Page 16 of Faron
She looked like she wanted to hate me.
Instead, she kissed me — hard, like she was trying to shut me up and breathe me in at the same time. Teeth, tongue, ache.
When we broke apart, she whispered, “I can’t promise you a damn thing. Look at me. This is all I am.”
I kissed her knuckles. “I’ll show up anyway.”
Her smile was wrecked and gorgeous. “God help me. You probably will.”
16
Blue
Iwaited until I was alone.
Then I collapsed behind my desk like my bones had given up. I lay on the floor. My mind whirling wildly.
The linoleum was cold against my cheek. I didn’t care. My heart was pounding like it had something to prove.
Faron Lightfoot.
The boy I met in the desert, the man who made hell feel like home.
The one who broke me and held me together in the same breath.
I should hate him. I should send him packing.
Instead, I lay there with his scent still on my skin and whispered, “Idiot.”
Didn’t know if I meant him or me.
Probably both.
Eventually I got up, washed my face, and buried the pain like I always do — beneath a mask and a mission.
But as I pushed open the office door and walked back into chaos, one thing echoed in my chest like a drumbeat.
This time… it’s not just the patients I need to save.
It’s myself.
And God help me — maybe him too.
17
Blue
It was after midnight when I stitched the last wound and handed out the final juice box to a kid too tired to cry and too tough to admit it hurt.
He limped out with a crooked smile and a muttered,"Thanks, Doc. If I die, it’s on you."
I locked the door behind him, turned off the flickering lights, and limped back to the tiny bungalow behind the clinic. My legs ached like I’d been hit by a truck. My hands smelled like iodine, sweat, and desperation. My throat burned from the smoke that clung to my patients like cologne. I asked them not to smoke inside. They never listened.
But Bear was there.
He was stretched out on my sagging couch like he owned it. He lifted his head, tail giving one slow thump, the way you’d nod to someone you loved even when you were too tired to stand.
“Hey, traitor,” I whispered, dropping my bag with a grunt.
