Patient Privilege (14 page)

Erik put his wire-rimmed glasses back on and looked over the papers—mostly applications for financial aid and brochures about the campus and classes—while Jon chewed down his fingernails. Shaking his head, Erik put the papers down in a neat pile. "Is this really about school?"

Jon shifted nervously in the wooden seat as his fingers twirled a long tendril of golden hair. "What do you mean?"

"Come on. You barely know me and you're asking me for advice on school? Do you really need help with this or did you come over here to find out about Angel?"

Lowering his head in shame, Jon nodded and mumbled, "Yeah."

Then his head shot up and he grabbed Erik's hand. "But I really do need help with this paperwork for school."

"Okay." Erik pulled his hand back and took a big gulp of coffee, hoping to mask his nervous swallowing so it wasn't quite so obvious. "I'll help you with the paperwork, but I can't really talk about Angel. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all. You understand, right?"

"Yeah. Just… can you tell me if he's still in the program? He hasn't dropped out, has he?"

"No, he's still there."

"Has he talked about me at all?" Jon chewed on the edge of his lip.

"For a moment," Erik said and Jon's eyes widened. "He wants you to move on with your life, do something to make yourself happy without having to worry about him."

Well, that sucked the life right out of the kid. Erik watched as his shoulders slumped and his face lost that excited expression it'd had before he went and broke Jon's fragile little heart.

Jon let out a sigh. "I want to be happy with him."

This time, Erik placed his hand over Jon's and the kid looked up at him. He could clearly see the red, puffy sadness in Jon's eyes and he couldn't handle it. Erik's heart sank. He wished he could save both those boys, fix them in a way he couldn't fix his relationship with Marshall, but it seemed like the cards had been stacked against those two long before he ever got involved.

"Jon, I think you're doing the best thing you can for the both of you. I think going to school and getting your life on track will prove to Angel that you can survive without him. Angel needs someone who will be strong, who can stand on his own. You need to be that person if you want to be the kind of guy Angel wants and needs."

"I know. That's why I am doing this. I thought I would go to school, find a real job and a better place to live, and when Angel gets out of rehab, he'll have somewhere to go if he wants it. I don't want to see him on the streets again, and if that means I have to support him for a while, then that's what I'm willing to do."

"That's good, Jon. That's really good. He'll need someone he trusts when he comes out of this. I know. I wish I'd had someone waiting for me when I got out, but I…"

Erik's words trailed off as he remembered taking that lonely walk down the hallway and out of the front doors of the rehab center he'd been in. Every step, he'd prayed Marshall would be there waiting with open arms, ready to take him back so they could have their dream life together, but Marshall hadn't been there. He hadn't been waiting to help Erik heal and move ahead. Erik had faced his own journey alone and wouldn't wish that on anyone. It was hard enough, but doing it alone was almost maddening, even with a sponsor on standby.

"Whatever you do," Erik looked Jon straight in the eyes. "If this is something you're serious about, you stick by him, no matter what. He'll have low days and high days. He'll be full of light and life one minute then completely down in the dumps the next. No matter what mood he's in, you have to be strong and stick by him. Understand?"

Jon nodded slowly, never tearing his eyes away.

"Good," Erik said with a smile. He patted Jon's clenched fist, took another sip of his coffee and reached for the paperwork again. "So this first form," he said as he slid the page across the table. "This is your financial aid form. You'll probably qualify. Do you want to fill it out?"

"Yes, please." Jon took the paper and grabbed one of Erik's pens. He looked down at the page, staring at the lines and words. Tears still clung to his lashes, threatening to slip down onto his cheeks. He looked back up at Erik and said a soft, "Thank you."

"Anytime, Jon. Anytime," Erik said with a reassuring nod.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It'd been two weeks and, as far as Erik could tell, Angel had been showing some promise. He still had really violent nightmares and he didn't trust anyone, but at least he actually wanted to talk now, though he still refused to talk to the group.

"Knock, knock," Erik said, lightly tapping his knuckle against Angel's door. He found the guy sitting on the bed with his legs gathered to his chest by arms coated with a thin film of sweat. It glistened in the soft light of the table lamp on the nightstand next to Angel's bed. "I brought something for you."

