“What? That she would find a relationship?”
“No, not at all. No reason for her not to. She’s come a long way since her accident.”
“Right, so have you,” the doctor said, turning the tables on him. “Your sister’s journey is hers to deal with. You need to deal with yours.”
Ryatt gave him a flat stare. “My sister’s a beautiful person inside and out. I’m not. Very different circumstances.”
“Ah.” Doc gave Ryatt a smile. “And, of course, you believe that she has every right to and will do very well, but you don’t and won’t succeed because you don’t deserve it. Maybe we should discuss that.”
Ryatt stared moodily around the room. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Sure, let’s talk about what you’ll do when you leave here.”
“I don’t even know when that’ll be. Sometimes I think it should be next week. I’m really not seeing any improvement.”
“I haven’t talked to Shane lately,” the doctor said, “but it sounds like I should. So back to that question. What will you do when you leave here?”
“I’m not sure. Get an apartment in town maybe? I don’t know. Part of me says,Move to Hawaii and be a beach bum.”
“Would that make you happy?”
He snorted. “No, I have a very active mind, and, even if my body isn’t in prime condition, it still needs to be doing something physical.”
“You could have a large garden, and looking after that would be physical.”
Ryatt shrugged. “I don’t think I would do well with growing things. I suspect I’d have the garden of death and weeds.”
“What else would you do then?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated, wishing his session was over. “Maybe online businesses,” he added, thinking of Lana.
“That’s certainly something you can do. You’re good with computers too, aren’t you?”
“I’m adept at computers. However, it’s not as if I’m a programmer though. Although I have some college courses in business. I never finished my program before joining up. And honestly most of that didn’t and still doesn’t seem relevant in my life right now.”
“You are correct that you don’t need to be a programmer to run online businesses. Depends on the product, I guess. Do you want to sit there and ship off product?”
He shrugged. “I really don’t know. I haven’t decided anything yet, so haven’t thought much beyond that.” They talked some more, but Ryatt felt his mood plummeting the longer he was here.
By the time he was done, he headed to his room and immediately put out the Sleeping sign on the doorknob outside, then laid down. Something was so depressing about talking about a future he couldn’t see, talking about a body he didn’t want to acknowledge, and seeing a today that just looked even worse than what it had yesterday.
These various psychologists were supposed to help him sort through some of his problems and get him doing better. Instead it seemed like it was a constant battle to keep himself from being majorly depressed afterward. As he lay here, his arm landed on the licorice. It brought an instant smile to his face. He reached over, opened the first package, and popped one into his mouth. It was strong and hard. He frowned, as he studied the package label, reading something about Pontefract cakes. This licorice was good, but one would be enough for quite a while because it was certainly not something you consumed quickly.
That made it a good thing then because it had time to be enjoyed. Savored almost. He thought about that, as he lay there savoring the licorice, and wondered why he couldn’t also just enjoy and savor the time he was here. So much more was available to him to do here; he needed to just get out more or to find something that would release more serotonin, so that he wasn’t quite so depressed all the time. And, on that note, he closed his eyes and felt himself drift off to sleep.
When he woke up again, he had an odd feeling. He checked his watch and realized that it was ten to six, and he stared again at the time, then his gaze caught the date. And he looked around in shock. He’d slept all night; he’d missed dinner and had slept all the way through. Now here it was the next morning, and breakfast was almost starting.
He shook his head in disbelief, grabbed his cell phone, and double-checked the time there. Sure enough, he’d slept all afternoon and all night. Stunned, he got up and had a shower and, at 6:30 a.m., he slowly made his way to the cafeteria on his frenemies, the crutches.
Dennis was still setting up juices and putting out fresh coffee. He took one look at Ryatt and grinned. “There you are. We missed you last night.”
“Apparently I slept through dinner. I just woke up about half an hour ago.”
“And sometimes it’s the best thing for you,” he murmured.
“I’m certainly not arguing with that. It’s just odd.” Ryatt shrugged. “I haven’t slept like that in a very long time.”
“Did anybody change your medication?”