Page 86 of The Fall Before Flight

“What’s wrong?” Leo asks gently.

I shake my head. “Nothing. I’m good. Memory lane, you know. It’s a trip.”

“Amelia.”

I smirk. “Yeah, Doc?”

As soon as the nickname trips from my mouth, my stomach sinks. Stupid, Mia. Sure enough, Leo stiffens.

“I wondered how long we’d avoid the issue. Does it bother you a lot, that I was your therapist?”

I disguise panic with a laugh. “Shouldn’t that be my question?”

Leo sighs, turning away and dropping his legs off the bed. It’s late—sometime after midnight. We’re both tired, but for some reason we haven’t tried to sleep. Sex before dinner, sex after dinner, and sex for dessert. We’re insatiable, each time somehow better than the last. More intimate. More profound. There were moments tonight I forgot we weren’t together, that we hadn’t always been together. That we’re a landmine waiting for a single misstep.

My slip of the tongue is the misstep.

“Yes,” he says finally. “It bothers me.”

Pain rings a discordant note in my heart. “Okay. I mean, I get it. Obviously. And I don’t want you to risk?—”

“It’s not about my career, at least not in that way. Sure, if someone dug deep enough, they’d find out we were at Oasis at the same time, but the place is basically wallpapered in nondisclosures. Nothing would come of it. And I only treated you peripherally after your accident in 2016.”

“Then I don’t understand,” I say helplessly. To my horror, tears fill my eyes. “Am I not good enough for you?”

He swivels toward me, features etched in horror. “What? No! Jesus, why would you even say that?”

I laugh shrilly. “Because you don’t want to date me, maybe? Is it the pink hair? The eight-year age difference? The fact I’m a waitress with a useless art history degree? That I’m not long-term material? That I was at Oasis in the first plac?—”

Leo grabs my shoulders. “Sweetheart, stop. Please stop.”

I suck in breath, my chest tight, my heart stampeding against my ribs. Leo’s face comes into focus as I blink away tears. My face burns with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” I choke.

“Never apologize for telling me how you feel,” he says sharply. “I’m the one who should apologize, for not realizing you might feel rejected. None of what you said is true, Amelia. I don’t care what job you work or about your education or anything like that.”

“Then why?” I whisper.

His eyes shutter and he looks away, but not before I see it. Guilt.

And I know.

“It’s because of what happened between us at Oasis, isn’t it? That’s what bothers you, what you can’t deal with. That you were technically my doctor when we slept together.”

His hands fall from my shoulders. “Yes,” he admits mutedly. “I’ve tried, Amelia. There are moments I even forget about it.”

“But it was consensual,” I say, even though I know that’s not the issue for him. His conflict is deep and personal, and one I can do nothing about.

Turning distraught eyes on me, he murmurs, “Do you remember the conversation we had about power? I knew how hard it would be for you to open fully to me, and I asked you to trust me not to abuse my power.”

I shake my head numbly, totally helpless. I can’t make a valid argument against his point. There’s no use. So I tell him the truth.

“It was my fault, Leo. Mine. I’ve been breaking people for twenty years. You were by far the hardest, but you still broke. I got what I wanted and this is my punishment. You’ll never forgive yourself, will you?”

“You’re still looking at yourself through the wrong lens,” he says softly, eyes tender on mine. “You aren’t—have never been—the destructive person you think you are. You’re… a force of nature. A perfect wave. Everyone who has tried to ride that wave has wiped out, but mark my words, every one of them would give anything to ride it again. Even for a few seconds.”

I want to bask in his words like a cat in sunshine, but I can’t. Not when our train’s wheels are throwing sparks. Not when the conductor is screaming for everyone to jump off. Not when my brain can only think in stupid fucking metaphors.

“What the hell does that mean?”

---