Angel barely lifted his head, mumbling some incoherent sound Erik couldn't understand. Erik stepped into the room and closed the door behind him before taking his normal seat next to Angel. He tossed a tablet and a small box of pencils onto the bed.

Angel looked down and arched his brow. "What's this?"

"Therapy. It's the best I have to offer right now. Write. Draw. Doodle. I don't care, but do something so you don't lose your mind."

"Too late," Angel muttered.

Erik huffed out a breath as he pulled the seat closer and whispered, "Bullshit." He sat back in the chair, crossed his legs ankle to knee and quietly watched for a moment, giving Angel a chance to talk before he opened his mouth. Of course, his steely patient with the raw, hardcore attitude of a common street punk didn't say a word.

"I'm not leaving until you talk to me," Erik said.

Nothing.

"I can stay here all night."

"Look," Angel said as he lifted himself from the mattress. He began pacing back and forth between the two beds, bare feet slapping at the linoleum. His fingers tugged at the bottom of his blue shirt. "I'm doing the best I fucking can. What more do you want from me?"

"I want you to open up to me. Talk to me like you appreciate my help."

Angel's body tensed, breath catching. His jaw clenched and his brow wrinkled. With his arms crossed over his chest, Angel glared at Erik. It was the sound of a sniffle that finally made Erik really look at him.

"C'mon, Angel, talk to me. You know you need to get this crap off your chest. I can see how bad it hurts. Letting go will help to ease your pain. Trust me. I've been there."

"Not like this."

"Angel, every story is different, but the results are always the same. You wanted to forget everything. You wanted control of your life and you didn't have it. I didn't have control over my life. I had a great life, but it wasn't mine and drinking let me control how I felt. I was afraid of losing everything, so I drank more. It was an endless cycle and it took really screwing up, losing everything I had, before I realized I had to stop."

With a deep breath, Angel sank down onto the floor with his back against the wall. "I'm not proud of anything I did. I hated the gross shit I put myself through just so I could get high," he finally said. "I hated leaving my mom and sister with my asshole father. I hated that I didn't have the strength to stand up to him for them. I miss them." He sighed. "But I had to get away from him. I had to leave that house before I hurt him. I mean, I wanted to beat the shit out of the guy."

Erik turned in the chair, steepled his arms against his knees, and locked his fists under his chin. "What happened when you left home? You said you sold your body, right?"

Angel refused to look up and his voice wavered as he continued. "Yeah, I had about two hundred dollars to my name. I didn't get far on that. I think I was somewhere around Michigan when I ran out of money. A guy propositioned me and I told him I would fuck him for five-hundred dollars. He paid me three. I realized I could get to Los Angeles if I kept doing that." Angel shrugged. "It was okay the first few times."

"What changed?"

"There was a guy who was rough. After he was done with me, I couldn't walk right for a few days. A person I'd met along the way suggested getting high, said it would take the pain away. That was the first time I snorted heroin. It worked. I didn't feel the fucking pain anymore and that was the first time since I'd left home that I actually slept through the night without feeling some random dude's nasty fucking hands crawling all over me."

"So you kept screwing your way west, getting high along the way?"

Angel's head shot up and his eyes locked on Erik. He saw the shimmer of tears clinging to Angel's lashes, saw the swollen, red rims. He climbed down onto the floor to sit beside Angel and offered the kid his hand.

At first, Angel only stared at him with wide eyes, like Erik had lost his mind or something. His silent refusal prompted Erik to open his hand a little wider and move it a closer. Angel looked down at his splayed fingers then back up at his face. It seemed like many minutes passed before Angel finally took his hand.

"Snorting the shit stopped working," Angel said. "It wasn't making me forget anymore. So I started shooting up, between my toes at first. I got to where I could barely walk. My feet would sweat and the wounds would burn. They started getting infected, so I moved to my arms. The more I'd fuck, the more I'd have to get high. The more I got high, the more I had to fuck to make the money for it."

"A vicious cycle, huh?"

"Yeah. No kidding."

