sol, and was still slightly damp from whatever deep treatment Alison had performed on it.

It wouldn’t be so easy for her to wipe the memory clean—he’d made sure of that.

Except he couldn
’t erase the memories either. And the one that played the longest and loudest in his mind was of her so casually saying it wouldn’t happen again.

And so obviously believing it.

It’s just what she’d done so long ago—the two of them as a couple weren’t logical and didn’t make sense to her, so she never gave it a chance. Never gave them a chance.

And he wasn
’t innocent in it all, he knew that. There was no way his pride was going to let him keep knocking on the door of a girl who didn’t want him for more than a great lay.

And, oh, it had definitely been a great lay.

“More?” Petey’s dad said, pulling him out of his Alison reverie.

He looked up and saw that his dad was pointing to his nearly empty coffee cup.

“Please,” he said, holding his cup out to his rising father. He took it and his own cup over to the counter where he’d started a fresh pot when he’d arrived.

“
While you’re over there, could you put one of those bean-baggy things in the microwave for three minutes?”

His father nodded, put the heating pad in the microwave, brought Petey a full cup, then went back to the counter and filled his own. He leaned a hip against the counter and sipped, waiting for the microwave.
“The shower and getting dressed make it ache more?” he asked Petey.