My hands were in my lap under the table, and I sat there with stillness, the only movement I made through my slight breathing. But every time I drew breath, it hurt a little bit. And a little more…and a little bit more.
She stared at the table for a while before she cleared her throat again.
“It’s getting late and I have shit to do tomorrow, so…” My voice was low, masked by the obnoxious coffee house music coming through the speakers, and I did my best not to yell in a public place.
She lifted her chin and looked at me. “Right…of course.” She gave a nod before she continued, her eyes glancing out the window beside us for a moment before she went on. “I want you to know how sorry I am…about everything. I’m not sure what happened, but I was so grief-stricken by my father’s death that I just couldn’t think logically anymore—”
“Is this an apology or an excuse?”
Her entire body tensed when I cut her off.
That’s right, Catherine. I’m not your loving, bend-over-backward, devoted husband anymore.
“I regret everything, Dex. I regret the way I treated you, the way I hurt you, the way I ran away from us…the way I blamed you.” Her eyes started to water when those words came out, and her bottom lip trembled slightly before she quickly composed herself once more.
She’d get no sympathy from me.
“It was wrong to blame you, and I’m so sorry for that.”
I felt like I hadn’t blinked once since she’d taken a seat, my eyes numb from the intensity of my stare.
“It wasn’t your fault. Not in the least.”
I did get some satisfaction out of that, did feel the weight of my guilt lift off my shoulders and disappear. I’d carried that fear every single day since she’d left me, carried the weight of Allen’s soul like I was the one who’d delivered it to heaven personally. It still gnawed at me, still disrupted my sleep sometimes, still gave me a momentary jolt of anxiety when I stepped into the OR and saw the patient on the table.
She looked down at her hands and squeezed them together tightly. “Fuck, I’m sorry…”
I could actually feel the pain in her voice that time.
“I lost my father, my best friend, and I just needed someone to blame for it. We were so close… I just couldn’t accept the loss. I assumed my brilliant superhero husband would give me what I wanted, and when that expectation wasn’t met, I put all the blame on you. I knew his heart was bad, I knew the risks, but at the end of the day…it was easier to blame you. That was wrong, so wrong.”
Yeah, it fucking was.
“I’ve spent the last year trying to run from it. I’ve spent the last year blaming you for something that wasn’t your fault, because it’s easier to be angry at someone than to feel that raw sense of loss. But I’ve had to stay busy, to never sit still for a moment, because the regret would creep in. I always knew I was wrong…in the back of my mind…deep in my heart.” She inhaled a deep breath, doing her best to keep her eyes dry. “Grief does crazy things to the body, makes you lose your mind…turns you into someone you don’t even recognize.”
“I know that better than you do.”
She looked at me again.
“Because I lost a man whom I loved like a father…and then I lost you.” I abandoned my patients, abandoned my practice, abandoned my entire life because of what she did to me. I lost myself—completely and utterly. “I know you lost your father, but I’m the one who lost everything, Catherine. I retired from surgery and worked for my mother instead. I moved in to a shitty apartment in Brooklyn because you took all my money. I spent the last year fucking any woman who gave me a glance because I’m incapable of feeling anything more than that—because of you.” I almost took the high road and kept my suffering to myself, but I couldn’t move on because I hadn’t gotten the chance to speak my mind, to unload my pain onto the person who’d inflicted it, so I just let it out. “Don’t sit here and tell me how much you’ve suffered, because your suffering is nothing compared to mine. I loved you, Catherine.” I kept my eyes dry, but my chest started to constrict tightly, the wetness in my throat. “I fucking loved you more than anything on this goddamn planet. I would have slit my own throat if it would have made you smile. You have no idea how many times a gorgeous woman made a pass at me when we were married, and I had every opportunity to fuck her brains out without anyone ever knowing about it, but I never did. It wasn’t out of marital obligation. It was because you were the only woman I ever wanted.”
The wet sheen in her eyes reflected the lighting behind me, the tears growing bigger and bigger.
“I have spent so much time thinking about this, where it went wrong, what I could have done differently. And you know what’s sad? I genuinely think we would have spent the rest of our lives together, with our two kids, having a beautiful marriage like my parents, if this hadn’t happened. That makes me feel worse. If I hadn’t operated on your father, I would have a little boy or girl right now. I would still be happy. What does that say about us? That it was just a travesty that broke us apart? Or were we never that happy to begin with?”
When she blinked, two drops rolled down her cheeks. “The first one…”
Even after all this time, after all this anger, I didn’t like to watch her cry. My eyes shifted out the window so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
“Dex.”
I resisted for a moment before I turned back to her.
“Six months after our divorce, the anger started to wear off. It couldn’t mask my real pain anymore. I started to realize how badly I’d fucked this up, what I had lost, and I thought about calling so many times in the hope that I could apologize and get back the love of my life—”
“Why didn’t you?” A few months ago, I was working in the Trinity Building, making a joke of everything, pretending I was perfectly okay when I was profoundly depressed, and if she’d walked in and asked me to take her back…the answer would have been yes.
