บททั้งหมดของ Wild Enough To Heal: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

POV: HaleyThe day drags in the worst way.I clean the kitchen twice, reorganize my desk down to the pens and start three different texts to Avriel, deleting every one before I hit send.None of it fixes anything.By six, my phone lights up on the counter.Nathan: outside---"You're quiet." Nathan glances over, one hand draped over the wheel, headlights catching the rain on the windshield in streaks. "That's never a good sign with you.""I'm fine.""You've said fine three times since we left your building." He counts it off on his fingers without looking away from the road, which almost gets a laugh out of me despite everything. "That's not a good number, Haley.""Maybe I just like the word.""Sure you do." He reaches for the radio, changes his mind, drops his hand back to the wheel. "Nervous about tonight?""Should I be?""No, Kai's actually quite chill." A smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. "Even if he might be insufferable for the first twenty minutes."I press my palm flat ag

POV: HaleyMy phone rings before I can decide whether to get out of bed. I grab it too fast, already rehearsing what I'll say before I even check the screen.Dr. Reeves's office. Not him."Miss Winters." Her voice is clipped and too awake for whatever time it actually is. "Your monitor flagged an episode yesterday. A long one."I press the heel of my hand against my eyes. "I'm aware.""You didn't call it in.""I didn't think it needed calling in.""Eleven minutes of irregular rhythm needs calling in, Haley." A pause, softer. "I need you to come in today.""I'll come in tomorrow.""Today," she says again, like repetition is a treatment plan. "This isn't optional. If your medication's stopped keeping up, we need to know before it happens somewhere worse than a classroom."I don't tell her it already did. That someone else's hands found my pills before mine could."Tomorrow." I hang up before she can push again, and immediately feel the specific guilt of having just done to her exactly wh

POV: HaleyNathan walks on the side closer to the road. He's never done that before. Every time a car turns into the lot, his eyes follow it before coming back to me. He's not watching my heart this time. He's watching everything around me."Crit's at ten, so I'm useless until then."He talks too quickly, coffee in one hand, his jacket zipped to his chin despite the heat."Sorry if I scared you last night," he says, looking past me. "Being up like that.""You didn't.""I was sketching something for studio. Lost track of time. Did you see the pages I left out on the desk?"There weren't any pages. There was one letter, and he's still wearing the jacket it went into."I didn't look at anything," I say. "I wanted water and I couldn't find the light switch."He lets out a breath through his mouth so quietly that I'd miss it if I weren't listening for exactly that."Send me your schedule," he says a little too brightly. "Today's, I mean. All of it.""Why?""So I know where you are. I'm not

POV: HaleyI cross the road, and Nathan still hasn't moved an inch. His phone is in his hand, my name at the top of the open message thread."How did you find me?"He glances at the screen, then back at me."Nate. How did you...""That's what you came over here with? You walk out of that building at midnight and the first thing you want to know is how I found you.""It's not the first thing, I just..." I don't even know what I'm trying to tell him first."I'm sorry. I should've woken you up. I thought I could sort it out before you even knew I'd left.""You walked out of there like you'd done it before.""I haven't."He turns around and starts walking.I go after him. He's walking fast, and I have to hurry to keep up. My toe catches on a drain cover, and I grab the nearest mailbox before I go down. He doesn't look back.By the second corner, he's far enough ahead that I have to raise my voice."Nathan! It wasn't money. What I told you on the quad, he never said money, not first."He st

POV: Haley"So you don't have a lie to give this time around?" I pull my hair up into a bun. "You've been so good at it since God knows when, and now there's nothing? Not one bad excuse?"Nathan hasn't taken his other arm out of his jacket. He stands in the doorway, looking at the photograph, then me, and back at the photograph, as if one of us might change."Haley.""Tuesday. 11:08 at night." I tap the corner where the date is printed, hard enough to dent the paper. "You told me you were at the studio until midnight.""It's not what it looks like." He takes a step towards the table, then stops."Really? Because it looks like you at my mother's door." I slide the other photograph next to it, the one of him alone with his finger on her doorbell. "Twice. The same mother who you know left me. The same mother you said lost the right to be in my life. I still can't believe it." I shake my head and laugh, and it isn't a happy sound. "So go on, tell me what it is, if it's not what it looks li