Page 24 of Stay Away from Him

Melissa drove and Thomas took the back seat, next to Bradley.

“Just keep holding that tissue against your forehead,” Thomas said. “You’re doing a great job.”

“Am I going to be okay?” Bradley asked, his voice shaky. Melissa tried to catch his eyes in the rearview, but she couldn’t see his face with the blood-spotted tissue pressed up against it. He’d need a fresh one soon—the one he had was almost soaked through.

“You’re going to be fine, bud,” Thomas said. “Your mom and I are going to get you fixed up good.”

“Where am I going?” Melissa asked.

“Take a right on 96,” Thomas said. “And keep going until I tell you to stop.”

“ER?” Melissa asked, making sure to use the letters rather than the words emergency room , which would only freak Bradley out worse than he already was. She was still new enough to the area that she didn’t know where anything was.

“ER would just put us in a waiting room,” Thomas said. “We’re headed to my clinic. I’ll patch him up myself. Hear that, bud? I’m going to be your doctor today. Can you be brave for me?”

“Yes.” His voice was so small; Melissa almost cried at the sound of it. He was so small. Defenseless against the world.

“Good man,” Thomas said.

It was a relief to be with Thomas, to be dealing with this alongside someone strong, and confident—and a doctor to boot.

But Melissa was still shaking, all the same.

Gripping the steering wheel too hard to steady herself, to anchor herself against something solid.

She couldn’t get the image out of her head: the image of her son falling, hitting his head on a rock.

The image of him being attacked. Of Kelli Walker gripping him hard by the shoulders.

Putting her hands on him. Saying something that scared him.

“What did she say to you?” asked Melissa. “That woman.”

“She said I was going to die,” Bradley said. “That I needed to tell you someone was going to make us both dead.”

Anger rose up in her, blotting out the edges of her vision. As usual, a five-year-old’s account of events was a little garbled, but Melissa was pretty sure she knew exactly what happened. Kelli Walker told her son that Thomas was going to kill him. And Melissa.

Kelli was obsessed. Unhinged.

“Melissa.” It was Thomas’s voice. Soft, from the back seat. She glanced in the rearview and saw him looking back at her through the mirror. His eyes gentle, soft, but worried.

“What?”

“You’re going a little fast.”

Melissa looked to the dash and saw that she was speeding by a good twenty miles per hour, her foot sinking on the accelerator as her anger at Kelli gripped her body. She eased up, went a little slower.

“We’re going to be fine,” Thomas said. “We can talk about what happened later. Let’s just get Bradley patched up for now.”

She kept driving for a couple minutes, then Thomas directed her into a parking lot.

There was a nondescript building and a simple sign with no logo, simply the words Danver Pediatric Associates .

She followed as Thomas got out and carried Bradley to the door, using a key to unlock it.

It was after hours, the waiting room and reception desk completely empty.

Bradley’s head on his shoulder, Thomas pushed through a door to a hallway, passed an electronic scale, and went into an exam room.

He put Bradley gently on the table. Melissa grimaced as she saw the spots of blood on Thomas’s light blue polo shirt—Bradley must have bled on him.

But if Thomas noticed, he didn’t seem to mind.

“All right,” he said, “let’s get a look at this, shall we?”

Bradley whimpered as Thomas began to pull at the edge of the tissue plastered to his forehead, but he was brave and didn’t cry or pull away.

When the tissue came off, Melissa saw that his eyes were scrunched closed.

The wound looked pretty gnarly to her, a wide gash in the middle of his forehead surrounded by streaks of red, paling to white—bone?

—in the middle. But Thomas didn’t seem fazed.

“This isn’t so bad,” he said. “I think this will heal up nicely.”

“Will he need stitches?” Melissa asked.

“You know, I think we can do this without stitches. I’m thinking I could pull the skin back together with some butterfly bandages and then seal it up with some skin glue.”

“Skin glue?” Melissa asked.

Thomas gave her a warm smile. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. It glues wounds closed and then disintegrates as the wound heals. It’s less likely to result in a scar than stitches.”

“And how about a concussion?”

Thomas’s smile didn’t waver. “I’ll run the protocol after I patch him up. But I doubt there’s anything to be worried about. This part of a kid’s skull is built for impact. He might have a headache later, but that’s about it.”

Melissa nodded. Thomas suggested that she get next to Bradley and hold his hand while Thomas bandaged him up.

Then, as Thomas worked, she simply watched.

He washed the wound with sanitizing wipes, gently blew on it to stop the rest of the bleeding.

With gloved hands he applied a few butterfly bandages, then squeezed the skin glue from a single-use plastic vial, blew on it again.

Every once in a while, he murmured encouraging words: “You’re doing so great, bud.

What a brave boy you are. I think someone has earned a treat after this. What do you say, Mom?”

“Oh, definitely,” she agreed.

“Ice cream?” Bradley asked.

“Yeah, the biggest ice cream cone you’ve ever seen,” Thomas said.

Bradley smiled. “As big as my head?”

“Bigger! As big as mine .” Thomas made his eyes huge, and Bradley dissolved into giggles.

Thomas went into a drawer, came out with a penlight, clicked it on, and had Bradley follow it without moving his head.

Checked inside his ears. As he worked, Melissa found herself fixating on Thomas’s hands, strong but gentle as he used them to handle her son.

