This Love Hurts (This Love Hurts 1)

A huff of a laugh leaves me as I close my laptop, rubbing my eyes and knowing that’s far too true. This case is everything.

“You need to take time off, see your sister or your mother.” Claire’s advice strikes a nerve with me for a number of reasons, but more than that, more guilt. Guilt on top of guilt.

Shit. Shit shit shit. That’s exactly what I feel like right now. I never texted her back. In all the hours I stayed awake last night, refusing to close my eyes because every time I did, I could feel Marcus’s hand pressed against them, I didn’t once think about my sister.

I bet she hates me right now. I haven’t even spoken to my mom. My heart swells with a pain I know too well.

“You can’t focus.” Claire interrupts my train of thought. “You aren’t going to be productive here.” Numbness crawls across my skin. I have to be here. I have access to everything here.

“All I have is my work.” I tell her a single truth that she knows just as much as I do.

“Well, right now, you don’t have that.”

“What?” My blink is slow as my brow creases.

“I told you to go in for evaluation,” she says and Claire’s tone is accusatory.

“And I did,” I answer pointedly. Where the hell is she going with this?

“And he said you aren’t ready.” Claire’s arms cross, wrinkling her black blouse as it shifts from where it’s tucked into her gray pencil skirt. “In his particular phrasing, ‘her grip on reality is loose.’”

What does that mean? What the hell? That’s not at all what he told me. “He signed off on me returning to work,” I say and disbelief coats my response.

“Are you depressed? Anx—” Anger waging against any sense of reason, this time I cut her off.

“Depressed? Do I look depressed to you?” I question, truly taken aback. There’s not an ounce of me that’s depressed. I know I’m not with it, but depressed? Fuck that.

“Well, what is it then? You aren’t yourself.” The statement Claire gives comes complete with a flash of a man, only his shadow. My heartbeat slows and chills flow down my shoulders, but every other piece of me is hot as I attempt to breathe.

“I’m shaken up is all,” I confess to Claire, to give her something that would change her mind. “Don’t take this from me, please.”

“How many times have you asked me that in the past few months?” Claire responds and it stings. “This Brass case has worked its way into your head, and I can’t have it here. You need to go home.”

“I was cleared—”

“You didn’t tell him everything,” Claire cuts me off, stern and to the point. Silence fills the space and my gaze drops to the bottle of wine. “So you aren’t cleared.”

My voice would shake if I were to speak right now, so I don’t.

“It’s just temporary. Go home, see your family.” Claire’s gaze burns into me but I don’t return it. Not even when her tone morphs to something more consoling as she adds, “Just take care of yourself.”

Cody wants me at his place, which is cold and the only heat I feel there when Cody’s absent is from the memory of a man I should be terrified of.

How am I supposed to get better? How do I get through this if I’m not allowed to work on the case that’s fucked me over?

The one-word answer is all I give her in response. “Fine.” My tone denotes everything I’m feeling. Finality, betrayal. That fucking shrink cleared me.

I don’t hesitate to put on my coat. There’s no use in fighting and I’m not at all in the right mindset to argue. The last thing I want is to lose my job. That’s something I would never recover from. With a tight throat and tension throughout my entire body, I ask, “How long?” My fingers are numb as I button my jacket. I can barely focus enough to do it although my back is turned to Claire, so the silver lining is that she can’t see how unnerved I am. Even as I grab the bottle of wine, intent on drinking every last drop of it tonight, I hide everything I’m feeling.

“Come in next week for another psych evaluation.”

Evaluation, my ass. If they really knew what was going on in my head…

I can only nod and as I go to leave, Claire calls out my name. “Delilah.” My feet stay planted as I stop where I am but I don’t turn back around when she tells me, “I’m doing this for your own good. You’ll see that.”

The words I want to reply tumble over each other at the back of my throat. Suffocating me as I leave the building, Evan following in tow, asking questions that I don’t answer.