In Front of Me

by Dana LeCheminant

  I felt awful. Like the realization of what I’d done in quitting my job was just barely hitting me in full force and I was just realizing how lost I really was. My entire life I had had a plan. I knew exactly where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do, and suddenly all of that felt so wrong. I didn’t want to work for Cal Mikaelson no matter how much money he offered me. Nothing would change, and everyone in that office would pretend I had no idea what I was doing and that I was just there to look pretty and make the office seem more inclusive.

  I didn’t even know if I wanted to stay in California. Brennon wasn’t exactly begging me to stay, and while the Davenports would be thrilled to add me to their collection, I would be the odd man out, the one they took pity on and included when they should be spending time with each other. Seth would tell me to stay, but he just got married. He had a new family to worry about, and I didn’t want to take him away from Catherine, who was everything he deserved in a wife.

  Even if I went back to Vermont, Mom had someone new. She couldn’t even be bothered to tell her only daughter she was spending a month on the ocean over the most family-centered holiday.

  And Steve? He didn’t want me around any more than he had in the beginning.

  I was alone. I would always be alone.

  “Tell me what to do, Seth,” I whispered and hung up the phone.

  And for the first time in years, since crying was a weakness I couldn’t show in my line of work, I pressed my face into the pillow and sobbed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  My head ached. Years of bottled up tears could do that to a girl. I didn’t know how long I had been out, but I woke to a room darker than it had been before I cried myself to sleep. Though maybe that was because of the rain pattering on the window… I dug my phone out from under the covers to check the time, but it had finally died. Brennon had an old-fashioned alarm clock across the room, but my eyes were so blurry I could barely see it let alone the hands on its face. Oh man, my head really hurt, and that barking was not helping.

  Barking.

  Lifting my head, I glared at the dog who stood in the doorway. “Be quiet,” I mumbled.

  He just barked again.

  “Go bother Steve.” He could probably handle a trip down the elevator on his own. He certainly didn’t think he needed me around to help him.

  Captain refused to stop, even taking a couple of steps into the room. But he wouldn’t come any closer, and he kept glancing back to the main room.

  The blood drained from my face, my heart stuttering in my chest. What if…?

  “What’s wrong?” I asked the dog, struggling to my feet.

  His barking got more urgent as he backed away, making sure I followed.

  I hurried my steps. “Steve?”

  Captain jumped onto the couch and licked Steve’s face.

  Steve didn’t move.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped. “Steve!” He was ashen, his lips almost blue, and I touched my fingers to his neck, fearing the worst. His heart still beat, but it was way too fast and weak. “Steve, wake up!”

  911. But my phone was dead. I didn’t have time to charge it. Brennon didn’t have a landline. Neither did Catherine.

  “Steve, please wake up.”

  Steve had a phone. Somewhere. More tears filling my eyes, I stumbled into Steve’s room and searched in the darkness. Where would a blind man leave his most prized possession? In the drawer. I tore open his nightstand, letting out a shaky breath when I saw his almost fully charged phone lying on top.

  I could barely dial the numbers, but when the phone started ringing, I hurried back to Steve and kept trying to wake him up.

  “911 emergency response.”

  “I need an ambulance,” I gasped and stammered out Brennon’s address. “He’s not responding. I don’t—he was hit by a car last week and I think something’s wrong. Please hurry.”

  And then I collapsed against the couch, and though the woman on the phone kept talking to me, I didn’t know what she said to me. I just grabbed Steve’s cold hand behind me and prayed I didn’t lose him.

  * * *

  If Catherine’s cousin Lanna hadn’t driven me to the hospital, I didn’t think I would have made it there on my own. It was a miracle I got a hold of her at all, and I’d never been more grateful for the internet and the fact that her husband was moderately famous in the art dealing world.

