Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 182: What I Should Say

Chapter 182: What I Should Say

"I’m not going to get you in trouble, right?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at Bin An Sha. I was in pretty much the same position that I was in last night, but this time, I was sitting on Rip, and it was the good doctor who was trying to deal with my hair.

He poured more oil onto the middle of the mass and started pulling the strands apart with his hands.

"No, unfortunately for me, there is nothing I can do to get into trouble in this city," he grunted, clearly not happy with that fact.

"You want to leave?" I asked, dropping my forehead onto Rip’s shoulder as I worked through the pain in my head. Bin An Sha was being as gentle as humanly possible, but that didn’t mean that every touch and pull from him wasn’t sending daggers of pain.

"I can make the pain go away," he said instead of answering my question.

"Please don’t," I replied. His hands paused for a moment before he went back to his task.

"Is there any reason why? I don’t like the idea of causing you unnecessary pain."

"Not to sound cliché, but the pain lets me know that this is real. That I’m not lost in my head, playing out scenes that may or may not exist in reality," I shrugged. Learning last night that I had missed almost a full year of my life, plus the whole thing with the guys in the bunker, I almost needed the pain to keep me grounded.

Not too much pain, though; I wasn’t a masochist or anything along those lines. And if it did get to be that bad, I would ask him to take the pain away.

"That makes sense," grunted Rip, "But I am definitely with Bin An Sha on that one; if it gets too bad, let us know."

"Promise. But back to the topic at hand, you would be willing to leave City A?" I asked. Most people would want to stay in a paradise like this. They had power from solar panels, the ability to have hot, running water and baths... you would think only an idiot would want to leave here.

And Bin An Sha was definitely not an idiot.

"The glamor that everyone sees is enough to conceal the rot that is this city. It might look perfect from the outside, but those who understand what is going on know that it is only a matter of time before something destroys the illusion," shrugged Bin An Sha.

He had managed to separate my hair into four slightly smaller mats and was now tackling each one individually. Every so often, he stopped for a moment, and I was assuming it was to deal with whatever hair had fallen out.

"That makes sense," I nodded, my head still buried in Rip.

"And what about you? What do you see yourself doing in the future. The others told me that you are a healer, and I already know you were a doctor before that. Is that what you want to continue to do in the future?"

I froze for a second, not knowing quite how to answer that question. I knew what I should say, that of course I wanted to keep being a doctor, that I wanted to use my gifts to better mankind.

That was what a good person would do.

Besides, it cost a hell of a lot of money to get through med school, even if I did get a lot of scholarships, and no one in their right mind would turn down the money that a doctor made.

But I had just finished telling myself that I wasn’t going to do something that I didn’t want to do.

"I don’t know," I said instead. I wanted to qualify it. Say something like it would depend on what everyone else wanted to do or where to go, but I wasn’t going to. "But I know it will take a lot to get me healing again."

Instead of criticizing me or telling me that he thought my decision was wrong, Bin An Sha simply nodded his head.

"That makes sense. If I was forced to heal people for years, I don’t think I would be willing to do it when I didn’t have to either," agreed Bin An Sha, and I was surprised.

"Huh, I didn’t see that coming," I admitted. "I thought you were going to tell me that it was a waste of my education, or gift, or something along those lines."

"Fuck that," chuckled Bin An Sha. "I’m not your parent. And even if I was, I would like to think that I wouldn’t force my child into a profession they weren’t passionate about."

"Was that what your parents were like?" I asked, moving my head so I could see the man behind me.

"I have no idea. I’ve never met them. But when I was a child, that was how they were in my head," smiled Bin An Sha, but I could see the pain in his eyes.

"I’m sorry," I said softly, feeling like I really put my foot in it.

"Don’t be. It made me into the man that I am today, and I don’t think that is a bad thing," he shrugged.

One-quarter of my hair was now knot-free, and Bin An Sha was able to run a brush through the strands from top to bottom.

I didn’t even want to see how much hair I had lost in just that small section.

"I have a question for you," I said slowly, not sure how to ask my question. But I felt like I owed him a secret, and I really only had one. "Do you know where to find brown contacts?"

Reaching up, I took out the lens that I got from Rip and turned to look at the other man.

"Only Bai Long Qiang and Rip know about this," I shrugged. I knew it was nowhere similar to the same level as not having parents, but showing him was a big deal for me.

"Why? I have never seen a more beautiful pair of eyes in my life," he said, staring at me. I blushed and put the brown lens back in.

"Thanks," I muttered, suddenly shy. "But it was something that made me different. I wasn’t born with it; it only came about when I was six. I was hit by a car on my way to school, and when I woke up from the coma, I had two different colored eyes."