Part 17 (1/2)
”You do realize you're not even wearing pants,” she said, and okay, maybe she wasn't quite ready to lower her guard all the way.
Hunter didn't get pushy about it, but he also didn't let her slide. ”I'll owe you. So what's on your mind? Are you upset about what happened at your parents' house?”
”A little.” Her heart fluttered against her rib cage, and she took a deep breath, trying to tamp down the sensation. But Emerson's pulse only rushed faster, reminding her how heavy the truth was.
Head up, eyes forward. Head up . . . head up . . .
Hunter reached out, his hand finding hers under the covers. ”Talk to me, Em. Tell me what's going on. Let me help you.”
Her defenses gave one last kick. ”You can't.”
”Try me.”
He tightened his grasp, his fingers so warm and safe and frighteningly good around hers, and the words shot right from her mouth. ”I have multiple sclerosis.”
Hunter's body tensed beside her, his head turning sharply in the shadows. ”You . . . what?”
For one ridiculous second, Emerson nearly recanted. But G.o.d, she was so tired of holding it in, of holding it together, that all the emotions she'd stuffed down since her diagnosis just came rus.h.i.+ng up from her chest.
”I have MS,” she said, the words sounding small and scared in her ears, and G.o.d, wasn't that just one more reason to hate them?
”Jesus, Em.” He turned to his side to fully face her in the shadows, and Emerson braced herself for the onslaught of oh-poor-broken-you that would surely follow.
Only it didn't.
Hunter kept his hand wrapped firmly around hers, although shock still took firm possession of his face. ”Does it . . . are you in pain?”
She cleared her throat in a last-ditch effort to stay strong. Keep it clinical. You can do this. ”There are a few different types of the disease. I have what's called relapsing-remitting MS, which in layman's terms means my symptoms come and go. Most days I'm just tired, but sometimes it's . . .” Painful. Scary. Soul sucking. ”More complicated.”
”Your symptoms,” he said slowly, and G.o.d, of course he wouldn't know the signs and symptoms of MS. h.e.l.l, even she had blown them off for months, labeling each one as all sorts of normal-person ailments until they'd become too front and center to ignore.
”Multiple sclerosis can affect people in different ways, so there are potentially quite a few.” Emerson bit her tongue to keep the laundry list of possible symptoms to herself. She might have copped to having the disease, but phrases like tremors, slurred speech, and the ever-s.e.xy bladder and bowel incontinence just weren't on her share list. Her body was already irreparably damaged. No need for her pride to follow suit.
After all, now that Hunter knew she had a chronic illness, he probably thought she was broken enough, thanks.
Taking a deep breath, she picked through her words and continued. ”Mostly, I knew something was wrong when I couldn't shake my achy legs and fatigue. I blamed it on the busy football season at first-the Lightning went deep into the playoffs last season, and my job isn't exactly hands off. But then my legs started to tingle, too, and sometimes one would go numb without warning, and I knew there was a bigger problem. The team's neurologist did a full battery of tests including an MRI, and that's how I ended up with the official diagnosis.”
”Aw h.e.l.l, Em.” Hunter's voice pitched low with restrained emotion. ”I don't know what to say. I wish I had . . .” All at once, he froze beside her. ”Your back pain has nothing to do with moving boxes, does it? G.o.d dammit, I just had you pinned to the floor downstairs.”
Emerson's heart catapulted against her breastbone, and she lasered her stare to the ceiling to hide the idiot tears that had formed at his words. ”I'm fine. The symptoms aren't exactly a party, but I can handle them. The disease isn't going to break me.” Not yet, anyway. And sure as h.e.l.l not in front of anybody.
”I'm sorry,” he said, the rustle of movement and the rasp that followed suggesting he'd scrubbed a hand over his face. ”I'm just . . . I would never hurt you.”
The words caught her right in the throat, but she couldn't let her weakness show. ”I know,” she whispered, and oh, how she wanted to just lean into the safety net of his arms and forget everything else. ”But you didn't. In fact, the only time I feel normal is when I'm with you.”
For a minute, all he did was stroke his thumb over her hand, having never broken the contact between their fingers. Then he asked, ”How long have you known?”
Good. More facts. Quantifiable things that had nothing to do with how small and fragile this stupid disease made her feel. ”I found out officially eight weeks ago, but I've known something wasn't right for about six months. MS can take awhile to diagnose, and the Lightning's team doctor wanted to be sure.”
”Wait . . .” Hunter paused, clearly clicking the truth together piece by piece. ”That's why you moved back to Millhaven, isn't it? It's why you needed a change of pace.”
She nodded despite her clattering pulse. ”Yes. I loved my job with the Lightning and I didn't want to leave, but the workload in sports medicine is high volume, higher intensity. I learned pretty quickly that I wasn't going to be able to keep up. All the positions I could find in other practices had similar work schedules.”
