I start to speak, but he cuts me off.
“You love her. I get it,” he says angrily. “She was the one who got away and all that. But tell me you can quit your shop, because you can’t have a regular work schedule around her. She’ll expect you to go in at exactly the same time. You won’t get sick days. Tell me you can function without an alarm clock, or eat at random times, or never watch a new TV series, or screen movies that don’t have cliffhanger endings, or even plan out a vacation. She can’t fly—planes have flight times. She can’t go on a cruise—boats have port times. She can’t plan anything.”
Blake looks over at me, as though he’s silently imploring me to just drop this. Neither of them fucking understand.
“It’s just been a couple of weeks, dude,” Blake finally says. “She needs—”
“Stay out of it,” I growl, watching his lips tense. “It was years. Don’t you get it? From the time I was eleven until now, Mika has been it. Even before I noticed girls in that way, she was it for me.”
“She’s not the same,” Blake groans. “Twelve years is a long time, and she’s obviously different. Aidan is her brother, and he knows what’s best—”
“I said stay out of it!” I snap, jerking back to my feet and glowering down at him. He looks away, and I turn back toward Aidan.
“She’s still the same,” I tell him, as though he’s the one who said she wasn’t.
“No, she’s not,” Aidan snarls. “She never will be the girl you knew during summer.”
“She’s the same girl. Treating her like she’s someone else is probably half her stress.”
He slowly stands, fists clenching at his sides.
“That’s the problem! She wants to be that girl again. It’s why she wouldn’t tell you! She wants to be normal so bad that it’s killing her. But she’s not! She never fucking will be again. She’s always going to have—”
“Problems,” I interrupt. “She’s going to have certain boundaries. I get it. But I can and will find a way to be what she needs. She is the same person. If anything, she’s stronger than she ever was and more appreciative of every fucking day that she doesn’t have someone staring at her like she’s broken. Mika never wanted to be weak or look weak. Twelve years I’ve done nothing but waste all my time wondering ‘what if’ and what’d I’d give for a second chance. I don’t give a shit about changing my life, because I haven’t felt alive in years. Go fuck yourself. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll do whatever I have to.”
He shakes his head in disgust, and Blake groans.
“All your dreams will end. Love your shop? Too bad. You can’t have a normal job with normal scheduled hours. Want a family? Too bad. Mika had her tubes tied because children have schedules—babies have schedules. Like the freedom to change your mind about what you’re doing, such as having a beer after work instead of coming by her house like you said? Too bad. If you know Mika so well, then tell me she’d let you give up your life to be with her.”
There’s no anger in Aidan’s voice this time. It’s just a hollow sadness… a sound of defeat.
“I’ve only ever had one dream. She’s inside that hospital. I gave up my dream to make sure she didn’t get dragged into my hell. Mika isn’t the only one who has been in survival mode. So yeah, fuck all the rest.”
“Mika can’t even know the amount of money in her bank account. One penny. That’s all it would take to mess her up. She’d expect to know where every cent was. I have to pay her bills. She doesn’t even realize how much money she makes. She can’t hear estimates—like with the bowling alley. She gets the final number of a cost. I have to be vague when I tell her she has enough to cover something she wishes to purchase. It’s everything and anything you can think of… You have to rework your mind to be programmed like hers. You don’t get it.”
“I can though,” I argue.
He turns and walks away, heading back inside the hospital, as though he’s sick of arguing. There’s nothing he can say to change my damn mind. If he had any clue about how fucking obsessed I’ve been with her since I was a kid, he wouldn’t be arguing at all.
I start to return as well, but Hunter is suddenly in front of me and pushing a book against my chest. I never knew he came back.
I look down and take it as he releases it, and he sighs hard before meeting my gaze.
“Read that before you commit to anything,” he says softly.
My eyes drop to the book. The Curious Case of Mika A by Dr. Herald Kravitz.
“Mika A was the name of his case file on her. They all had their own. Mika B, Mika C, Mika D… You get the idea. That’s everything about her and her triggers. It also includes the severity of her tics. It’s not a simple thing to just brush off. It’s severe, dude.”
I start to open it, when Blake asks Hunter a question.
“How’d you get tangled up in all this?”
I look up as Hunter gives a sad smile.
“Met her at Dr. Stein’s office,” he says while pocketing his hands. “My dad is big in politics and a bit of an ass. I was the twenty-one-year-old stereotype who was lashing out for attention. Got into a major fight and fucked a guy up pretty good. Instead of going to jail, I got off with court-mandated anger management—courtesy of Dad pulling strings to keep me from fucking up his reputation.”
Blake cocks an eyebrow and Hunter smirks.
“I met Mika in the waiting room. She didn’t do appointment times. I hit on her, of course. Hell, I’d hit on anyone back then, but she was hella hot and crazy chicks were in style.”
When my grip causes the book in my hand to whine, Hunter flashes me a grin.
“Relax, she shot me down. Told me I didn’t want to fuck her. She was wrong.”
Again, the book whines, and he continues.
“After seeing her a few more times, we got to talking about anything and everything. She told me up front that no times or conflicting statements were allowed. I didn’t get it, but I went along with it. Turns out, she was the first person to ever actually listen to me, and I got used to having her to talk to. It was better than therapy, to be honest. Then one day I was late for an appointment. It wouldn’t have been an issue—since Mika never allowed me to state my appointment times—but the secretary announced to Dr. Stein that her five o’ clock was running late.”
He exhales harshly before running a hand through his hair.
“Mika flipped. She broke some shit. It was during the ‘early years,’ as she likes to call them. She’d just gotten out of the intense therapy with Kravitz. She didn’t hurt herself, but she shattered a vase and stomped on all the small pieces over and over until she could be calmed down. I walked in during the middle of it. After that, we got coffee, and Mika told me the whole story. I don’t know why, since she never told anyone else about her stuff. I guess we just clicked, and she trusted me. Not in a sexual way,” he says, adding that last part when I drop the book to the ground.
“Anyway, that shit changed me. All my issues seemed so damn petty after realizing what she had going on. I met up with Aidan shortly after. Dr. Stein and Aiden helped me realize the risks of a friendship. But I was determined. For once, it felt like I was doing something for someone instead of expecting shit. It really did alter the way I saw things and made me appreciate all the things I took for granted. I actually felt good about myself, and I quit doing all the bullshit. Even started my own very successful business and detached myself from my toxic family. Mika and Aidan are my family now. I’d do anything for them, and neither of them ever take it for granted. It feels… I feel like a person because of her and Aidan. My own person. Fuck the rest of the world.”
“Did she encourage you to wear those terribly tight jeans?” Blake asks, trying to lessen the heaviness of the air around us.
Hunter snorts and flips him off. “I will wear some normal fitted jeans just for you, asshole.”
Picking the book back up, I study the cover. It’s not Mika, but there’s a girl on the cover who is huddled in a corner of a white room as she stares blankly off to the side. It makes my chest feel heavy, and a sickness creeps into my stomach. That was Mika, even if it’s not actually her in the picture.
“Read it,” Hunter says, causing my gaze to move away from the sad picture. “Read all of it. Being her friend took some major adjustments in my life. It was sure as hell worth it. I love her like she’s my own sister. But being in a relationship with her will take twice the effort and ten times the dedication.”
I open the flap, glancing over page one that immediately jumps into the night she had emergency surgery.
“Dedication and effort won’t be an issue.”
It’s the fucking truth. There’s no reason I’d give her up a second time after feeling like I’ve been floating through life for all these years.
They consider it a sacrifice… I consider it to be hope. It’s been a long time since I felt hope.
Chapter 41
MIKA