Free Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) by Phoebe Fox Page B

knocked lightly on my own door. “Lisa, it’s Brook. I’m coming in.” I put my key in the doorknob and pushed open the door.
    Lisa was lounging on my chaise, one leg tented up, her arms crossed behind her head, looking for all the world as if I were late to a cozy girls’ tête-à-tête.
    “I thought about lighting up a cigarette, but you don’t have any ashtrays,” she said.
    “I prefer no smoking in here. And you don’t smoke anyway, Lisa.” I calmly walked past her and took my usual seat across from the chaise, waiting for her to explain. Rising to Lisa’s provocation only resulted in heightened dramatics.
    “Yes, but I’m thinking of starting. I mean, why not? My lungs will forgive me, right? It doesn’t matter how bad anything I do is—apparently all I have to do is let it go and magically it’s all okay. At least, that’s what I just read.”
    Ah. Lisa was unhappy about the column I’d turned in last night.
    “Forgiveness is about emotions, Lisa. Our psychological well-being. It doesn’t really affect physical ailments.”
    She shot upright, sudden fury pulsing from her so strongly I could almost feel waves of it hitting me. “It doesn’t work for any ‘ailments,’ Deepak Chopra,” she spat. “What, so people can do whatever they want to you, and all you have to do is forgive it and it’s like it never happened? A big get-out-of-jail-free card? A license to hurt anyone, in any way, and poof! All is forgiven? That’s crap . I don’t pay you for that kind of New Age bullshit. And I’m not running it.”
    I nodded. “Okay. If you didn’t like the column, all you had to do was call me. I’m happy to rewrite it.”
    “I don’t want you to rewrite it. I want you to trash it. It’s irresponsible! It’s quackery!”
    I frowned. “I’m not sure I see—”
    “You want to give people carte blanche for bad behavior! You want me to publish something that’s going to make anyone who’s ever been angry over what someone did to hurt them— rightfully angry—feel bad about themselves because they can’t just wave their magic wand and feel better and say, ‘No problem that you stomped on me…I forgive you.’” She said the word as if it were coated in slime.
    And I finally thought I saw what she was so upset about. Paige was right: Lisa was uncomfortable with anything that made her feel vulnerable. Her first reaction was to strike back—but what was underneath was simply raw, naked pain that terrified her.
    “Lisa,” I said gently, “that article was inspired by something in my own life. I needed to be able to forgive someone—my ex-fiancé who jilted me, actually”—I thought it might help if I let her have a glimpse into my own embarrassing past—“so I could finally be able to move on. But that doesn’t mean I think what he did was okay.”
    “That’s sure as hell what it sounded like.”
    I didn’t actually think so, but I considered the possibility that Lisa was right. “What part sounded like I was absolving people who hurt others?”
    But she didn’t seem to hear me. “What if my asshole ex sees it? What if my kids see it? Then I’m the jerk who can’t forgive their dad, and he’s the angel, right? I’m raising sons , Brook. Men. What am I supposed to teach them—that it’s okay to do anything they want to a woman, because ultimately there’s forgiveness ?”
    And suddenly my stomach unclenched. Lisa was usually so fiercely defensive and dedicated to her own point of view, she didn’t have a lot of concern for anyone else. But now I realized what was troubling her—she was personally offended, yes. But mostly she didn’t want to raise her sons to do to some woman what their father did to her. What Michael had done to me.
    And that was downright…compassionate.
    I let out a long breath. “I see your point. Let’s not run this column, and I’ll get you a replacement by end of day.”
    But Lisa didn’t jump up with a vindicated smirk, as I’d half