He let out a breath, his realization obvious even in the near dark. ”Except one.”
”Except one,” Emerson agreed. At this point, there was no reason not to admit the whole truth about why she'd returned. ”Doc Sanders thought expanding her general practice to include a therapy center would be a great help to some of her patients, and she already had the s.p.a.ce. Coming back to Millhaven was the only chance I had to keep working while I figure out how to manage my symptoms, so that's what I did.”
Hunter leaned in to brush a kiss over the crown of her head, his exhale warm in her hair. For seconds that turned into minutes, he remained quiet, until finally he said, ”I may be overstepping my bounds here, but you were pretty upset about dinner with your parents. I get that you've had differences in the past, but are they really so unsupportive of you considering all of this?”
Emerson flinched. But he hadn't been wrong about her being upset over what had gone down at her parents' house, and what's more, this part of their conversation was inevitable now that she'd told him the truth about her diagnosis.
”I don't know,” she said. ”I haven't told them.”
Hunter's shock arrived on a delayed reaction, as if she'd been speaking a foreign language and he'd needed to translate the words. ”Your parents don't know you have MS?”
”No.” The thought sent a s.h.i.+ver from the back of her neck all the way down her spine. ”And I'm not telling them. I'm not telling anyone.”
His surprise went for an obvious round two. ”Doc Sanders doesn't know, either?”
”n.o.body knows but you, and that's the way it has to stay. I might not be throwing all my personal details on the table for the whole town to see, but I never lied to you or anyone else about why I came back to Millhaven. I needed a change of pace, and I came here to work. That's exactly what I plan to do.”
”So you want to just move on and forget you've got MS?”
Oh, if only. ”I work in the medical field, so I know the score. Multiple sclerosis is a serious disease, and as much as I hate the diagnosis, I'm also not blowing it off. I have a neurologist in Lockridge, and we're working together to find the best course of meds to treat my symptoms and any flare-ups I might have.”
Hunter paused, the moonlight peeking in past the window offering a brief glimpse of his narrowing stare. ”Why are you going all the way to Lockridge? The drive must take, what? An hour and a half each way? Camden Valley is a bigger hospital, and a h.e.l.l of a lot closer on top of it.”
”Because my father is the chief of surgery and my mother is on the board at CVH, not to mention half a dozen hospital committees there. Yes, the specifics of my medical privacy are protected,” Emerson added, because even not even the highest of Camden Valley's higher-ups outranked old Hippocrates. ”But the place is teeming with people who know my parents.”
She might have been gone for a while, but she still knew all too well how things worked. The docs, especially the ones with prestigious positions, all talked. It would take only one person to see her in the hospital hallways or the waiting room in neurology and make mention of it to her parents, and bam. They would be on her like a linebacker on a loose football, trying to take charge by cas.h.i.+ng in ”favors” and expressing their opinions with no regard for her own.
”Isn't Camden Valley Hospital also teeming with people who can help you, though?” Hunter asked, and his question arrived with such a surprising lack of judgment that her reply popped right out.
”CVH has an excellent reputation, yes. Maybe a little too excellent.”
”I'm sorry,” he said. ”Now you've really lost me.”
Emerson's stomach knotted with dread, but she didn't hold back. Turning toward him, she replayed the dinner conversation between her and her parents, complete with their renewed disdain for her career choice and her father's over-the-line discussion with Dr. Norris. The cover of near darkness in Hunter's bedroom combined with the warmth of his body so close to hers, making it all too easy to let the story spill out. Although she stuck mostly to the facts, her voice gave up a traitorous wobble when she got to her father's parting shot, and Hunter tensed beside her.
”I think your father needs to learn a thing or two about what's good enough,” he bit out, each word sharp and serrated despite the low growl of his voice.
Something Emerson couldn't pin with a name turned over, deep in her belly. ”So you see why I can't tell them. My parents already want to use the fact that I've moved back to Millhaven as a means of control. If they find out I have MS, they'll try to micromanage my life down to the color of my socks, and I'm already tired enough.”
”Okay,” Hunter said, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear, and she felt the comfort of his touch all the way to her toes. ”I guess I can see why telling your parents would be complicated. But keeping your diagnosis a complete secret is a h.e.l.l of a burden, Em. Doc Sanders is trustworthy, not to mention a medical professional, and Daisy is your friend. They might be able to help you carry some of the weight, you know?”
Panic knifed through her, making her heartbeat rattle and her breath jam against her lungs. ”No,” Emerson managed. G.o.d, she needed to get a handle on this and shut down the suggestion before it took root. ”I can't tell anyone, Hunter. I mean it. No one.”