Page 73 (1/2)

Patient exhibits expressive and cognitive aphasia Basilar skull fracture Prognosis: unknown Receptive and expressive aphasia appears to be impermanent, but future uncertain Can speak so But can she reason? The last sentence was underlined

She looked up at hih a blur of hot tears "I

176

don't know if I reason, but I feel, Ian Perhaps that is what saved my life"

He looked away A deep breath filled his chest and then released in a hissing sigh He was quiet for so long that she thought perhaps she'd reached hiht maybe she'd forced him to think about her, instead of her injury

He got slowly to his feet "That's enough for thisaway from the rock, he eased away from her

"You know, Ian," she said without looking at hih to know so that you do not"

Reluctantly he turned to her "What's that?"

She aze head-on "You need to be saved more than I do"

Ian stood at the , gazing out at the front lawn The glass of wine felt warm and familiar in his hand Absently he twirled the delicate crystal stem

He couldn't stop thinking about what Selena had said to hi There was a core of truth in her observation He'd always been better with facts and figures and challenges than with people Whenever he had to deal with people he didn't understand, especially mentally deficient people, he drew back, cloaked hio, a survival skill Maeve had taught him

He'd always seen mental illness in stark, black-and-white definition A person was normal or abnormal Period

When had he stopped searching for the truth? Stopped seeing anything beyond the label?

But he knew, of course He'd stopped a long, long tiht from Maeve, every moment of irrationality He'd been afraid to think of hisbut irreparably broken, because if he saw her as a human-worse yet, a human in pain-he'd

177