Scrubbed

by Renee, DC

  “Talk to me,” I told him after we pulled apart.

  “I will,” he promised. “But first, I need you, Hadley. Please, tell me you need me, too,” he pleaded.

  “Always,” I told him, and I meant it. “But is it…is it okay?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said with a nod. “But if it hurts or if anything feels wrong, tell me right away, and I’ll stop. I promise. It’s just…I need to feel close to you right now. I need to feel that you’re real, that you’re here, and that you’re mine.”

  “I am,” I told him. “I love you, Noah. You have me.”

  “Thank fuck,” he said and then devoured my lips.

  Within moments, we were naked, still in his living room, not having bothered to make it to the bedroom. I needed him just as much as he needed me, and I needed him now.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he told me as he looked at me. “Nothing will change that.”

  “What if the cancer changes my body?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said matter-of-factly. “Your beauty isn’t your body. It’s you. Let me show you just how beautiful you are.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He kissed my neck before his lips began a slow assault of my body, making me go weak in the knees when he reached my breasts. “If you fall, I’ll catch you,” he whispered before he scooped me up and took me to bed.

  He continued placing languid kisses all over my body until he finally reached my core. His tongue traced my clit, circling it, causing me to cry out, my body lifting a bit off the bed.

  “Noah,” I pleaded.

  “Fuck, the sounds you make. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I’ve had you, and it’s too much. I want to go slow with you, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. So come for me, Hadley, come against my tongue, let me taste you before I claim your body, hard, fast, punishing.”

  “Yes,” I cried out, and again, he got to work, wringing a climax out of me within mere seconds. He was on top of me before I even came back down to earth, and then I felt him in me, hard, fast, and punishing, just like he said.

  “For pushing me away,” he said as he pushed inside me. He was punishing me.

  “For breaking my heart,” he said as he thrust again.

  “For not letting me be there for you,” he said as he stretched me, each thrust more bruising than the last, but so good. God, I was going to come again if he kept it up. Fucking kinky…and hot.

  “For not confiding in me.” Thrust.

  “For trying to make the decision on your treatment without me.” Thrust.

  “For thinking you knew what was best for me.” Thrust.

  “For not letting me love you from the minute I knew I did.” Thrust.

  “Oh God, Noah, I’m coming,” I cried out just as he pushed in one last time, his own orgasm filling me.

  “Fuck, Hadley, did I hurt you?” he asked after we were both spent, his face full of worry. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I…I don’t know what came over me.”

  “No, Noah, I’m fine…and that was…that was something else.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a giddy smile. “It was.”

  We took a bath together after, just enjoying the feel of each other, stroking, kissing, sucking. That, of course, led to more sex. Soft and slow this time around. But just as good. Just as memorable.

  We didn’t end up talking that day. It had only been a week since we had been together, but it felt like a lifetime apart. I knew we needed to decide soon, but so did Noah. It didn’t stop us from just simply enjoying each other’s company that day. Maybe I was still in denial. Maybe he was too. But whatever it was, we let it go for one more day.

  Noah

  WE SPENT THE day lounging around, laughing, watching TV, then falling asleep in each other’s arms. I woke up the next day and watched Hadley sleep for a bit. “How?” I whispered. “How can you have cancer?” I asked quietly. She looked so peaceful, happy. Like her body wasn’t trying to destroy itself from the inside. It hit me suddenly. Hadley had cancer. Hadley. Had. Cancer. I felt like the air was sucked from the room. It wasn’t fair of me to abandon her, but I needed a minute. I needed two.

