The Best Medicine (16 page)

Once it seemed that the lecture hall had quieted down, Dr. Peterson continued. “As I was saying, some people are able to share easily while it takes others a while longer. Why is that, do you think?”

The room was quiet for a moment before Lauren heard a soft voice speak up from the back of the room. ”Because some people just don’t like to talk about themselves.”

“That is one reason, definitely. But let’s examine it a bit more deeply, shall we?”

“Because being closed is easier than being open.”

“Right,” Peterson said, pointing proudly at the person who had answered. “People have been lazy since the beginning of time. We take the easy way out, do things out of pure convenience, and prefer the quick and painless
route to the slow and uncomfortable one. That, ladies and gentlemen, is simple human nature.” Peterson smiled. “It’s the reason someone thousands of years ago invented the wheel.”

A few students laughed at Dr. Peterson’s analogy. But Lauren stayed silent, used to his creative references.

“Still, there’s more to it than that,” Peterson added. “It might seem obvious—why some people share more about themselves—but really examine it, analyze why that is.”

Finally Lauren was unable to stay quiet. She’d match Dr. Peterson’s wheel parallel with one of her own. “Because openness is like taking off your clothes in front of someone for the first time,” she suddenly spoke up. “You peel it off one layer at a time. And usually there is an understood reciprocity to it. I take off my shirt, you take off yours.” Dr. Peterson raised his eyebrows humorously while Lauren continued. “Rarely does one person remove all of their clothing without the other person removing
any
. It’s too uncomfortable to open yourself up to judgment that way. Revealing personal information about yourself when the other person’s revealed nothing is akin to standing in front of someone completely naked while the other person’s fully clothed.”

A slow smile spread across Dr. Peterson’s face. “Very astute comparison.”

Lauren simply nodded, proud that she’d been able to draw a parallel that impressed her professor.

“Let me ask you one thing though,” Peterson said.

Lauren waited quietly.

“Why take off anything at all then, if you’re in fear that you’re the only one who will? Why risk this
emotional nakedness you speak of if you don’t know the other person will reciprocate it?”

Lauren bit her bottom lip as she realized the implication of what she had said. She’d expected Scott to accept everything about her—all her baggage, her history—but she hadn’t even shared much of it with him. She’d left him clues about Cooper but had never spelled it out for Scott in black and white, never told him the link between his comment and Cooper’s death. “Because,” Lauren sighed, “someone has to be the brave one and put themselves out there. Someone has to make the first move.”

“Or what?”

“The relationship will be stagnant, devoid of any true closeness, any true intimacy.”

Lauren watched a slight smile lift Dr. Peterson’s lips. “Welcome to class, Ms. Hastings.”

*   *   *

Lauren left class slightly shell-shocked. Like Oscar Wilde said: “Life imitates art far more than Art imitates life.” It was as though Lauren was living so that her psychology classes could make more sense to her, be more relevant. Totally creepy, but effective.

As Lauren walked toward the library to do some work between classes, she dug into her bag and pulled out her phone. She figured she might as well send a text to the girls letting them know she was okay. But when she looked down at the screen, she saw that she had a voice mail from Scott.
Of course there is. Because my life is clearly one huge cosmic experiment.
Clicking on the voice mail, she held it up to her ear with an agitation she didn’t really feel, but still felt entitled to.

“Uh, yeah, um, hi, Lo. I mean Lauren. It’s me. Scott.
I . . . Christ, I’m so fucking awkward. I just wanted to call and apologize. I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but I just needed you to know that I’m so incredibly sorry. What I said was completely out of line and inappropriate. Even if your brother hadn’t been gay, it was still insensitive for me to say. And I hope that you can forgive me.”

There was silence then, and Lauren looked down at the screen, wondering if her voice mail had cut him off. But the screen showed that there was still more to the message. She put it back to her ear and waited.

“You’re a good friend to me, Lauren. Please tell me I haven’t fucked that up. Talk to you soon.”

The hand that was holding her phone dropped to her side. She knew it had probably taken a lot for Scott to say that last part. He’d put himself out there a little. For her. And maybe, just maybe, he deserved the same courtesy.

Sighing, Lauren decided that it was time to be brave. Lifting her phone, she clicked on Scott’s name. It only rang twice.

