We Loved Until We Couldn’t Novel – Chapter 5
He’s staring up at the sky, waiting for me to answer.
My eyes trace the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheeks, the outline of his lips. His eyebrows are drawn together in thought. I don’t know why, but it feels like he needs conversation right now.
I think about his question — about telling a “naked truth.”
When I finally find one, I look away from him and back toward the stars.
“My father was abusive,” I say quietly. “Not to me — to my mother. He would get so angry when they fought that sometimes he’d hit her. And when that happened, he’d spend the next week or two trying to make up for it. He’d buy her flowers, take us out to a nice dinner. Sometimes he’d even buy me things because he knew how much I hated their fights.”
I pause, my voice low. “When I was little, I used to look forward to the nights they fought. Because if he hit her, I knew the next two weeks would be good.”
The words hang in the air, heavier than I expected. “Of course, if I could’ve changed it, I would have. But the abuse was inevitable with their marriage — it became our normal. And when I got older, I realized that doing nothing about it made me just as guilty. I spent most of my life hating him for being a bad person, but… maybe I’m not much better. Maybe we were both bad people.”
Dr. Adrian Voss turns his head toward me, eyes thoughtful and clear in the dim light.
“Iris,” he says softly, “there’s no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”
I open my mouth to argue, but his words silence me.
We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.
Maybe he’s right. No one is completely bad — and no one’s purely good, either. Some of us just have to work harder to keep the bad parts from taking over.
“Your turn,” I say, shifting my focus to him.
He exhales deeply, running a hand through his hair. For a moment, I think he’ll pass — but then he speaks.
“I watched a little boy die tonight.”
His voice is quiet, heavy. “He was only five years old. He and his younger brother found a gun in their parents’ bedroom. The younger one was holding it when it went off.”
My stomach twists. I wasn’t prepared for something that dark.
“There was nothing we could do by the time he made it to the operating table,” he continues. “Everyone around me — nurses, other doctors — felt so sorry for the parents. Those poor parents, they said. But when I had to walk into that waiting room and tell them their son didn’t make it… I didn’t feel an ounce of sorrow.”
His jaw tightens. “I wanted them to suffer. To feel the weight of their ignorance for keeping a loaded gun where their kids could find it. I wanted them to know that not only did they lose a child — they destroyed the life of the one who pulled the trigger.”
Jesus Christ. I wasn’t ready for something this heavy.
“I can’t even imagine,” I whisper. “That poor boy’s brother. How does someone ever recover from that?”
Adrian flicks something off his jeans. “He won’t. It’ll destroy him for life. That’s the part no one talks about.”
I roll onto my side, propping my head up on my hand. “Is it hard? Seeing things like that every day?”
He shakes his head slowly. “It should be. But the more I’m around death, the more it just becomes a part of life. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
His gaze meets mine again. “Give me another one,” he says. “I feel like mine was darker than yours.”
I disagree, but I play along. I tell him about the cruel thing I did just twelve hours ago.
“My mother asked me two days ago to deliver the eulogy at my father’s funeral today. I told her I didn’t feel comfortable — that I’d probably be crying too hard to speak in front of everyone.” I pause, shaking my head. “That was a lie. I just didn’t want to do it because… I didn’t respect him enough to stand up there and pretend.”
“Did you do it anyway?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. This morning.”
I sit up and pull my legs beneath me, turning toward him. “You want to hear it?”
He smiles faintly. “Absolutely.”
I fold my hands in my lap and draw a slow breath. “I had no idea what to say. About an hour before the funeral, I told my mother I didn’t want to do it.”