  I wrote Hadley a quick note telling her I was out getting breakfast in case she woke up, and headed out to do just that, letting the fresh air calm me down. Except once I was in my car, somehow, I didn’t make it to a breakfast place…

  “Hey, Trace,” I said, looking down at her tombstone. “I need help,” I whispered, afraid to say it too loud. “I love her,” I told her. “And I have a feeling you brought her to me, knowing I needed her. But then why…why this? Why again? If she di,” I choked on the word, holding back my tears. “If she dies,” I said this time, and the minute the word was out, my cries were out too. I tried to wipe my eyes with my hand, but it was useless. “I don’t know what I’ll do. You helped me with her, and now I need your help again. A sign, Trace, please. Please,” I repeated, my words desperate, pleading. “I need a fucking sign,” I urged, feeling suddenly very broken. I fell to my knees, letting the pain of it all wash over me, letting my tears hit the grass on top of Tracy’s grave.

  I didn’t know how long I waited there, but nothing happened. “Please,” I said one final time before I gave up. I started walking away just as a figure was approaching.

  “You again,” the gentleman from last time said with a smile. “Never seen you before, and twice in just a few months.”

  “Timing is everything,” I responded with a shrug.

  “No kidding,” he said with a whimsical smile. “You know, my Martha was supposed to marry some other guy,” he told me. “Had the date set and everything. By chance, she stumbled into my shop on a rainy day. I took one look at her and knew she was going to be mine. Had to win her, though. But win her, I did. It wasn’t all rainbows and whatnot. Had a hard time having kids, and they didn’t have all that fancy IV-whatnot you have now. But we were lucky enough to adopt. Oh, sorry,” he said as if he had just realized he’d given me more than I’d asked for. “Point is timing is everything. Well, have a good day,” he added as he walked away.

  “You too,” I mumbled, taking two steps before I halted in my tracks.

  “Do you mind me asking why you had a hard time having kids?” I asked, loud enough for him to hear.

  “Some issues with the female parts,” he said with an embarrassed shrug. “Ended up having to have it removed a few years later,” he added. “But it worked out in the end.”

  “Thank you,” I told him. “And thank you, Tracy,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  I grabbed breakfast, made my way back to Hadley, knowing with one hundred percent certainty that everything was going to be okay. She was going to beat this. Tracy told me she would.

  “As a doctor, I will tell you to do the hysterectomy,” I started as soon as we finished eating breakfast.” She looked up at me, clearly unnerved that I’d started the conversation out of nowhere, but there was no time like the present. “There’s a reason you hear of so many celebs taking a knife to their breasts without any signs of cancer. Because if it’s there, it’ll come, or it might come back. If you cut off the source, there’s no place for the cancer to manifest. You remove your source, the chance of it coming back is well…pretty nonexistent.” She looked at me with a question in her eyes she didn’t want to voice out loud. “Yours hasn’t spread anywhere else. Stage 4 means it’s in other parts of the body as well. You can’t take out lungs and liver and so on. You can take out the uterus and still have a relatively normal life.”

  “But no kids,” she countered.

  “No, not ‘no kids,’” I said, repeating her words back at her. “Just no kids inside your body. You can freeze your eggs and get a surrogate.”

  “But I’ll never get to feel the baby grow inside me, never get to feel it kick.”

  “No,” I said with a hard shake. “But you’ll also be giving your future baby a chance to have his or her mom until a ripe old age. You’ll get to watch them grow up an
d not worry about the cancer taking you away. You’ll get to grow old with me,” I added, and with that last sentence, her decision was made.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Okay?” I asked, not believing how easy that had been.

  “Yeah, I want all those things. If this is my best chance, let’s do it.”

  “I love you,” I responded.

  “I love you too.”

  I called Ben shortly after with Hadley’s decision, and he got the ball rolling right away. He sent us to a fertility specialist he worked with. We went to meet with them, and they explained what would happen. Poor Hadley. It wasn’t a quick procedure like she’d hoped.

  She confided in me after the appointment that she assumed they would just stick something inside her, grab some eggs, and be done with it.

  It wasn’t that simple. She had to undergo more tests, take hormone injections—I could help her with those—and then finally have the procedure.

  It took her a day to process all this, and she cried in my arms that night as the reality of it finally hit her.

