then, the look in her eyes so incredibly bleak. Oh, Liza. Fuck. She looked miserable. Ashamed. “I . . . we . . . had a difficult childhood. My sister . . . she . . . died when I was thirteen. I blamed myself. Sometimes I still do.” She looked back out the front windshield, the words coming hard. If she’d said them before in some form or another, it had been very rare, Reed could tell. This wasn’t a practiced story, or even one she seemed to know how to tell. She was picking and choosing her words, leaving things out, he was sure. And that was okay. Everything inside him was still, listening, absorbing. “Anyway, I . . . talk to her sometimes.” She shook her head. “When I’m stressed or unsure. Verbalizing my thoughts through her . . . helps me . . . I don’t know . . . clarify things.” She laughed softly, but it ended in a wince. “She was the only good thing in my life growing up, the person I both protected and turned to, and I suppose I still do that now. Even though she’s . . . gone. I can’t imagine how it sounds to you but . . . I’m not crazy.”
The rain outside started to fall again, splashing against the windshield, and Reed turned on the wipers. For a few minutes there was only the soft sound of the rain and the calming swoosh of the wiper blades. Reed took a moment to think about what she’d said, as the sadness of her confession trickled through him. All the things he knew about Liza Nolan swam together in his mind as he attempted to put together a fuller picture of the woman. A doctor, committed to helping those who had experienced trauma. A woman who’d experienced a difficult, perhaps even traumatic, childhood herself. A woman who was afraid of the dark. A woman who had sexual hang-ups she was attempting to work through by picking up random men in bars.
“I suppose you think I have no business treating patients,” she said. She’d tried to infuse some humor into her tone, but it fell flat.
“I don’t think that.” He looked over at her, took in the outline of her profile, the reflection of the rain and the lights outside the window causing patterns to swirl and dance across her cheek. “You don’t have to be perfect to be good at your job. Maybe it’s better that you’re not.”
She blinked over at him and he swore he saw a spark of something that looked a whole hell of a lot like hope in her eyes. It sent a surge of protectiveness through him. Purpose. “I’m far from perfect.”
He offered her a small smile. “I’d imagine it helps you relate to your patients, Liza. You know, there’s a reason so many counselors at drug rehab facilities are former addicts themselves. Who can help someone better than a person who’s walked in their shoes? Who’s more trustworthy to a person in pain? Someone who’s never felt it, or someone who’s been there, and crossed the bridge to the other side?”
Liza looked down and fiddled with the rings on her index finger for a moment, but her shoulders seemed to relax some. “It’s probably more accurate to say I have one foot on the bridge and one foot on really shaky ground.”
Not if you can joke about it, he thought. Even if it’s done in pain. You’re stronger than you think. Reed smiled. “Okay, but you’re self-aware. You know the things you need to work on and you’re actively doing that.” Reed wanted to ask her if he’d helped her in that effort. If that night they’d shared had helped her. And if it had, he’d be glad for it, despite the small price he’d paid—the rejection, the disappointment—and he’d consider it a sacrifice worth making. But right then was not the time to bring that up. Not then, probably not ever.
“That’s always the hard part though, isn’t it? Knowing how to face your demons and then following through.”
“Well, if what you’re doing isn’t working out so great, maybe you need to try something different.”
Liza gazed over at him. Her eyes were tired, but her smile was gentle, even a little teasing. “I thought I was supposed to be the doctor here.”
Reed grinned in response to the line she’d used when she’d first met him at Lakeside. “Yeah, but you’re still human,”