room, she straightened her white lab coat, pushed her glasses back on her nose and adjusted the black badge declaring her “Dr. Francis Wentworth, Staff Psychiatrist.” While her friends might make fun of her oversized glasses, she’d found that a no-nonsense professional look worked well. She had no desire to be judged by her looks either.
She took a deep breath. She’d be pleasant, but direct, and after he’d finished in Danny’s room she and the crabby surgeon were going to talk.
She gave the door a quick knock. Entering the room, she noted that her patient was looking just as brooding as his surgeon. Standing across the room, seventeen-year-old Danny Owens was staring out at the road that ran in front of the hospital.
Frannie had been working with the teenager for the last two days, but so far hadn’t been able to get him to talk to her or to eat. She had been called to the emergency room when Danny and his girlfriend, Ashley, had been brought in, after a car had swerved into their lane while they were driving home from school. The teenager had suffered some broken ribs and a laceration to his liver, along with a fractured femur. Ashley had suffered a traumatic head injury and had been unresponsive and intubated on a ventilating machine since she’d arrived at the hospital.
The neurologist on the case was hopeful, but the longer Ashley remained unconscious the more Danny was withdrawing. She had spoken with his parents, and encouraged them to be patient, but after two days they were getting anxious and she couldn’t blame them. He was keeping everything bottled up inside, and at some point he was going to explode.
Watching Danny’s hands as they clenched into fists, then relaxed, over and over again, she knew it wouldn’t be much longer before he reached boiling point. Soon he was either going to break down in grief or express his anger in violence. She had to find a way to stop him before he went spiraling out of control. Until then, she needed to keep him as calm as possible. Pushing the teenager at this time would be like setting off a bomb.
But from the look Ian was giving the young man the doctor was out of patience. She was standing in a room full of dynamite and Dr. Spencer seemed to be ready to light the fuse.
“Danny, I know you’re upset, but not talking to us isn’t going to help,” the surgeon said. “Your nurse tells me you’re not eating, and that you didn’t sleep last night. If you continue like this you’re just going to prolong your hospital stay. Is that what you want? To stay in the hospital?”
“Dr. Spencer,” Frannie said. “I’ve spoken with Danny and told him we won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to—unless it puts him in danger medically, of course. I have also ordered something to help him sleep if he wants it.”
“If he doesn’t start eating soon I’m going to order a feeding tube,” Ian said. “He needs the nutrition to help his body heal.”
Damn the man—he’d gone and struck a match in a room that was already about to detonate. If he’d read any of her notes on Danny’s chart he would have known that pushing the kid was just going to blow up in his face. This was just one more reason he needed to stop this silly game of pretending she and her program didn’t exist. It wasn’t as if ignoring her was going to make her go away.
Danny turned and looked at them. The haunted look in his eyes tore at her heart. He was too young to have to face something this traumatic in his life.
But that was the problem with most of her patients: they were too young to have learned any type of coping methods that might help them. That was why they needed her help. They needed help to find the tools to get them through the things life was throwing at them and to help them come out as whole as possible. Sure, they’d be changed in some ways—nobody could go through the things these kids were going through without being affected—but they’d be stronger and more able to cope with the changes in their lives.
“Danny, I’m sure Dr. Spencer isn’t planning on force-feeding you unless it becomes evident that you’re making yourself more sick,” Frannie said as she shot a look at Ian, daring him to interrupt her. “But you have to know that your parents are very worried about you, and I know you don’t want that. Can you agree to at least try to eat something today? For them?”
Danny’s shoulders slumped and he looked down at the floor before nodding his head in agreement. He was a good kid, and she knew he loved his parents. Having his parents involved would help him get through this more than anything she could do. Unfortunately a lot of her patients didn’t have that kind of strong family support.
* * *
“I’ll agree to forget the tube if you promise me you’ll eat at least half of your meals today. I’ll tell the nurse to order whatever you want, or we can get your parents to bring in something for you. Agreed?” Ian said, and he stuck his hand out and waited for the kid to shake it.
When Danny looked up and locked his gaze on the outstretched hand he thought the kid was going to refuse this sign of a truce, but he followed through with the handshake.
Ian held on to the young man’s hand for a few seconds. He tightened his grip and eased his fingers up his patient’s arm till he felt a strong, steady pulse. Loosening his grip, he felt an unsteady tremor in Danny’s hand. The kid was in a bad way. Dr. Wentworth could baby him all she wanted, but Ian was responsible for his patient’s health, and this kid wasn’t going to sit there and starve himself on his watch.
Would he really force-feed the kid? Probably not—but neither Danny nor Dr. Wentworth needed to know that. If his threat resulted in his patient eating then it had done its job—which was a lot more than all that feel-good talking Dr. Wentworth was doing.
He let go of the teenager’s hand and promised to return to see him the next day. He had no doubt that this psychiatrist wouldn’t be happy with him, but that really wasn’t a concern of his. He was a surgeon. His job was to help these young patients to recover from their injuries and return to their lives. He didn’t have time to stop and ask them how they felt about it. He had to get to the next injured child and somehow make them better. That was his job.
He’d leave all the psych stuff to Dr. Wentworth. Wasn’t that what she was getting paid to do?
He heard his name being called behind him and tried to pretend not to hear. But it became evident that Dr. Wentworth wasn’t going to give up. The woman never gave up. She was determined to get him involved with her therapy program, but it wasn’t going to happen. He’d seen firsthand how therapists worked. Or didn’t.
He turned around and reached out to stop the young woman from plowing him down.
“Oh...sorry,” she said as she brushed her hair back out of her eyes. Dark brown eyes that flashed with irritation behind an overly large pair of black-framed glasses.
Of average height, and as far as he could see of an average build—there really was no way to know what she hid behind the oversized lab coats she always seemed to wear—the only thing that really stood out about the woman was the fountain of dark brown hair that flowed down her back. And those eyes... There was just something about the dark depths of them that made him feel as if she was seeing into his soul...into that part of him that he made sure he kept hidden from everyone.
He’d bared his soul once, when his heart had been broken, and the person he had trusted with it—the person he had trusted with what had been left of his heart after the death of their son—had torn it up until there hadn’t been enough left to save. He’d never let another woman do that to him, and he’d never allow another shrink inside his head.
“Ian,