  “I won’t be able to carry my babies if I have any,” she said.

  “You’ll carry them in your arms,” I told her. “They won’t understand the difference between being in your stomach or not. They’ll only understand your love. And you, Hadley, have so much love to give, that they’ll never feel anything else.”

  “I have cancer,” she said.

  “A few more weeks, and you won’t.”

  “What if it comes back?”

  “Life is full of what-ifs. We’ll deal with it if it does. For now, let’s deal with the present.”

  “Where did you come from?” she asked.

  “Apparently a contest,” I joked.

  “Oh, shit!” she exclaimed, her tears suddenly drying up. “You still need to do the interview.”

  “Not today, I don’t.”

  “Fine, not today,” she agreed.

  The fertility process took a little over two weeks. It wasn’t a walk in the park. The injections took a toll on her. The entire process took a toll on her. She was tired, more than usual. And I knew the cancer was slowly eating at her. She wasn’t allowed to start treatments yet, not if she wanted to save her eggs, and that worried us both. Despite my assurances from the day I visited Tracy’s grave, there was still lingering doubt.

  One day, while Hadley was at work and I wasn’t, I found myself at Amber and Jay’s home. I’d already filled them in on what had happened over the phone, but I’d yet to see them. When Amber opened the door, she saw it was me and pulled me into a hug. She was truly a second mom, knowing I needed the comfort like a helpless child. And really, that was what I was at that point. I was at the mercy of the fertility specialist, at the mercy of the oncologist, and at the mercy of fucking cancer…again.

  “Why?” I asked, allowing the tears to stain Amber’s shirt. “Why again? She doesn’t deserve this,” I cried.

  “No one does,” Amber said softly. “Not Tracy, not Hadley, and not you either.”

  “I’m not the one with cancer,” I countered.

  “You know who suffers when someone passes away?” she asked. “The living,” she answered without waiting for my response. “The dead are gone, Noah. They feel no more. But we’re left here, trying to put together the pieces of our broken hearts. Do you think that Hadley’s pain isn’t yours? Do you think you aren’t suffering along with her? Maybe not the same way, but it’s just as devastating, and it takes a toll on you too.”

  “I’m not the one going through everything she’s going through.”

  “No, you’re not, but you’re still there for her. And I’m sorry that life is repeating itself. All I can say is that God must know how strong you really are. You held up Tracy, even as she took her last breath. You held her up and gave her everything you had to give. Guess you have a lot more left. So go give it to Hadley. Give her everything too. You won’t regret it.”

  She was right. I sucked it up and was there for Hadley.

  The egg extraction was simple, but it still took a lot out of her. Under normal circumstances, I imagine it wouldn’t be as painful as it was for her. I held her after, fed her medicine, and made sure she didn’t lift a finger.

  “Proof you’re a fighter,” I told her. “You’re strong. You’ve got this.”

  “I love you,” she told me. She told me often, and I didn’t tire of hearing her repeat it.

  “I love you too,” I told her.

  After that, we scheduled her hysterectomy appointment. The time between the egg extraction and the hysterectomy seemed to take forever. In reality, it took just a few days for her to heal, but it felt longer.

  “I’m sorry I’m not my usual self,” she told me one day. She hadn’t been. As much as she tried, things were too tense for her typical banter. I was worried, she was worried, and she was in pain, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Strong, I tell you. She stayed at my place each night without a fight, letting me take care of her, proving to her just how much I loved her, just how much I was in it with her.

  As promised, Bella flew in, and so did her parents. As if things weren’t already stressful enough, I was going to meet them all at the same time the day before the procedure. I was hosting a dinner apparently. Hadley’s request, and whatever Hadley wanted, she got. I’d like to say it was because I was trying to be extra supportive during this time, but really, she had me wrapped around her finger. I would have given her anything even if shit wasn’t hitting the fan.

  At least Bella was staying at her apartment, and her parents had booked a hotel room, citing that they didn’t want to be in the way when she was healing after. Thank God for small miracles.

