Jealousy

Part 32

He stops me after I slip on my briefs. His touch is clinical. "Wait, I'd like to examine the leg. See how well it healed up." I nod briefly and sit down on the nearby chair.

Phana shakes his head. "On the bed please. I may need to properly manipulate the knee and hip." I move to lay down. I fail to notice Kit and Bennie enter the room but when I hear Kit gasp again at the sight of my scar, I smile wryly.

"Shut up, Kitty, I'm working." Phana says it absently. "You've managed to get a decent range of motion back, Forth. Have you had any problems with pain or tightness?"

"Some. I can't run the way I used too. The knee locks up on me under heavy loads." I hate admitting it. I feel weak now. He presses somewhere and I actually scream. "What the fuck, Phana!"

He only looks at me and sighs. "See me in the office when we get back to Bangkok. I think we can do something with surgery." I don't want to. I don't need it at a desk job. As these thoughts are running through my head, Kit comes closer to look.

"Did you do this because of Beam?" His voice is soft and sympathetic. He's never spoken this way. Not to me...

"No... not exactly. It happened because I didn't care. I wasn't paying attention and fell." I kept the story brief.

Phana snorts. "Yes, you fell. Yes, you walked. On broken bones for kilometers. You're such a strong brave man. Wasn't that how it was touted in the local papers?" He closed his eyes and sat on the chair. "Get dressed, Forth, I'm hungry."

That fat man of Kit's, he looks at me and says, "I don't know what to think of you. But that, that on your leg, is scary." He walks over to me and pats my shoulder. "You'd die for him, wouldn't you?"

He takes Kit's hand and says, "Let's go, I don't need to watch anyone but you dress." Kit beams up at him and I feel like vomiting.

A trash bin is thrust under me and Phana is rubbing my back. Fuck, I did throw up. His words are faint but clear. "Do you want to tell me what's going on in private? Can Kit and Bennie know?"

Fuck getting dressed. I crawl back into bed after rinsing my mouth out with water. Right now, even the thought of food makes me sick. I tell him to leave and he just looks at me. 

"No, Forth, not until you tell me what's going on." He sits down in the chair and sighs. "I've watched this before, you know, many times. I AM a doctor. Do you know what you are doing right now?"

"Me?" I reply, puzzled. "I'm sick, Phana. I must have picked up a bug."

"No. I examined you, remember? You're not sweating. There's nothing physically WRONG with you, Forth, nothing. If you are sick, you're sick in the head, or heart." He leans forward. "Don't pull a Beam move and talk to me. Let it out, now."

My words are thrown back in my face. I hate it. It makes me angry. Why does he fucking care? It spews out, all the frustration, the anger, the worry... everything.

"I'm leaving, Phana, he doesn't want me. I heard him last night. He said his farewells to all of us. It drifted on the wind... Too fucking scared to face me." I'm so fucking tired. I miss him. Everything about him. I'm even tired of missing him.

"I love him, you know." I pull the thin blanket up over my head. The last thing I want is this shitty doctor seeing me cry. I feel the bed bounce. 

"Forth, we all love him. It's easy to misunderstand Beam. Just," he pauses and considers his words carefully, "Don't start running away like Beam."

What the fuck did he just say? Like a turtle popping out of his shell, my head emerges to look at him. "Pardon me? I don't do that!"

"Really? Let's see... You fight and think Beam should follow you. Run #1. Then at the resort, you spend a night being his nurse and we wake up and both of you are gone. WE don't know who left first. It was you, wasn't it?"

Sullenly, "I left a note. I didn't run away."

He hits me. "You're an asshole."

"I know." I can admit it. I've always treated Beam badly. I know it. I've taken him for granted when we were together. I didn't treasure him. I didn't know how special he was. I didn't know how perfect he was for me. "I know." I say it so sadly.

Phana is never affectionate. Never. My jaw drops when he suddenly hugs me. Tightly. "Don't leave him again, Forth. You will crush him completely. He finally told you all of it. Stay." His arms drop and I'm free.

He stands and stares at me. "I don't understand the emotional connection between you, except on a theoretical level. What I do know is that Beam needs you more than you can ever know. I also know that you need him."

"You two are soul mates. You do complete each other, if you ever manage to stop and actually communicate with each other."

He walks to the door and gently closes it behind him, leaving me stunned. I don't know what the fuck just happened but I know if I leave now, I will never have either Phana or Kit's support in a relationship with Beam again.

I have their support. They have supported me in the past. It's a surprising new thought... I need to talk to my dad. I call home. 

"Dad, I need your help." I talk to him for a long, long time. I haven't talked to him like this since... well before puberty hit. It was an eye opener. I hear mom saying some things in the background but dad never relinquishes the phone. 

He gives me the same advice in the long run, after basically chewing my ass off for running all these years. "Stay and fight for your man. Learn to listen, and hear what he's not saying. He wants you to hear what he can't say out loud."

My headache is much worse with all these new thoughts. I call Phana and ask for something for it. He says eat. I realize how long it's been. 

Finally, I dress and leave the safety of my room. It's time to face this shitty day head on.