Erik's hand tightened around Angel's fingers. "And Jon found you at your lowest?"

"I guess so." Angel looked up at him, chewing the edge of his lip like he didn't want to talk about any of it anymore. Erik gave him a soft, reassuring smile, hoping if he looked more like a friend and less like a doctor, the kid would keep going. Finally, Angel licked his lips and said, "Honestly, I don't know why Jon even kept coming around. Wait, yes, I do. He liked the sex." Angel laughed and Erik followed with a short chuckle of his own. "Jon said sex with me was great, said I gave him the right amount of rough stuff without scaring the hell out of him."

Angel gave Erik a wink and, in that moment, the dynamic between them changed. Erik stopped seeing a helpless, fucked-up kid. He saw an incredibly sexual man who just happened to be pretty damn attractive, someone he could see in his bed and under his body.

Erik's stomach knotted. A serious sense of dread washed over him and he was pretty sure his whole body had paled though Angel didn't seem to notice.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
The ethical wall he'd been teetering on just crumbled down to dust and left him lying on his ass staring up at his career drifting away from his desperate grip. He cleared his throat.

"Okay," he said hoarsely as he released Angel's hand, "besides the sex, what made him stay?"

"I don't know. I mean, we had fun together. I've never laughed so hard in my life. We just liked hanging out. Then one night he walked in on me shooting up. He didn't act like he gave a shit. After I got high, we fucked, showered, and slept in each other's arms. We did that all the time. I knew Jon would eventually fall in love with me. He had that romantic dream about life, but I kept telling him I didn't do love. He just never listened." Angel let out a hard sigh and his gaze quickly darted away. Erik gave his leg a little nudge to keep him talking. Angel finally mumbled, "I didn't mean for him to find me like that."

"I know you didn't."

"I do care about him."

"I know you do."

"I don't know if he'll ever forgive me for yelling at him like I did."

"Angel, let's focus on getting you well. Forgiveness comes later. You'll have a chance to talk to the people you've hurt and you'll have a chance to make amends with them. Right now, I just want to fix you, okay?"

Angel nodded. He hefted himself up from the floor and started to pace the room again. Erik watched his every step.

"Dr D, I really… really want to get high right now. I know if I did, I wouldn't have to think about any of this shit."

"Here," Erik grabbed the pad and pencils then handed them to Angel. "We'll go out to the courtyard, get some fresh air. You can write or draw or talk. Whatever you want to do, your call, and I'll keep you company, okay?"

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

Holding the door, Erik waited for Angel to step through first. He followed close behind the kid, watching his mannerisms, trying to judge if he still suffered from withdrawals without having to broach the subject. It just seemed easier that way. Part of Erik's job was determining how much they needed to scale back on the meds while keeping his patient on an even keel.

Angel still had the cold sweats and the night terrors. He ate better, but sometimes holding down food was a problem. The kid's hands still trembled, but not always. Erik made a little note in Angel's file to scale back the methadone. The time had come and, most likely, Angel wouldn't even notice the difference.

They reached the plexiglass-paned doors that led out to the courtyard. The setting sun had left a pink hue in the sky and the automatic lamps had yet to turn on. Erik held the door as Angel passed through, then followed him out to one of the benches. Luckily, all the patients had gone inside for the day and none of the other doctors were hanging around. Private, just the way Erik preferred it. He took a seat.

Angel sat down cross-legged on the sidewalk in front of the bench and flipped open the tablet. He held the notepad in the crook of his arm with his back bowed and he lowered his head as the pencil scratched against the plain, white page. His hand moved with purpose, drawing lines here and there. Occasionally, he would look up, but Erik didn't have the first clue what he was looking at.

The minutes marched by one by one. Erik jotted notes in Angel's file. Angel scribbled in the tablet. They were both consumed by what they were doing and it seemed to work for each of them. Erik didn't think about Jon's surprise visit, didn't think of Marshall's un-kept promises of regular phone calls, and damn sure tried not to think about what sex with Angel might've been like. Angel didn't seem to be worried about getting high. It definitely worked for both of them—that quiet, mutual existence.