  “Oh shit, you really are Dr. Hottie,” Bella said when she walked in. “You’ve been holding out,” she said to Hadley. “Girl, that picture didn’t do him any justice. Neither did my googling skills apparently,” she tacked on.

  “Nice to meet you too,” I said. She pulled me into a hug, and I was pretty sure she felt me up a little too all while my girlfriend laughed.

  “I don’t care how hot you are, if you hurt her, I’ll break you, and when I’m done with you, you will no longer be hot. Now, how about a hot doctor friend for me?” I got whiplash from that.

  Two minutes later, her parents arrived. I’d offered to pick them up from the airport, even went as far as to grab the phone, introduce myself, answer an interrogation—er, a series of questions—before telling her I’d pick them up.

  “No,” she said. “My daughter needs you, and we’re not taking you away from her. We know how to take a taxi, and we’ll check into the hotel first.” I liked her immediately, and I didn’t even know her. When they stepped into the house, her mom immediately drew me into a hug. “Thank you for being there for her,” she whispered on the verge of tears.

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” I told her honestly. She hugged me again before walking in and helping herself to a tour. I chuckled, realizing just where Hadley got her personality from.

  “I hear good things about you,” her dad said, forcing my attention to the man who had walked in behind her mom. “My wife seems to like you. My daughter seems to love you. Innocent until proven guilty,” he mused. “I’ll assume the good I hear is true. But you fuck things up, you’ll be permanently on my shit list.”

  “I won’t. I love her,” I told him.

  He smiled. “Good, good,” he said and clapped me on the back.

  After the tour, we sat down to dinner.

  “So Dr. Hottie,” Bella started. “What are your intentions here with my girl?”

  “Bella!” Hadley chided. I laughed.

  “I was thinking of kidnapping her once she realized she could do better than me. That way, she couldn’t get away,” I said with a wink, already realizing that this bunch was just as fun as Hadley.

  They laughed at my response. “Alright, Noah, I like you too,” her dad said after he finished laughing. I felt like I won the lottery.
Pride making my chest expand. I looked over at Hadley, and she smiled, knowing exactly how I felt. We were in tune. Even in the midst of all this shit, she could look at me and read me.

  The rest of dinner went by quickly with just as much laughter as it started with. Bella and her parents recalled childhood stories about Hadley. It was one of the funniest evenings of my life. They were all different versions of Hadley. Cracking jokes, no filters, crude words, fun stories.

  I knew I could get used to being a part of this family. After all this, I was going to introduce Hadley to my family—both—my parents and Tracy’s too.

  The next day was the hysterectomy. One of the worst days of my life. I knew it was a common procedure, even for women without cancer. Hysterectomies were performed for many reasons, and they were basically all successful. But none of them were performed on Hadley. My Hadley.

  “She’s going to be okay,” her mom said, squeezing my hand.

  “Shouldn’t I be telling you this?” I asked.

  “You’re in your head too much. But a mother knows her children. And my girl…she’s a fighter. This isn’t going to get her down. It’s just a blip in the road for her, a very long road. She’s going to be fine.”

  “Thank you,” I told her. She squeezed my hand once more before letting go.

  “Oh, wow, you really are Dr. Hottie,” I heard a little later.

  “Right?” Bella asked as we all looked up to see a beautiful woman staring at us.

  “Sidney, I presume?” I asked. I’d never seen her in real life, but I saw pictures of her online. She truly was a stunning woman, but she didn’t hold a candle to Hadley.

  “Yep. I came as soon as I could. I had to handle a few things at work. How’s our girl doing?” she asked just as the doctor came out.

  Like in the movies, we stood, and just like in the movies, he told us things went well, and she was in recovery. We’d be able to see her soon.

  Her family let me go first.

  “Hi,” I said as she looked up at me. She was awake but not yet one hundred percent there with the anesthesia still in her system.