On the concentration, the care, that came to his eyes.

And the calm with which Bradley responded to him.

By the time Thomas was done with the examination, Melissa was practically crying, her eyes brimming with tears.

She cleared her throat and blinked them away before he could notice.

“He’s fine,” Thomas said. “He’ll be turning cartwheels by morning.”

“And what do I—I mean, how do I…I’ve never done it this way. Do I owe you anything?”

It was exactly as Thomas had said—disinfectant, bandages, the glue. But doctor’s visits, even simple ones, generally cost hundreds of dollars.

Thomas winked. “Friends and family discount.” He turned back to Bradley. “What do you say, bud? You ready to get out of here?”

Bradley nodded, and Thomas helped him down with his hands underneath Bradley’s armpits.

When his feet hit the floor, Bradley fell forward toward Thomas, and at first Melissa gasped, thinking he must have been lightheaded—Thomas was wrong, he had a concussion after all.

But then she realized that Bradley wasn’t falling.

He was hugging Thomas. Wrapping his arms around his waist.

“Thanks, Dad,” Bradley said.

Dad. Melissa caught Thomas’s eye. He smiled, shrugged, as if to say, What are you gonna do?

“Oh, honey,” Melissa said. “Thomas isn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Thomas said, interrupting her. Melissa was surprised. Did he want Bradley to think he was his dad?

“Why don’t we head to the waiting room,” Thomas said quietly. “There’s a little toy area there. He can play while we talk.”

They headed back out to the empty waiting room, where Bradley went to a corner to play with some toy cars on a low table. Thomas and Melissa lingered by the reception desk.

“I don’t really have anything else I need to tell you,” Thomas admitted as they watched Bradley play. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Melissa looked up at him. His eyes were kind, wrinkled at the corners with worry, and this time there was no stopping it—she burst into tears. Then his arms were around her, and it felt so good to be held that the tears came harder. Melissa let them come, knowing he wouldn’t let her go.

“I’m sorry,” Melissa said through her sobs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You’ve been through a lot.”

He was right about that, and maybe she didn’t have to explain—but she wanted to, just to say it. To get it all out.

“It’s everything, I think. Losing sight of Bradley for a second, how scary that can be, and then finding him being grabbed by that woman. It’s a mom’s worst nightmare. Then him getting hurt, and coming here, and—and how sweet you are with him. With me . I don’t deserve it.”

“You do, though,” Thomas said gently. He tilted his face down and pressed his lips against the top of her head, spoke into her hair. “You deserve good things. Both of you. Every good thing.”

Melissa closed her eyes, overwhelmed with gratitude at this man who’d walked so unexpectedly into her life. Squeezed him tighter, enjoyed the feel of his body against hers. The warmth of it. The comfort.

“He called you Dad ,” she whispered, so Bradley wouldn’t hear across the room.

“He did,” Thomas said softly. Melissa felt the warmth of his breath on her scalp. “It’s okay. Really.”

She pulled away without breaking free from his arms, looked up directly into his eyes. “Is it, though?”

Thomas’s eyes were sparkling. Could he have been crying too?

“You know, I always wanted a son. A little boy, like Bradley. I love my girls—of course I do. But I always wanted a third. But we decided…well, you know. And I always wondered. What it would be like.”

“What are you saying?”

Thomas shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I know I’m not his dad. Not yet. We only just met. I just—I want to be part of your life. Yours and his. I’ve been clear on that.”

Melissa laughed. “You have.” Clear was one way of putting it.

Since she’d met him, Thomas had been relentless in making his interest in her known—and she supposed she hadn’t exactly been reluctant.

She was the first to kiss him. The first to invite him back to her place.

She’d wanted him; she couldn’t pretend otherwise. And she wanted him now. More than ever.

“Look, I know I’m not the easiest person in the world,” Thomas said.

“My past is—none of it’s my fault, but still.

It’s a lot to take. A dead wife, two girls.

The accusations. The crazy people who are still obsessed with me.

Who think I’m guilty. I’m so sorry it’s affecting you.

But I’m falling in love with you, Melissa.

Okay? I’m falling in love with you, and I can’t make that feeling go away.

This could really be something, you know? ”

“I know,” she said. “I feel that way too.”

“And this doesn’t happen that often, that two people will feel this way about each other. That something can be this right . All the other shit—we can’t let it get in the way. Can we?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head, blinking tears onto her cheeks. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t think we can.”

“So can we try this? Really try it? To hell with Kelli Walker, to hell with the bullshit evidence she thinks she has. To hell with the suspicions, the interrogations, the second thoughts. To hell with all of it. Can I be a part of your life or not?”

Melissa turned to Bradley, who was playing placidly in the corner, pushing a toy car along the arm of one of the waiting room chairs and making engine sounds with his mouth.

The bandage on his forehead was a visible reminder of the thing that happened to him—and maybe it was a stand-in for all the terrible things they’d both been through, Bradley and Melissa, on the way to right here , right now .

The pain. The hurt. But it was also a reminder of the man standing next to her, still holding her in his arms. The man who’d begun to make it better.

The man who bandaged a wound. Who brought healing.

In that moment, there was nowhere she would rather be. No one she’d rather be with.

And nothing else to say.

“Yes.”