Cursive - By Phoebe Lane Page 0,97

arrangements to work from home the rest of the day, Jace insisted Aislynn eat something and then go to bed. Aislynn was finally able to find sleep but it was very restless. There was one last very important thing she needed to tell Jace about, and she was so very afraid he would be the one running away from her this time.

Jace finished going through his emails before realizing it was dark out already. He turned around in his chair and stared out the glass window, giving himself some time to think about Aislynn and all the chaos that had gone on that day.

His mind was still reeling from the revelation of Christopher's suicide and all the things that had slowly clicked in his head afterward. Learning about his cancer had probably affected Aislynn immensely but she had handled it with courage. He realized the day she had cut her hand and he had taken her to the hospital was probably the anniversary of the day Christopher had died. He learned to hate Pam a little bit more for the things she had said about Christopher at dinner a few nights before.

God, there's so much.

Jace rubbed his hands up and down his face, wondering what his next step needed to be. He wanted to be supportive, but he wasn't exactly sure how to do that. He had to admit he was scared about the intensity of it all, but he loved Aislynn and he was not going to walk away from her.

He walked out of the office to check on her, but found her sitting on top of the dining room table, just like they had done on her birthday. He couldn't see her face, but her body was still, her hands in her lap, her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head.

He walked around the table and froze when he took in the expression on her face. She was staring out the window, her eyes tormented. He climbed onto the table and quietly sat next to her.

"I think this is my favorite place in the house," she said softly.

"I agree. I was just in my office staring out the window, too. I was thinking about you," he said, and heard Aislynn take a deep breath in.

"I don't want you to worry about me, Jace."

"I worry because I love you, and I want to help you. I hope you realize letting people take care of you is not your forte."

"I know," Aislynn said with a scoff. "You're so diplomatic. You can say it—I suck at it. I really should know better. Carrying this baggage with me for so long is really killing me."

She looked so sad and so scared that Jace could scarcely resist the urge to take her in his arms to comfort her. He was getting better at reading her, and he could tell there was something major going on inside her head.

"You have something else you need to tell me," he said softly, and Aislynn nodded. It took her five minutes to start talking.

"When I was a second year psych resident, I was called in once to do a consult for a patient in the hospital. It was for a woman in her forties who had suddenly lost her ability to walk, and the doctors couldn't figure out why. They had run all sorts of tests on her, and they couldn't find anything. She had literally gone to sleep one night and when she woke up, she couldn't move her legs.

"So I went to talk to her and did a full interview and exam, but I also came out empty handed. She had no psych history, she wasn't depressed, or anxious, or psychotic. There was nothing there. It was so incredibly frustrating not being able to figure out what the hell was going on with her.

"I was still on rotation for a few more weeks, so I ended up visiting her on a regular basis, if anything to just let her talk. She told me about her life, her childhood, and her three kids. She had been married young to a man who had never been the ideal husband, but she still loved him. She revealed that they had been having a lot of marital problems, and that she had actually come home early from work one night to find him having sex with another woman in their bed. She considered leaving him right then and there, but the thought of walking away