Love Me True (Love Me Book 2)

Chapter 9

Silas must have felt her tense at his touch but he didn't pull away; he held her hand fast and didn't let go. "How do you know Moses?" he asked.

"I thought you wanted me to tell you about Savannah?" she replied, clearing her throat.

"How about both?" he suggested, taking a sip of his drink then setting it down on the ledge in front of him as he looked out over the city below them.

"Moses's daughter was very ill for a very long time. When they would come to the hospital, I would always do my best to take care of them all, she was a special little girl." Faye's voice was quiet.

"Was, I take it she has passed?" He looked down at Faye's bowed head.

"Yes, almost two years ago now." Faye felt a tear sneak out onto her cheek and Silas reached up and wiped it away.

"You feel things very deeply, don't you?"

Faye was the type to shrug so she did. "A hazard that comes with the job," she explained.

"No, the hazard is becoming jaded and insensitive. Sometimes it is easy to forget that the people that we are expected to help have feelings. It is easier, after a time, to treat them as if they are their injury or illness."

Faye looked up at his handsome profile. "Is that the way you feel?"

"No, not particularly, but when someone like the man I helped you with yesterday comes in for help, I have a hard time remembering he is human, especially when his actions have harmed others, and especially when he is being disrespectful and nasty to those who are trying to help him." He looked out over the city, watching the sun as it started it's decent. Faye wondered what or who he was thinking of right at that moment.

"I try to remember that it's not necessarily him talking but the substance he is high on, and I try to remember that something in his life must have gone dreadfully wrong for him to feel the need to escape reality in that way. He is missing out on some of the best parts of life." She looked down at the street below, watching the families as they hurried to find a place to stand or sit and watch the fireworks.

"Like first dates?" Silas asked with a smile.

"I don't think that first dates are the best parts of life, more like the awkward parts." Faye laughed nervously.

"A first kiss perhaps, or a first love, or making love for the first time, those are the best parts, and you can't deny those, can you?" She could feel his gaze on the top of her head as the air between them grew heavy, and her free hand shook a little when she picked up her cup to take a sip of tea while she shrugged once more in response. "Still," he continued, "we all have problems. You can't tell me that your life has been all sunny skies and happy moments. I have not had a particularly easy life, but I still choose to live life despite it and not bury myself in a bottle." He turned his attention back towards the city below, allowing Faye to breathe once again.

Who knew that Dr. Silas DeGraff could be so intense? Cold was not a word she would choose to describe him now, and part of her wondered what made him present himself as cold to the world. "Is not losing yourself behind a cold and austere manner so that you appear unapproachable a similar escape?" She couldn't help asking the question as she had the thought.

He turned to look at her, stunned, his cup halfway to his lips. He tilted his head as he lowered his cup. "Is not telling yourself you're unworthy or less than every person you meet also not a similar escape. You don't have to succeed if you always expect to fail."

This time Faye looked at him with wide eyes. "Is that how you see me?"

He shook his head with a smile she didn't understand. "No, but that's how I believe you see yourself."