by Swati MH
Gently grasping the baby’s legs, I pull them forward to check the length of each and I quickly notice that one is definitely shorter than the other. Then I move both of her legs to feel for the clicking in her hips. I notice Becca move a little closer to me as I lean in toward the baby. She’s definitely not one for giving personal space.
“Yeah, I can feel it on her right side. There may be a potential that the femur socket is dislocated as well.”
“I’ll get the pitchers scheduled,” she repeats the word, smiling at my grimacing face.
I’m just on my way out when she speaks again. “You never rescheduled our date.”
Oh, right. “Yeah, I’ve been busy.”
“Busy with work or busy with someone else?”
I almost retort, “Not sure how that’s any of your business,” but I decide that my silence is more impactful. As I turn to leave, Becca follows me out. Again, a little too close for my comfort.
I’m just stepping into the hallway when I see a familiar set of mahogany eyes and hair coming toward us. Her glance shifts to Becca before landing back on me, her face giving away nothing that says we’re anything but strangers.
My smile falters when she passes and Becca purrs into my ear, purposefully loud enough for Cassie to hear, “Vik, that was definitely the best consult I’ve ever had. We’ll have to do that again sometime.”
My brows knit at her remark but I’m more concerned about the look on Cassie’s face as she turns the corner. “Nurse O’Neil, please call me Dr. Bedi. We’re not on a first-name basis.”
Becca giggles while walking away as I reach down to my phone to see a text from Dr. Hammonds.
Meet me in my office in the next half hour. I have a proposition for you.
After sending her three messages in the span of six hours and getting zero responses back, I figure she is simmering on what she thinks she saw this afternoon as Becca and I exited the patient’s room. But I’m losing my patience by the second--also because I don’t have many seconds left with her.
How long do you plan to ignore me? You know what, I’d rather hear the answer to that in person. I’m coming over, and if you’re going to hide, I’ll just hang out with your dad.
That should get the mouse out of her hole.
Two minutes later, I hear a message ping on my phone. Fine. You win. I’ll come over but I’m not staying long.
Why? You got a hot date later?
The prick of a hot needle stings inside my chest. Except, it’s not cauterizing the tear; it’s ripping it open farther. I laugh bitterly at my phone when she doesn’t respond.
What was I expecting? All the terms were clearly laid out for me weeks ago with no confusion to sift through. Why does a guy like me want anything that resembles a commitment from her anyway? Why is my damn heart a puppet in her hands--pumping life into my veins only when she allows it? Even after weeks, it makes little sense, yet I’m more than willing to be left senseless.
I’m just folding the clothes hanging in my closet into the two large suitcases I came here with months ago when I hear her knock--always so soft that you’d think she purposefully wanted you not to hear so she could say she came by but left when the door was unanswered. But like I’d told her months ago on the dance floor when she swayed in my arms at Avni’s wedding, I always hear everything when it comes to her. Every exhaled breath. Every pounding heartbeat. Every soft knock on my own foolish, impoverished heart.
Folding the cuffs of my sleeves as I walk to the door, I take in a deep breath before opening it. Her hair looks windblown, akin to the tumult in her eyes. She scans me from head to toe as her hands fist the strap of her purse across her chest. Opening the door wider in silent invitation, I clasp the knob tightly so my hands don’t reach for her. There’s a buzz of electricity around her, and I know the best thing for me to do right now is to answer the questions swirling in her head or risk getting electrocuted.
Her gaze skims over the mild disarray in my apartment, halting at the picture of my mom and brother inside of the box on the coffee table. I hadn’t brought much with me from New York, besides my clothes and a few things for my desk, which now lay inside the box. I see her throat bob with her swallow. “You’re packing . . ..” She’s struggling to voice what she really wants to say, and I’m waiting for her to find the words.
I’ve been waiting for her to find the words.
I nod, waving her to the couch. “Do you want me to make you hot cocoa or tea?”
“No.” She shakes her head, her hair sweeping across her shoulder. She’s wearing a scoop-neck, short and flowy dress again in a shade of gray that reminds me of water-filled clouds, barely containing the lightning inside of them. It matches the state of my heart at the moment. The neck of her dress gives way to what appears like miles of exposed creamy skin, touched by a scatter of freckles. “I need to leave soon.”