  “Do you want me to stay?” Lanna asked softly as we sat in the hospital parking lot. She hadn’t asked many questions aside from the necessary ones, for which I was grateful. I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to tell her more than my friend was in the hospital and I needed a ride, but she seemed to understand more than I would have expected.

  I took a slow breath, but it didn’t loosen the tightness in my chest. “I’ll be okay,” I lied. “You should get back home.”

  “Hang on.” She reached for something from her purse, and I stared at the brightly lit hospital through the rain, trying to work up the courage to go inside. None of the paramedics would tell me if he was going to be okay. They wouldn’t let me ride in the ambulance. It had been almost an hour, and I had no idea what I was going to find inside.

  “Here,” Lanna said and handed me a little sheet of paper with a bunch of phone numbers. Every single one of the Davenports, including Lanna’s parents. “We’re all just a phone call away.”

  I nearly broke down into tears there in the car, but I bit my cheek and held it back. Not until I knew whether he was going to be okay. I wouldn’t cry unless I had a real reason. “Thank you,” I whispered. Lanna pulled me in for an awkward side hug, and then I hurried out into the rain and through the front doors.

  Shoulders damp and hair dripping, I shook as I slowly approached the front desk. There were only a couple of things the woman could tell me. Either Steve was recovering, or he was dead. “Hi,” I breathed, forcing myself to ask. The waiting and wondering would only make things worse. “I’m here for Steven Evans. He’s… He was brought in about an hour ago.”

  Taking a moment to look me over, she nodded and typed a few things into her computer. And then her carefully calm expression faltered, and she took an extra-long time to look back up at me. “I’m going to send you to the emergency room,” she said softly. “I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  Bad news. They only had bad news for me. But I nodded and turned in the direction she pointed. My feet felt so heavy, and I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been here. Brennon at my side. I’d only been here to reassure him that everything would be okay, and there was nothing to worry about. Now there was everything to worry about, and I was alone. Completely alone.

  Oh. I probably should have called Brennon.

  Pausing just outside the ER, I searched through Steve’s contacts—hovering my thumb over Amelia’s name—and found Brennon’s number listed as “Bigshot.” Though the call went to his voicemail again, this time I did leave a message.

  “Something’s happened,” I said, trying to get enough sound in my voice so he could actually hear me. “Steve is in the hospital. I need…” Why was it so hard to say? I needed him. I couldn’t go through this alone. “You need to be here, Brennon.”

  The same doctor as the last time greeted me inside, his expression hard. “You’re here for Mr. Evans?” he asked. What had Brennon called him? Dave.

  I sank against the wall, too anxious to hold myself up. “Please tell me he’s okay,” I whispered. If he wasn’t, I would never forgive myself. I was supposed to watch him. My only purpose even being there was to make sure something like this didn’t happen.

  Doctor Dave cleared his throat and gestured toward a waiting room, where only a couple of other people sat, and he directed me to take a chair there. Definitely bad news. Sitting next to me, he cleared his throat again then said, “Steve went into hypovolemic shock.”

  What did that mean? I shook my head.

  “He was bleeding internally,” he explained. “And he lost more than a l
iter. We had to operate to repair the torn vessels in his abdomen.”

  “Tell me he’s okay,” I said again.

  But the doctor’s expression didn’t change, and he took a deep breath. “It’s too early to tell,” he said. “We’re doing some tests to see how much damage there may have been to his organs, but we will keep you updated.”

  “But he was fine,” I said. “Maybe a little tired, but he said he was fine. I didn’t think… He was fine.”

  Shrugging, he rose to his feet and put his hand on my shoulder. “Most likely there was some injury we missed when he was here last,” he said gently. “Something could have aggravated it, or he may have ignored the symptoms. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  I tensed, staring up at him. “What do you mean?”

  He pursed his lips, glancing around the almost empty room. “I need to get back to Mr. Evans,” he said, his voice low. “We will keep you updated.”

  He left me alone on my plastic chair, horrid thoughts running through my head as I wondered just how many times Steve had ended up in this emergency room.

