Page 170 of Love Thy Brother
“Honestly?” Harry stuck a couple to a backlit whiteboard. “I don’t want to know. But have them I do, so we might as well talk.”
“About what?”
“About what we can do to ease these migraines. You’re not on any medication, right?”
“Um. No.” I shut one eye in the hope it would help me see the world clearer. “All the pills make me puke or give me raging indigestion.”
Harry wrote something down. “That’s pretty common. Any physio?”
“No.”
“When did you last see a doctor?”
“For me?”
Harry chuckled. “Yes. For you. While we’re in here talking about this, that’s all I care about.”
“Why?”
“It’s my job. And Embry’s family, so I’m here for you as long as you show up for yourself.”
This dude had a mild, gentle voice. The kind that sleep apps used. The London twang was smoother than Mateo’s, but a long way from posh. If he’d been talking about anything else, I could’ve listened to him all day. “I don’t understand why I’m here.”
“That’s part of the journey.” Harry pointed his pen at the images on the board. “This is where you got hit. At the base of your skull. There’s no damage to the bone, but there doesn’t have to be to cause chronic pain after the event. Soft tissue damage is traumatic enough on its own.”
“Soft tissue? You mean muscles and stuff?”
“And nerves. This area here—” Harry drew an air circle with his pen. “—is particularly vulnerable. Do you get any neck or shoulder pain with your migraines?”
“Like a bitch.”
“What other symptoms, apart from the headache?”
“My eyes throb and water. I can’t bear light. And I’m a grumpy drama queen. Like, I’d stick my head in a combine harvester if I thought it’d help.”
“What about after? You feel depressed? Anxious?”
“Probably, but there’s lots of reasons for that.” At least, there used to be. These days it all just fucked with my ability to enjoy my wildest dreams coming true.
Harry made some more notes, then turned the light off on the whiteboard. “All right. I’d like you to come back next week for a proper assessment, but I’ll start writing your treatment plan in the meantime. Exercises, diet, stuff like that. You might want to think about a daith piercing too. There’s no clinical evidence, but it’s effective for some people.”
“Treatment plan... You mean, there’s shit I can do that’ll actually help?”
“Of course.” Harry gathered the MRI images and tucked them into a file. “If there was nothing we could do, Embry wouldn’t have brought you here. Though, it’s a little ironic that he frogmarched you into a clinic he’s never set foot in himself.”
“He won’t let you help him?”
“Nope. That’s why I was surprised when he came to me about you. I’ve been with Joe for eleven years and it’s the first time Embry’s ever asked me for anything.”
“He’s a funny little fucker,” I said absently.
Harry laughed. “Joe’s a stubborn bastard too. Must be in the blood. How’s your pain right now?”
The abrupt shunt back to me made me blink. “Now?”
Harry gave me a shrewd once-over. “I’ve been in this game a long time. It’s not hard for me to spot someone struggling.”
I didn’t want to break and tell a stranger that my head hurt so bad I couldn’t feel my fucking hands. But the longer I sat here, the less of a stranger this dude became.