“Why?”
Because you’re scared? Because you feel like a rough-edged picture, one you’ve purposely torn your image from, hoping it will also remove you from the memory.
“Vik,” she says as if the statement of my name should be answer enough.
“Is this about what you think you saw or heard this afternoon with Becca?”
Her eyebrows rise and fall before she glances away. “Looks like you remembered her name this time. She must have made quite an impression.”
I huff out a laugh, exhaustion mixed with irritation. “What are you doing?”
“What am I--”
“Nothing happened. She was trying to get under your skin because she saw you walking by, and it’s clear she managed to do exactly that!”
Her arms cross over her chest as her gaze tries to land on anything except me. At this point, I’m fucking tired of pounding on this shut door with no one listening while even the faintest of her knocks have me sprinting toward it, eager for even a morsel of her emotions.
This is no longer a game I want to be a part of--it stopped being one the first night she showed up at my apartment. I’m done with the push and pull. Or rather, I’m done pulling while she pushes.
It’s now or never. I need to let the cards fall where they may and accept it.
With my hands clenched at my sides, I move in closer so she’s forced to meet my eyes. “If you want to leave, then leave, Cass. But you’re going to hear me out before you go. I won’t ask for anything more.”
Her eyes move between mine, a thread of panic running through them. Her mouth opens in response but I beat her to it, pinning her with my gaze. “I can’t make it any more clear when you refuse to see what’s written in every action, every breath, every one of my fucking heartbeats.”
“Wha--”
“I love you, Cass,” I breathe out furiously.
A moment passes where we both let the words sink in before her mouth drops open. “I’ve fucking loved you before I even knew that I did. I’ve asked myself a million times if I’m crazy for loving you.” I chuckle dejectedly. “And the answer to that is a resounding ‘yes’! I’m fucking ludicrous for loving someone who’s too blind to see the guy right in front of her . . . the guy who’s desperate to be everything she wants. A woman who would rather be with a version of some perfect person she created on paper than with a man who’s crazy about her. I’m an idiot for loving her so fucking much, that I will relish even a moment of her vulnerability only to endure the steadfast hold she has on her heart for the rest of time. And more than anything else, I’m asinine for wanting her to love me back!”
“Vik--” Her hand reaches out, touching only the air between us, but I don’t let her stop me. The barricade has finally lifted and she needs to prepare for the flood.
“So, while I may not have won your whole heart, sweetheart,” I erase the space between us, grasping her shoulders gently, “I know I’ve lodged myself deep inside of it and it’ll take an act of God to evict me.” Her eyes veil in astonishment when I lean down to kiss her full lips one last time, cherishing their taste and commi
tting them to memory. She breathes into me, her heart thrashing against her chest, and I swallow it whole. “The question is, can you live with the gaping hole inside that mangled heart of yours once you’ve forced me out?”
Speechless, she stares at me through a curtain of tears. Knowing that I won’t get an answer, I let her go. This will be the second time I gave my heart to someone, only for them to crush it. I’d promised myself I would never get so attached to a woman that she’d have the power to shake my entire world. But clearly, I have as much regard for promises to myself as I do for my own heart.
With one last perusal of her face, drained of its usual blush, I turn to walk back into my room. I’m not surprised when my apartment door clicks shut a minute later.
Her silent response is louder than if she had actually said something.
29
Cassie
The full moon in Gemini rushes through your fifth house of romance, leading to major revelations about how you’re feeling within. As the moon forms a trine with Uranus in your ninth house of perspective, you may find yourself looking at everything with a different lens, revealing truths that rock you to your core.
It’s a wonder that I even made it back home at all. I don’t have a recollection of changing my clothes, brushing my teeth, or getting into bed last night. It’s as if I went to sleep in someone else’s body and woke up in my own.
Squinting against the sunlight coming in through my window, my mind travels back to last night. His words, peeling us both to the core, ring inside my head. I feel like I’m submerged under water with the weight of the ocean above me.
I’ve fucking loved you before I even knew that I did.