  * * *

  Brennon showed up at nine. I could hear him outside the waiting room, demanding information, but I was too exhausted to go find him and tell him what little I knew. Eventually he was forced into the waiting room, and he ran his hands through his hair and almost burst back through the door before he turned around and saw me where I sat on the floor with my back against the wall.

  “Lissa,” he gasped and rushed over. “Lissa, tell me what’s going on.”

  “He’s out of surgery,” I mumbled as I hugged my knees. I’d been sitting in this room for hours, and that little bit of information hadn’t been enough to calm me down. I could barely breathe, my whole chest tight and twisted, and I knew I shouldn’t have been angry at Brennon, but I was. I was angry it took him so long to care about his friend and angry that he hadn’t been here with me to help me breathe. No job was worth ignoring something like this. My body ached from being so tense, and I still had no idea if Steve was even going to survive.

  “He’s going to be okay, right?”

  This was why I was never going to find love. My entire life, I had always come second. “I don’t know, Brennon,” I said weakly.

  Moaning, he threw his jacket against one of the chairs and started pacing. “How did this happen?” he asked the room. Then me. “Lissa, how could you—”

  “He was fine,” I snapped. “He said so himself.” And I didn’t need Brennon to blame me too. I was doing just fine with that on my own.

  “He also said he was eating, but then I found him half-dead on the floor,” Brennon growled back. “I trusted you to look after him so something like this wouldn’t happen again.”

  I jumped up, and though I wasn’t in my intimidation heels, Brennon still stumbled back a step. “Don’t you dare,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I have spent the last few days doing everything I possibly could to keep that man not just alive but living, so don’t you dare blame me for this.”

  Someone coughed in the doorway, and both of us turned to see a nurse awkwardly trying to get our attention. “Mr. Ashworth,” she said, her voice a little wary, “you can see him now.”

  Brennon immediately grabbed my hand, his anger apparently gone. Though I still didn’t like how easily he jumped to the conclusion that somehow I had caused this—even if he was right—I held on tightly. I needed the human contact, and knowing I wasn’t alone anymore took a little of the weight off my chest.

  Together we followed the nurse into a small room in the ICU, and though Brennon went straight in, I hung back at the door. Steve looked so small compared to the monitors and the IV tubes and the ventilator keeping him alive. Despite the bag of crimson flowing into his hand, he still looked too pale. Not alive enough.

  “Hey buddy,” Brennon said softly and pulled the one chair closer to the bed so he could sit next to him. “You can’t scare us like this. Not again.”

  Steve was still unconscious, and fear spiked in my chest again. What if he didn’t wake up? What if I was too late? What if—

  “He’s lucky,” Doctor Dave said behind me, making me jump. “If you hadn’t made the call when you did, there’s no way he would have pulled through this time.”

  I stared at him and took a second to make sure I heard him right. “He’s going to be okay?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure any sound actually came out.

  Doctor Dave smiled. “Thanks to you.”

  I met Brennon’s gaze, and tears filled his eyes as he watched me.

  “Lissa,” he said, pulling his eyebrows together. “I’m…” I couldn’t blame him for being angry with me. Not when I was angry with myself for the same thing. But I wasn’t sure I had the energy to deal with his apology right now.

  “I should go check on the dog,” I muttered and headed down the hall.

  “Lissa!” Shiny shoes squeaking on the tile, Brennon caught up to me easily and took my arm as he slid to a stop in front of me. “Lissa, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  I took a steadying breath that didn’t really do me much good. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Let me go check on the dog,” he continued. I wasn’t expecting that, and I stared at him as he added, “You’d probably rather be here with Steve anyway.” What was that supposed to mean? He bit his tongue and looked down at the ground as if fighting against something else that tried to come out of his mouth. “Let me know when he wakes up, okay?” he said finally.