“Hello?”

“Hey. I got your message. I . . . I want to explain a few things. You going to be home tonight? Around seven?”

“Absolutely. I’ll be there.”

“Okay, guess I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah. And, Lauren?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling.”

Lauren didn’t know how to reply to that so she didn’t. Disconnecting the call, she continued on her way to the library, hoping she didn’t chicken out by seven.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Scott didn’t know what to expect. He knew he’d epically fucked up, and wanted nothing more than to fix it. But he wasn’t sure if that was what
Lauren
wanted. So when her knock came a few minutes before seven, he was so anxious he nearly sprinted to the door.

But as he pulled it open to see Lauren holding a cup of coffee out to him, he felt relieved. Maybe it wouldn’t be as difficult to fix as he thought.

“Here.” She thrust the cup toward him. “Peace offering.”

Scott took it from her warily, confused as to why
she
was the one bringing peace offerings.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t lace it with insecticide or anything.”

She gave him a slight smirk that made some of the heaviness in his chest lift. “Thanks.”

“Can I come in?”

Scott shook himself into action. “Of course,” he said
as he stepped back from the door and allowed her to enter.

Lauren walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. “So, you’re probably wondering what caused my temper tantrum Saturday night. I mean, I told you part of it, but I want to tell you the whole thing.”

“You don’t have to explain. It isn’t my business.” Scott desperately wanted to know where her anger had come from the other night, but he didn’t want to push her into telling him. If she wanted to let it drop, then he’d force himself to do the same.

“No, you deserve to know. I just . . . What you said, the gay slur. I have a hard time with words like that, and not just because he was gay. It’s . . . deeper than that.” Lauren took a sip of her coffee and then wrapped her hands around the cup.

Scott waited, knowing Lauren was taking the time she needed to prepare herself to open up to him. Finally, she made her way further into his apartment and took a seat on the couch. He followed, settling in next to her, but consciously leaving a bit of distance between them.

Scott’s eyes met hers, and he could see the pain in them. But this pain was different from the pain he saw Saturday night.

Scott watched Lauren fill her lungs with air before exhaling deeply. “He . . . he killed himself because of comments like the one you made Saturday. Because of people throwing words like ‘queer’ and ‘fag’ around like it’s nothing. Like those words don’t hurt, don’t rip people apart, don’t have the power to make people so ashamed that they can’t bring themselves to share who they are
with the people close to them. The people who wouldn’t even care about their sexual orientation.”

“I’m so sorry,” Scott said as he moved to place a hand on Lauren’s thigh tentatively. He expected Lauren to tense, maybe even pull away. But instead, she moved a little closer toward him. “I had no idea.”

“No one did.” Lauren sighed and let her gaze fall to the floor before bringing it back up. “Cooper was the best big brother. He was six years older and always looked out for me. I think he threatened every boyfriend I had growing up,” she said with a sad chuckle. “When he was twenty-two, he graduated from college with a business degree that he didn’t want to use. And since he didn’t know what he actually did want to do, he just bounced around. When nothing stuck, he decided to join the Marines. I remember when he told us. We were shocked. He’d left to go on a job interview and then came home and announced that he’d joined the military.”

She shook her head like she still couldn’t believe Cooper’s decision.

“But that was Cooper. He was so damn impulsive. He left for basic training a few months after that. I was almost through my sophomore year of high school when he shipped out to Afghanistan. I’d never been so terrified in my entire life.”

Lauren took a moment to collect herself, and Scott remained quiet.

“He was gone for a little over a year. I expected that when he came home, Cooper would walk back into our lives just as he’d left it: happy, carefree, a little wild, funny. But he was different—more serious, regimented, distant.
He never talked about his time over there, and I was too self-absorbed to ask.”

“You were a teenager,” Scott interjected. “We were all like that.” Scott shifted to a slightly more comfortable position and fell quiet.

“I guess. He was scheduled to be home for a few months before he’d have to report back to base and serve out the rest of his term. We all thought that was the plan. So when he announced that he’d be leaving for another tour in Afghanistan, we were devastated. Everyone tried to talk him out of it: my parents, me, Sam.”

Lauren hesitated as if she’d said something she wasn’t supposed to. And Scott picked up on it immediately. Though he already had a feeling he knew the answer, Scott couldn’t help but ask. “Who’s Sam?”

