Emergency Room Romance

Home Truths

The family stood there, staring at the youngest son and brother, before I pushed past them all and wrapped my arm around Dawson as best as I could, prising the bottle from his almost frozen fingers and placing it on the antique phone table, ignoring my mother’s mutterings about stains. “C’mon, big bro.” I said, trying to lighten the dark moment hanging over him as I guided him towards the stairs. He needed to be away from the staring eyes and the children right now. I caught Robert’s eye as we ascended the stairs, carefully, so that Dawson didn’t fall. The Australian doctor simply smiled and nodded softly. He understood that I needed to deal with this right now and I was so grateful that I had him in my life, but I would have to wait until later to show him that, right now, I had Dawson to deal with.

We moved to the room that used to be his old bedroom. Inside, he fell into a sitting position on the bed and dropped his head into his hands. I closed the door, turning the key of the flimsy lock before taking a seat next to him, running my hand up and down his back as he tried to fight back the tears.

“What happened, Dawson?” I asked in a gentle voice.

“I finished early yesterday. Chase said he’d cover for me.” Dawson was slurring his words and coughing them out over stifled sobs. I had never seen him like this before. “I thought I’d surprise Lucy, y’know? Got ‘er some flowers that she likes and a box of chocolates. I got ‘ome and she was there…with another man pressing her against the counter.” He broke down again and dropped his head to his knees.

I took a few seconds to realise what he was saying and then I groaned. I had never liked that woman, and now I had a good reason to hate her. I hugged my brother as best as I could from the angle he was in and kissed the back of his head. “So she’s the biggest bitch in the world. That doesn’t mean you’ll lose Darren.”

“Oh c’mon, Blair, you know as well as I do that when it comes to custody, she’ll get full.” He shook his head and angrily wiped the tears from his eyes. “We’ve been ‘aving problems for a while now. She says I’m never there when she needs me and I say that she’s never interested in anyone but herself. Turns out, she’s been screwing some guy from her office for the last six months.” He scoffed loudly and turned to me with an angry, pain filled smile. “She wanted to wait until after the New Year to hand me the divorce papers, but after I caught ‘er, why wait, eh?” He shook his head and then grabbed my hand, squeezing it a little too tightly. “If she takes my son away, Blair…he’s my son.”

I hugged him tightly, closing my own eyes to fight back my tears. It killed me to see my big brother so distraught. “I know, but we can figure this out. We’ll make this work. You won’t lose Darren, okay?”

“How can you know that, Blair?” Dawson was near a full blown, alcohol induced breakdown right now and no one could blame him. “It’s hopeless.”

“Hey! Look at me! Alright, you’re talking to your baby sister who has spent most of her life taking on the impossible. I’m not going to let you go through this alone, Dawson and I’m not going to let you give up so damn easily.”

“It’s my life Blair.”

“Yeah, but the joyous part of being in this family is that your siblings stick their noses in where they don’t belong and then refuse to back the hell off.” I told him with a warm smile.

“I’m surprised the parentals haven’t come in yet.”

“I think dad may have forgotten that this room has the flimsiest lock in the house.” I glanced at the door, not pretending to ignore the muffled voices outside of it.

“How would he forget that? I was asking him to fix it when I was a teenager.”

“If it’s not in a medical journal it’s not worth remembering.” I answered in a dry tone. “Unfortunately, they’ll figure it out sooner or later and you’re going to have to face the family wrath. Can you handle it?”