  I nodded, and then he was gone. Almost mechanically, I returned to Steve’s room and took Brennon’s place in the chair. He was going to be okay. I exhaled, my breath shaking from me but taking some of my stress with it. “You’re going to be okay,” I repeated out loud, even if Steve couldn’t hear me.

  And when I took his hand, this time his fingers were warm.

  * * *

  I didn’t often complain about my height. Five-foot-ten wasn’t completely unheard of, but it definitely set me apart from the average woman. It made buying clothes harder than it should have been, and I always had to opt for the more expensive extra legroom seats on airplanes. But the worst part about being tall was trying to sleep in a little hospital armchair. I simply didn’t fit, and around three in the morning, I decided to give up trying and go find some coffee to keep me awake.

  Before I even moved, I froze and looked toward the bed, instinct telling me something was different. The room was dim, but Steve’s eyes were open and focused right on me. He was awake. And though that made me happier than I thought I could be, I still didn’t move. I didn’t know what to say to him, not when all I could think about was the fact that even Brennon wasn’t surprised Steve was here. He had obviously been in this situation more than a couple of times.

  So I just sat in my chair and met Steve’s gaze, wondering what he might be thinking as he watched me.

  After a few minutes, a nurse came into the room to check on him. “You’re awake,” she said happily and jotted down a couple of numbers from the monitor. “Let’s get you off that ventilator, okay?” She undid the tape keeping it in place then asked, “Ready?” Steve must have given her some sort of sign, because she started to pull, and though Steve choked and coughed, making me cringe, the nurse seemed satisfied once she pulled the tube free. “Good job,” she told him, scribbling a couple more numbers then disappearing, leaving the room quiet again.

  “You look like crap,” Steve said as soon as she was gone, a bit hoarse but definitely alive.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, well—wait, you can’t even see me,” I said. Especially with the room this dark.

  Rolling his eyes, he adjusted himself a little without looking away from me. “I don’t need to see you to know,” he said. “You should have gone home, Lissa.”

  He didn’t want me here. That stung more than I thought it would, since it wasn’t exactly a new revelation.

  “You need to sleep,” he clarified quickly, as if he knew my thoughts. “So
mewhere other than a hospital chair.”

  A little burst of warmth blossomed inside me, and I pulled the chair back to the side of the bed to get closer to him. Was I wrong? “Sleep is for wimps,” I said. “Besides, I wasn’t about to leave you here by yourself.”

  Glancing around, Steve swallowed then asked, “Where’s Bren?”

  “He’s at home taking care of Captain.”

  “I’m sorry, Lissa.”

  As much as I wanted to hear that, apprehension filled my gut, and I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Was he sorry that I spent all night in a chair, or was he sorry that he let himself end up nearly dying? “Did you know?” I whispered. “Did you know you were sick?”

  I looked up when he touched the back of his finger to my cheek. A tear hung in his eye, clinging to his eyelashes as he gazed at me. “No,” he said. “I told you I would never lie to you. I meant it.”

  I took his hand and pressed it against my cheek, still needing the comfort of human contact. “What did the doctor mean when he said you might have been ignoring the symptoms?” I asked. “Has something like this happened before?”

  He closed his eyes, though he kept his hand firmly against my skin. “Just after I moved in with Brennon,” he said, “the elevators were out for a couple of days. I needed some fresh air—to get away—but I slipped on the stairs. Fell nearly the whole way down.” He took a slow, difficult breath. “I already hated that Brennon felt the need to give up half his condo for me, and I didn’t want to bother him with a few bumps and bruises. I honestly had no idea I was bleeding because I couldn’t see it.”

  “But there had to have been other signs.”

  Shrugging, he opened his eyes and fixed them on me. “I thought the dizziness was from the blindness,” he said. “That I was just tired after my brush with starvation. I swear to God I didn’t know anything was wrong until I passed out in the middle of the kitchen, no matter what Brennon and Dr. Thurston think.”