Page 46 of Time for You
She didn’t even realize he had stood up, but then suddenly he was holding her, letting her cry against his chest. “It’s okay,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s okay.”
Daphne shook her head again, her face rubbing against his shirt. “It’s not,” she keened. “And it won’t be.”
He curled his hand protectively around the back of her head and tucked her under his chin. The grief kept swamping her; one wave would recede, and then the next was on top of her before she could catch her breath. And through it all Henry held on to her; somehow understanding that if he let go, she’d drown.
Slowly he coaxed her onto the couch, tucking a blanket around her legs. Daphne kept weeping, but the worst of the storm had passed, replaced by an endless flow of tears. She furiously wiped at her cheeks, while Henry bustled around the kitchen. He joined her on the couch a little while later with a cup of tea that he pressed into her hands over her objections.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, even though she’d been insisting as much for the past five minutes to no avail.
“I’m sure you will be,” Henry said quietly. He nodded toward the cup of tea. “And that will help.”
“You’re unbelievably English sometimes,” she said with a weak smile.
A grin flickered across his face. “I’ll have you know I’m Scottish,” he protested.
“Like I could forget,” she replied. She wiped another tear from her cheek and sniffed.
“Drink your tea,” Henry said. “I promise it’ll help.”
She didn’t really feel like drinking or eating anything, but the warmth of the mug was making her hands feel less shaky, so she did as he said. It wasn’t anything special, just the tea Ellie had grabbed on their grocery run a few weeks ago, but warmth bloomed inside her as she swallowed. Daphne hadn’t even realized she was cold.
“It does,” she said over the rim of the mug.
“Imagine that,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Daphne shrugged and stared into the mug. “It was just a bad day. Nothing I can’t handle.” The lie felt thin and flimsy on her tongue, but now that the worst had passed, she felt ashamed. These sorts of days were something she had trained for, and she knew that even the most hardened emergency doctors had days where it hit them hard. There were steps for her to take, a routine to let the grief flow through her until she felt more grounded. She had helped her friends through these moments before, and knew exactly what she needed to do.
But even when she’d tried to reach for those tools on the way home, she hadn’t been able to touch them.
“It must be hard, seeing death so often,” Henry said, and his blue eyes were so soft, so understanding, that she had to look away.
“It’s not easy,” she admitted.
“In my time, there’s a lot more death. It’s different here, I think. People—see it less.”
“It’s my job to see it, though. Or fight it, I guess, but sometimes we lose, even with all our skills and technology,” Daphne said, swallowing back a sob that threatened to reemerge.
“It doesn’t make it easier, though,” Henry replied. “Death is death, and seeing it hurts.”
The tears pricked her eyes again. “It does, yeah.”
Henry gave her another one of his long, searching looks. “I don’t think that’s what hurts you so much, however.”
“Of course it is. Today was—awful.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Henry hastened to say. “I meant it’s not the only thing upsetting you.”
“What else would it be?”
There he went again, searching her face like he wanted her to say something specific. Absurdly, she thought about the fact that he was leaving soon, and her stomach twisted. “You’re not happy, Daphne.”
“Of course I’m not, I’ve been sobbing on you for the past hour.”
“That’s not what I meant. Your job—you’re not happy in it.”
Daphne snapped her head up. “Of course I am. It’s what I’ve worked for my whole life.”
“You’re half right,” he said, and she felt a surge of her old irritation with him. He was looking at her like he knew something she didn’t, and the arrogance she thought he’d left behind was back.