Lauren was quiet for a few seconds and leaned against Scott’s shoulder so he could put his arm around her and stroke her biceps with his fingers.

“He was Cooper’s best friend.”

Scott wanted to let her go at her own pace, get out what she needed to, what she wanted to and not an ounce more. But something about it felt important, so he decided to pursue it and hope he wasn’t making a mistake. “It sounds like there was more to it than that.”

Lauren pulled away slightly so she could look up at him, a seriousness in her eyes he’d never seen there before. “The only other person who knows about this is Quinn, Scott.”

She wasn’t saying that she wouldn’t tell him, but rather seemed as though she desperately wanted to. But he was pretty sure he understood her message: he was to
take this to his grave or she’d put him there early. “You can trust me, Lauren.”

She looked at him a beat longer before settling back down into the crook of his arm. “As far as I knew, no one had any idea as to the extent of Cooper and Sam’s
friendship
. They seemed like typical best friends. Sam spent almost every spare minute at our house, but I never questioned it as being more. Until I saw them kiss in our pool one day when I was thirteen. I never told Coop that I’d seen them. I figured that if he’d wanted me to know, he’d have told me. I did kind of bring it up before his second tour though. I was home to see him off and I overheard him and Sam getting into it in his room, and then Sam stormed out. I remember standing in his doorway, afraid to walk in because of the anger that was radiating off of him. He finally whipped around, looked at me, and said, ‘Spit it out, Lo.’” She laughed quietly at the memory. “He could read me like a freakin’ book. I asked him why he was leaving, and he said it was just something he felt he had to do. Then I asked if it had to do with Sam, and he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned toward me, looking at me like he was trying to figure me out.”

“So that’s where you get that look from,” Scott joked.

Lauren giggled. “Guess so. Anyway, he asked why Sam would have anything to do with his decisions.” Lauren sighed heavily. “But I chickened out. I didn’t tell him that I knew about them. It’s one of my biggest regrets because I feel like if he’d known that I was okay with it, he maybe would have confided in me more—” Her breath hitched. “Like maybe if he had known that I
knew and still loved him that he would still be here. But I just shrugged my shoulders and let the conversation drop. I didn’t want to press it—and I regret that I didn’t to this day.”

“Do you really think he didn’t know why you were asking?”

Lauren seemed to be thinking about Scott’s question, as though she’d never considered it before. “I think he knew,” she said quietly. She cleared her throat and continued. “He was gone almost nine months the second time. And whatever fragments of Cooper that had remained intact after the first tour seemed to be completely obliterated after the second. He was a shell of who he’d been. It makes me feel like an awful person, but at that time I was happy to be away at Dartmouth. I didn’t want to have to watch him disintegrate. My parents tried to get him into therapy, but he refused. Said he was fine. We hoped that with some time, he’d come back to us. I’m pretty sure that he was suffering from undiagnosed PTSD, but I had no idea what that even was at the time.”

Scott felt her quickly swipe at tears on her face. His heart broke for her, and part of him wanted to pull her closer and tell her she didn’t have to say any more. But he knew that she needed this. Needed to get all of this off of her shoulders. Even if that meant putting some of it on his.

“I was home from school one weekend and I overheard him on the phone. My parents were out somewhere and he obviously didn’t realize I was there. I don’t know who he was talking to, but I always assumed it was Sam. He was yelling about how he couldn’t do it anymore. That
he felt like so many things were beyond his control, and that he wouldn’t let that be one of them anymore. I figured that he meant being gay because he went on about how he almost killed some guy who’d called him a fucking queer.” Lauren looked up at Scott briefly.

That’s why it set her off so badly
. It was the exact phrase he’d used the previous night. Scott hadn’t even thought twice about saying it, and that made him ashamed.

