Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Do you like it?” he asked next.
“I do. I like helping people.” Callum looked up at Logan before getting to work on his hand again. “What about you? Tell me some things you like?”
Logan began to speak about books and games and model airplanes. Callum asked questions and interacted, seeming truly interested. When he made Logan laugh, I strangely felt something shift around inside me, this swell of gratitude, because watching him, I could see Logan engage with him in a way he used to do with me.
“All finished!” Callum said not long after. “You killed it. Didn’t flinch at all. I have grown men in here bigger than your dad who get all woozy and freak out.”
Callum cleaned up Logan’s hand, wrapped it, then tossed his gloves, washed his hands again, and leaned against the counter. “You have asthma,” he said, and Logan looked away and nodded.
“Dad, he has a physician here for that already?”
It was throwing me every time Callum called me Dad, made me shift and feel something in my gut I couldn’t explain. “Yeah, that’s all taken care of. He’s had it under control for a while. He had an attack before he moved here. Today I think it was more the panic and all from getting hurt.”
“I hate it,” Logan said softly.
“I’m sure it’s not easy,” Callum replied. “I’m gonna show you and tell you something I wouldn’t say to just anyone, but I like you, and I think I get what you’re feeling.”
Both my and Logan’s gazes were riveted on Callum as though it was impossible for us to look away. He pulled the neck area of his scrubs down a bit. There was a small, puffy scar on his chest, where his heart was.
“When I was young, they realized I had something called a heart block. They had to go in and give me a pacemaker. It’s something in my chest that shoots off little signals to my heart, reminding it to beat the way it needs to, otherwise it will slow down too much.”
My own chest tightened as I listened to him.
“You’ve had it since you were a kid?” Logan asked.
“Yep. I see a cardiologist who checks it to make sure it’s functioning properly. I’m okay, so I don’t want you to think that I’m not, but I hated it when I was young. It made my mom fuss over me more, and my dad…well, we probably would have never gotten along anyway, but I think to him, it made him feel like I was broken. Even if that’s not the case, that’s how it felt to me. I hated being different growing up. And even though I could have—and honestly, I doubt I would have wanted to regardless—my mom was always very worried about me, so I didn’t play sports or anything like it. Which again, made me feel different. It was silly since I really didn’t want to play them anyway. I just wanted to look at the boys.” He winked, and Logan chuckled.
“Yeah, I don’t play sports either. I don’t really like them, but part of me wanted to play because all the other guys do…and Dad did when he was young.”
“Hey, I don’t care about that.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You know that, right? I couldn’t care less if you played sports. I want you to be happy and do what you enjoy.”
“I know.” He looked down. “I just…want to be more like you, I guess. I’m smaller than all the other guys, and I don’t like the things they do, and I can’t breathe sometimes. I had an asthma attack at school once, and they were all staring at me like I was some kind of freak. They call me twig, and four eyes, and girly boy, and stuff like that. Well, they did in Colorado.”
Christ, I thought my heart was going to break. And I wanted to pummel some middle schoolers. I wanted to hug him and tell him I loved him, but I didn’t know if that would make him feel the way Callum had said his mom’s attention did. There were a million things going through my head, but I knew this was the answer we’d been missing, the one Logan hadn’t wanted to share with us, but he had today…because of Callum.
“Did they call you names too?” he asked Callum, who nodded.
“Sometimes, yeah, they did, but you know what? I wasn’t nearly as brave as you. I never told my parents. I just dealt with it and always had a laugh or a smile or a joke so they didn’t see that I was really sad inside. It’s good that you’re telling your dad. It’s not healthy to hold it in. I did, and it got worse when I got older. I was really sad at one point. I had to take medication for it and see a therapist and everything.”