She shook her head before she dragged her palms down her cheeks and wiped the tears away. “Because after what I did…I didn’t think you’d ever want to speak to me again. Because I knew I didn’t deserve you. Because I knew I fucked this up so badly that I shouldn’t be granted a second chance.”
She was right about that—she didn’t deserve a second chance.
“Then I met this guy…”
I shifted my gaze away because I didn’t want to hear this.
“And I think the reason I started to see him was because…he reminded me of you. We were together for a while, and then he asked me to marry him. I said yes.”
“Congratulations.” The sarcasm in my voice was almost violent.
She winced at my coldness. “I said yes, but immediately afterward…I realized the only person I’d ever want to be married to is you.”
My eyes shifted back to hers.
“That was when it really hit me, what I’d lost. Everything came to me in flashbacks, every Christmas morning, having dinner together when you came home from work, that first time we took a pregnancy test and it was negative…and we were both devastated. Playing in the snow at your family’s cabin, our wedding day. And in that moment, nothing was the same. That was when I really woke up, when I really felt everything, and I ended things with my fiancé…because I never loved him. How could I possibly love anyone when I’ve been in love with you this entire time?” She sniffled as she looked at me, her eyes watery, turning red, her makeup having rivers cut through it.
All I could do was stare as she stared at me, replay that confession over and over in my head. I pictured the same flashbacks she mentioned, watching her walk down the aisle in her beautiful gown on that summer afternoon in the Hamptons, her father walking her to me to hand her over, holding her when she sobbed about the negative results of her pregnancy test when we’d been trying nonstop for a month, of the snow angels we would make together outside the cabin, the way she and my sister were so close, like they were sisters themselves. The best years of my l
ife had happened when I was married to her.
She waited for me to respond to what she’d said.
I didn’t have a response, even though I’d imagined this conversation a million times in my head, when she’d come back to me and admit she was wrong, that she still loved me, had never stopped. Whenever I pictured this moment, I always took her back, always. But now that it actually happened…that wasn’t my first impulse.
“Please say something…”
I stared at her teary eyes.
“Please, please give me another chance. I know I don’t deserve it. I know…I know I don’t. But you’re right, if this never happened, we would still be together right now. We would still be happy—”
“If you hadn’t left me, then none of this would have happened. If you hadn’t packed your bags and moved out, none of this would have happened. If you hadn’t rejected marriage counseling, none of this would have happened. Your father died, but his death didn’t rip us apart. It was your response to it.”
She closed her eyes, and new tears dripped down her cheeks.
“I can’t count the number of times my phone lit up and I wished it were you and not someone else. When people came to my front door, my heart jumped because I thought you were finally coming back to me, but it was always someone else checking on me, always someone else making sure I was okay—never you. Months passed, and I continued to wish. Three months turned into six, and even then, I was still desperately in love with you, would take you back in a heartbeat. But then six turned to nine…and the hope dwindled. And then a year happened, and…everything changed.” I suddenly thought of Sicily, the person who put my life back together, who was there for me every single day, pushing me forward, believing in me…always. “I moved on…mostly.”
She wouldn’t look at me again.
“I give so much to other people, have dedicated my life to strangers, have pledged to heal people with everything I have. I deserve to have someone who’s going to give me that dedication, through the good, the bad, and the everything.” And there was only one person I’d ever met who was willing to do that with a goddamn smile on her face. “I deserve more, Catherine.”
“I was completely dedicated to you before my father—”
“And you abandoned me. You have no idea what the guilt did to me. It ripped me apart. I stopped taking care of people who needed me because I was so scarred by the way you made me feel. I have to live with that for the rest of my life, knowing patients couldn’t get quality care because I was so incapacitated by what you’d done to me. It’s easy to be committed when things are good, but what really defines you is what you do when things are bad. We tried to get pregnant, and it didn’t happen for us like we thought it would. Was I disappointed? Yes. But did I ever make you feel like it was your fault? Like you were less of a woman? If you could never get pregnant, you think I would have loved you any less? No, Catherine. Even if you were infertile and we could never have children, I would have counted my blessings every single day that we were together.”
Now she started to cry, her hand over her mouth to suppress it as much as possible.
“If I could undo what happened, I probably would. Because I was deliriously happy married to you. If I could just make that go away, erase it from history and our minds, I would. But I can’t do that, Catherine. It happened, and over a year has gone by. And if you’d come to me sooner, I would have taken you back in a heartbeat…but you didn’t.” I couldn’t believe I was saying these things to the love of my life, the woman I loved more than life itself, the woman who claimed my heart from the moment I saw her. “I need to be with someone who’s going to be there when things are bad…not just when things are good.”