“He asked the person on the phone how they could be so calm about it. Then Cooper yelled that he was done with it. That he’d endured more than any person should have to, and that when he came home, he wasn’t even accepted by the people he’d risked his life for. My brother put his life on the line for over two years so that other people wouldn’t have to. He did the dirty work so people could go on with their lives as if soldiers weren’t losing theirs. And what did he get for it? He was called a queer for doing what made him happy. What felt natural. He hadn’t been himself since he was deployed, and the
one
time he tried to, he gets harassed for it.” Lauren’s voice had steadily risen as she spoke. She took a calming breath before continuing. “Anyway, he ended the call, threw his phone against a wall, and took off. I can’t explain why, Scott, but I was angry. I was mad because that man wasn’t my brother anymore. I didn’t know him at all and in that moment I didn’t want to. I went upstairs, packed my stuff, and drove back to school.”

Lauren shuddered as her tears started to come harder. “I turned my phone off because I didn’t want to explain why I’d left early. I just wanted to use the drive to think. But when I walked into my room my roommate was frantic. She said my parents had been calling, that something
had happened to my brother and I needed to call them back right away.”

Scott shifted toward her and Lauren buried her face in his chest.

“When he left, it was to go out and buy enough pills to kill a fucking army. He had a few unfilled prescriptions for sleeping meds to help him readjust. He got them all filled at once from different pharmacies. Then he came home to an empty house, a house I should have been in, and took all of them. No note, no explanations, nothing. The war took a huge piece of my brother, and then assholes in his own hometown took the rest. And I wasn’t there to stop him. I wasn’t there to make it better, the way he’d made so many things better for me over the years. Instead I ignored him, I ignored his problems, and I let him suffer when I could have helped. He was only twenty-six. The same age I am now. What sense does that make?”

Lauren wiped away a tear that slid down her cheek, and Scott didn’t know what else to do but to hold her. So that’s what he did.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed humorlessly.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Well, you know the rest of this story. I returned to school after taking a couple weeks off, went looking for a distraction, and found one in the form of a certain philosophy professor.”

Scott wasn’t sure why, but his stomach turned at the thought of a vulnerable, hurting Lauren getting involved with that scumbag because she needed an outlet. The bastard probably saw a weak, damaged girl and took immediate advantage. Scott was nearly overcome with the urge to hunt him down and follow through on the threat
her father had no doubt issued. But instead, he tried to remind himself that comforting Lauren was more important than his own anger issues. But he couldn’t resist saying what had been plaguing his mind since he’d first thought of it. “Cooper was the one who called you Lo?” He’d said it as a question, though it really wasn’t one. He already knew the answer.

Lauren let out a noisy breath. “Yeah.”

*   *   *

Scott held her tightly, and Lauren let him. Even though he was the one who had caused all of these emotions to surface, he was also the only one who could quiet them down again. She felt safe and comfortable in his arms, so much so that she found herself striving to get closer, wanting to melt as far into him as she could. Lauren felt the moment the air changed between them. She’d poured out her heart, and now she needed to forget about it, just for a little while.

Scott lifted his hand to her face, allowing his thumb to smooth over the worry lines that marred her forehead. “It’s just you and me right now, Lo. No one and nothing else is allowed in here.”

She understood what he was saying. Right then was all about feeling good. He was going to help her escape from regrets and hurt feelings. And she wanted nothing more.

He slid his hand down to cup her cheek, looked into her eyes for the briefest of moments, and then brought his lips to hers.

He took her mouth like he owned it. His hands groping at her waist, pushing her shirt out of the way so he could touch her bare skin.

Lauren wrapped her arms around Scott’s neck and dug her fingers in his hair. The kiss was carnal, their tongues waltzing to a rhythm they could feel but not hear.

Scott began to walk them toward his bedroom. The movement should’ve been fumbling and clumsy, considering their size difference and the fact that they were too wrapped up in each other to be coordinated. But it wasn’t. Everything about them in the moment was fluid and graceful.

When they arrived in the bedroom, Lauren decided she was going to take advantage of the opportunity to touch Scott as she’d so often fantasized. Their first time had been so rushed, so frantic and needy. Deftly, she began to undo the buttons on his shirt before sliding it down his arms, and letting it drift to the floor.

Scott pulled her tank top over her head in one motion, and then immediately crashed his mouth back to hers. His hands ghosted along the waistband of her jeans before he popped the button, slid down the zipper, and dropped to his knees. Thankfully Lauren had already kicked off her shoes, allowing Scott to easily pull her jeans from her legs. He kissed, licked, and nipped his way up her flat stomach, over her heaving chest, and along the ridge of her jawline.