Damaged Goods

3

Sarina said he looked terrible. Dev had looked Owen in the face and said it was too soon to come back. Reid tried to ban him, then made it a condition of his return that he call Zarley's friend Cara for help. As if he didn't have enough help on his payroll.

So Owen couldn't let on that every hour he spent in the office was more exhausting than the last. At day's end he was barely functioning well enough to drive home safely. At the end of his first week back, he'd had to pull over and wait for a painkiller to kick in.

And what was the tiny copper-haired girl with the galaxy of freckles on her face supposed to do that his medical team couldn't. His medical team said he was recovering as well as could be expected, that the nerve damage he'd suffered would take time to heal, that he needed to lower his expectations, be realistic about what his body was capable of, be patient. They said he needed counselling for the trauma, for the loss of function, to help him adjust.

But he had experience with trauma, with loss that could knock you off your feet. This was nothing like what he'd felt when Lacey died. The day she'd risked her life to rescue a stray puppy and been hit by a car, a part of him had died too. And not simply every dream he'd had for his future with the sunny girl he'd loved since high-school.

He'd stopped sleeping, could barely eat, drank more than he'd ever done, got down to a skeletal weight, lost his temper at the dumbest things. He'd broken a kitchen window with his fist, because the lock had jammed. He'd almost come to physical blows with Reid over annual budgets. He'd been half mad with constant headaches that had him wearing sunglasses indoors, and he kept seeing Lacey everywhere. In the quick smile of a bank teller, in the bob of a honey ponytail walking in front of him, in the sound of a voice that wasn't there. Twice he'd tapped strangers on the shoulder only to have to stutter a disbelieving apology.

Lacey was killed the instant the car hit her, but he'd started dying, bit by bit, his body breaking down and his mind splintering.

That was four years ago, and he'd fought back, seeing a grief counsellor, leaning on Reid, Sarina and Dev to get through it, because even without Lacey, he'd wanted to live, was hungry for every new day and what he could put into it. She'd have wanted that for him.

So he knew about trauma and how it could fuck with your mind and your body.

And this was different.

This was pain that ran a constant circuit around his body and made his muscles tense and his nerve endings prick. The habit of his work routine was what kept him moving in the weeks and months after Lacey's death. He needed that structure just as much now. And if that meant talking to Cara to get Reid off his case and get back to the office full-time again, it was a small price to pay.

In his third week back in the office, when he couldn't face Reid's insistence any longer, that's when he send Cara a text asking to meet. That's what had him sitting in an uncomfortable metal café chair in one of Plus' staff areas, waiting for her to show. She was late. He'd been trying not to make eye-contact with employees so he didn't have to share his table and chat. He didn't want to chat. He wanted to be in his fifth floor office in air-conditioned comfort, his ass in a chair less likely to make strands of pain flicker down his legs.

This was a typical Reid idea, except that Sarina and Dev hadn't outvoted him. So here he was, one of the company's most senior executives, cooling his jets waiting for a customer help center screen jockey to allow him to buy her morning coffee, so he could reclaim his job.

It was ridiculous. It was part of his post accident life and he resented it.

He shifted and a tearing pain ripped down his legs from his low back, forcing an audible gasp out.