“Dex, it was a mistake. I would never risk losing you again. Ever. Please…”
I dropped my gaze because I couldn’t watch her cry. It physically hurt me, because even now, I still loved her.
“Give me another chance. We can be what we were. I would never leave you again.”
A part of me believed we were worth fighting for, that a fluke had ripped us apart, but I just couldn’t.
Because of Sicily.
Because I knew that would never happen with her. That she wouldn’t make a mistake like that in the first place, that she would treasure me every single day, appreciate me. “Catherine…I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind.”
Now she covered her face with both palms and quietly sobbed in front of me.
I couldn’t count the number of times I’d sobbed alone in my apartment, missing my wife, nursing my broken heart, wishing she would come through the door and tell me she was there. She would always be there.
I did the only thing I could.
I got up and left her there.
By the time I got to the front door of my parents’ condo, it was 10:30.
Both of my parents were asleep because they worked early in the morning, but I knew they wouldn’t care. I pulled up my dad’s name on my phone and called him.
He answered by the second ring, his voice clear like he hadn’t been asleep at all. “Everything alright, son?”
“Can we talk? I’m outside.”
He hung up.
A moment later, he opened the door, in just his sweatpants, his hair messy like he had been asleep. He guided me inside and gently shut the door so it wouldn’t wake up my mother down the hallway. “You okay?” His hands went to my arms, and he looked me over like he expected to see physical injuries somewhere. “What is it, son? Talk to me.”
“Um…I just saw Catherine.”
Both of his hands dropped from my arms. “You ran into her somewhere?”
“No, she asked to see me.”
His expression immediately tightened.
“We went to a coffee shop… I just left there.”
“What did she want?” All sympathy left his voice. Now he almost sounded threatened.
“First, to apologize…and then to ask if we could work it out.”
He turned away and walked toward the couch before he dropped onto one of the cushions. His forearms rested on his knees, and then he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “And your response?”
I sat on the other couch, perpendicular to him. “I said no.”
His head immediately snapped in my direction, and there was no denying the surprise in his eyes.
“If this were a year ago, my answer would have been yes. Nine months ago, yes. Six. Even three…but not now.”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, sighing in relief. “It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but…you made the right decision. I hope that conversation gave you the closure you needed.”
“Yeah, I guess it did.” I stared at the coffee table for a while, remembering all the times we would both come over here as a couple, and my father loved her the way he loved Emerson and Daisy.
“What are you thinking?”
I lifted my chin and looked at him again. “I’m not sure. A part of me thinks that if you really love someone the way I loved her, you should give them a second chance and try again. We all make mistakes. We’re human. You know, Derek basically lost his goddamn mind and did a lot of crazy shit…but Emerson took him back when anyone would have told her not to. Because she loved him. And then Derek was fucked up for a decade because he couldn’t let the past go, because he loved Kevin but just couldn’t bring himself to forgive him. If you really love someone, you should let it go.”
Dad continued to study me.
“And there’s no doubt that I still love her…always will. When she cried, I felt terrible. Like always, I wanted to take care of her. I’ll always want to take care of her.”
“Then why did you say no?”
I inhaled a deep breath. “I guess…because of Sicily.”
Dad gave a slight nod.
“She would never do what Catherine did, you know?”
“No, she wouldn’t,” he said in agreement.
“If I took Catherine back, that would mean I
would never get the opportunity to have anything with Sicily, whether that’s tomorrow or sometime in the future. And I think Sicily is right…I deserve more. I deserve to be with a woman who would appreciate me every single day without having to lose me—and she’s that woman.”
Four
Sicily
I thought Zach was going to be a one-time thing, just a good time and nothing more.
But he continued to text me, sometimes asking me to dinner, and other times making inappropriate comments just to get me to smile while I was at work. I’m in a meeting right now, but you know what I can’t stop thinking about?
I sat at the desk in the lobby and grinned at his message. Football?
Nope. Try again.
Pizza?
Sweetheart, you think I can’t focus right now because of pizza?
LOL. Men only seem to care about food and sports…
Uh, you’re missing another important one. A very important one.
Vacation?
Come on, quit this good-girl act. Your mind is in the gutter, and we both know it.
“Sicily?”
I typed back. Fine…my panties that you stole.
Bingo. We have a winner, folks.
I chuckled then set the phone down.
“Sicily?”
I looked up and noticed Dex standing in front of me. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.”
His eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into my eyes, his eyebrows furrowed in disappointment. “Everything alright? I said your name like three times.”
“Yeah, I was just distracted.”
He continued to stare at me, standing there in a t-shirt and jeans. Now that the weather was improving, he didn’t wear his hoodie as often anymore. “I wanted you to get these faxed over to the hospital.” He set the papers on the counter.
“Sure thing.” I grabbed them and set them beside me. “How was your lunch?”
The Doctor Who Has No Chance (Soulless Book 11) Page 3