Page 15 of We Were Never Lovers
Sean squeezed his eyes closed and scratched his forehead. “Can you tell me what you’re tryin’ to say?”
“Well,” Cohen sat. “It’s controversial, but I think you might have psychogenic amnesia. There’s nothing wrong with your brain, it’s, well, it’s psychological. But there is a lot of debate around this and it’s not a diagnosis we tend to use.”
“What does that mean?” Jack asked. And Sean was grateful for the impatience and frustration in his voice.
“It means,” Cohen exhaled and spoke on it, “we don’t know. Your memories should’ve come back. They may yet come back, but we just don’t know.”
He felt Jack slump back in his chair beside him, tried to listen as Harris went through the latest X-rays and said his femur was healing well, it’d still be six months, and he’d miss next season, or most of it, but if he could keep up his conditioning, if he could let everyone, Jack, take care of him, he’d be physically good to go before he knew it.
“A miracle really,” Harris finished, “considering how fast and hard that truck hit you.”
Sean’s heart rate ratcheted up and he gripped the edge of the chair; he didn’t understand why, it wasn’t a memory, he didn’t have access to that memory, he didn’t have access to a lot of fucking memories apparently because he was a fucking headcase. He was about to drown in it, the buzzing in his head, the voices talking around him, when Jack said, “Email us the rest,” and then they were out the door, Jack pushing him as he rested his head in his hands.
“Sean, no,” Jack said with quiet shock when Sean told him his plan.
Lola was pressed against his side on the couch, his arm snug around her, hand patting her like muscle memory.
“I think it’s for the best, I, this… Look I really appreciate everythin’ you’ve done—”
“Everything I’ve done!” Jack threw his hands up, his face incredulous. “I haven’t done anything! Nothing we don’t do for each other.”
“Yeah, well, either way, I appreciate it, but, it’s just too weird for me,” he finished quietly and buried his hand in Lola’s fur.
“How’re you gonna live in an apartment? You live on the fourth floor and you’re in a wheelchair,” Jack said.
“Harris said I can switch to crutches, and it’s not like there isn’t an elevator—”
“Harris said you can switch to crutches once your ribs are healed, which isn’t going to be for at least another two weeks. And the bruising—”
“No, he said if I’m feeling up to it—”
“You’re not—”
“I know my own body, I know what I can handle.”
“I know your body too and believe me, I don’t miss it when you’re in pain and you’re tryin’ to hide it,” Jack stood up and ranan agitated hand through his hair. “What can I say or do to make you change your mind?”
“Nothin’,” Sean replied, looking back down at Lola. He didn’t want to leave, but he had to. He couldn’t be around Jack like this.
“We sorted everything, we just…” Jack exhaled and he sounded more upset than Sean had ever heard him. “We really care about each other.”
It was another one of those weird sentences—it sounded like the truth, Sean knew it wasn’t a lie, but it was a half-truth. And an agonising half-truth at that. Sean couldn’t respond to it.
“Harris is gonna have Jorge bring crutches tomorrow,” Sean said. He’d replied to Harris’ email the evening after the appointment, lain in bed that night in a haze of painkillers with a throbbing erection and a tightness in his chest, and known he’d made the right decision.
He hadn’t expected telling Jack to go well, but this was worse than he anticipated.
“I guess I don’t have a car anymore,” he mused.
Jack laughed, another one of those hysterical laughs. If Sean wasn’t the one with the injury and the pain meds, he’d think Jack was taking something—he’d been a real crackpot these last few weeks. It’d only been weeks. It felt like an age.
“The Range Rover’s yours,” Jack said with a tired smile once he’d settled down.
“So what was I driving when…”
Jack shrugged and went into the kitchen.
“I totalled your car,” Sean breathed out.
