Free Redemption FinalWPF6 7 by L. E. Harner Page B

but I know you…and you
didn’t…couldn’t cause him—”
    Breaking off his sudden rant, Gabe raked his hand through
his hair. “Sorry. Obviously, I have issues of my own.”
    Uriah turned to face him for a long moment, clearly expecting
an explanation and willing to wait Gabe out. The moonlight cast shadows in the
sharp angles of his high cheekbones, chiseled nose, broad forehead. Gabe wanted
to thread his fingers into that thick black mane framing Uriah’s handsome face,
to kiss away the patient look in those big, dark eyes, to make Uriah as aware
of him as he was of the younger man. When his gaze settled on Diane, her
beautiful face was a mask of empathy, and he wanted to lay his head on her lap
and accept the comfort of her caress.
    It seemed easier to talk than to fight against the
inevitable, and Gabe found himself sharing a story very few knew. He took a
deep breath and moved to sit on the edge of the sleeping bags.
    “In the past, I had a typical big city medical practice.
Now, I prefer to only work part time. For a while, I thought I would quit
altogether. I probably would have if it hadn’t been for the intervention of one
of my best friends.” He sighed, scratched at his rough cheek and thought about
how to say what he needed to say.
    “I started drinking in medical school. Not just me, we all
did. It was better living through chemicals. We were self-medicating, caffeine
or amphetamines, alcohol or sleeping pills. I was working thirty-six to forty-eight
hour shifts as a resident and I needed either to stay awake or grab some shuteye.
It was brutal, but it wasn’t anything that thousands of other doctors haven't
done.
    “It became a habit. One I liked a lot. I could do anything.
Work all day, party half the night, then grab a couple of hours of sleep and do
it all over again, and then crash. For nearly ten years, that was how I lived
my life. I was careful not to get too drunk, too high, always watching that I
wasn’t becoming that cliché of physician needing to heal thyself.” He gave a
snort of derision and looked away. Jesus.
    “A few years later, I was an attending at Phoenix General,
and per our contract, I worked the overnights two weeks per month, and I
supervised the residents. One night I was on duty, but there were three
residents sharing the rotation. It was my turn to grab a couple of hours of down
time. I had a little drink to help me drop off to sleep quickly. Not much, just
enough to relax me. At least that’s what I told myself.
    “There was a multiple car accident on the highway. One of
the big dust storms, a forty-seven car pile-up. It was everybody to their
stations, and I was pulled from the bunkroom to come back after only an hour
down time. As you would expect with that many cars, there were several serious
injuries, including a car of teenagers who had been on their way home from a
baseball tournament. I caught one of the boys. I learned all about him later.
His name was Kirk. Played shortstop. He’d been in the middle of the back seat
and not wearing a seat belt. Why do we all think we’re so fucking immortal?”
    The bitterness of his own words shamed him. He looked at
Uriah and Diane, and his throat tightened. He didn’t want to talk about this,
didn’t want to tell them. These two were good people, who deserved their chance
at happiness. They were blaming themselves for the act of a man either too
selfish or too weak to face the consequences of his actions. They needed to
know that there were some things in life beyond forgiveness, and that the two
of them weren’t anywhere close to crossing that line. The line he’d already
crossed. He was very aware of the age difference between them. What was Diane?
Twenty-seven? That made Uriah twenty-three…At thirty-six, Gabe felt ancient.
Too old, too scarred by life to let them get mixed up with someone like him.
Someone beyond redemption. A shudder rocked through him and he forced himself
to tell the rest, to put himself