My heart stopped in that moment as the world came to a sudden halt. And even though he left me stripped of any words of my own, I wanted to say so much. But, somehow, I couldn’t find my voice.
How long have I wanted to hear those words from him? But actually hearing them almost brought me to my knees. I almost begged him to stop. To take them back. To not give me even a glimmer of hope when leaving me was inevitable.
Because leaving me seems to be an inevitability time and time again.
Isn’t that why I was left alone to deal with a life-altering event while my ex went off to pursue his dreams?
Isn’t this always how it ends for me?
I didn’t want Vik to tell me what I did to him. What I meant to him. Because what would it matter? What would it change? Not him staying. Not us being together. He was packing to leave--he’s probably at the airport now--going back to his old life. What did he expect me to say back? “I love you, too. Please stay?”
Because that’s exactly what I wanted to say.
How could I put him in such a predicament, especially on his last night here? However much I wanted to be, however much my heart begged, I couldn’t be that selfish. So why do I feel so wrecked, as if I surfed straight into a wall of jagged rocks, shredding me to the bone? Why have I laid here for the past two hours, unable to move, with this strain in my chest?
I’m well acquainted with this melancholy. The kind that wraps its calloused hands around your soul, threatening to squeeze until you let go. The kind similar to the one I faced years ago, similar to the one that left me charred inside--for which I’m only now learning to forgive myself.
Reaching over, I grab my phone off the nightstand to check the time. It’s almost nine in the morning. Vik is definitely at the airport and probably at his gate. I scroll through the last few of our text exchanges and laugh as I read some of the ridiculous things he said when we played the truth-or-lie game he made up. God, he knew how to make me laugh. I’ve giggled more around him than I have in my life. I love how he didn’t take himself seriously. How no question was ever off-limits. How being with him was as easy as being myself.
I’m referring to him in the past tense already. Starting today, that’s where I’ll be living--in the past. Because the prospect of living, breathing, or even being in the present feels like being trapped alone inside a box with no possibility of release.
My phone vibrates at the same time I see a new message come in.
Want to talk? It’s Avni. She must have spoken to him already. I’m working from home today and have a little break to chat.
What’s there to talk about? I no longer have a functioning heart inside my chest cavity and the hollowness is going to swallow me whole. But still, I respond. Sure.
Within five seconds, my phone vibrates with an incoming call from her. I pick up and turn sideways on my pillow so the phone is tucked under my ear.
“Hey.” My voice comes out hoarse.
“Hey, how are you?”
I shrug, even though I know she can’t see me. “I’ve been better.”
“Oh, hon. I’m so sorry. I wish I could give you a hug. I talked to Vik a little while ago. He was just getting on the plane.”
Which means he’s in flight now and on his way to New York. Which means, as expected, he’s left . . . me.
At my silence, she continues, “Are you not going to work today?”
“I had the day off because I thought I was going to the airport.”
“So, why didn’t you?”
My throat starts to close as tears prick my eyes again. “I . . . I just couldn’t.”
I hear her breathe a little on the phone. “He told me briefly about last night.” When I don’t respond, she quietly asks, “Cass, why didn’t you tell him how you feel?”
“Because it didn’t matter. He was leaving the next day. What would it have changed?” I swallow, trying to keep a sob from letting loose.
“Everything,” she whispers, a validation of my fear.
I push the heel of my palm into my eye socket and press, hoping to take away some of the tension. “Can I talk to you a little later? I’m just . . . drained.”
“Yeah, call me any time. But I am going to check up on you in a bit.”
I hang up with Avni and lay in bed for another hour, recalling the past few weeks. From my flat tire to the coerced drink at the bar, to the time he helped me save the baby in the NICU, to me showing up at his apartment for the best sex of my life, to the silly games we played and the secrets we shared. An abyss forms inside, threatening to swallow me whole as I remember his touch--gentle and rough, selfless and possessive, controlled and frenzied. Every time his feverish hands touched me, a shiver rolled down my spine. God, how I long for it now. All I crave are his whispered sweet-nothings that elicit my most indecent thoughts. How did he have the power to make me feel so bare? So exposed?
I recall all the times I slept over at his apartment and woke up almost tucked under him, my body choosing his warmth over any blanket. I miss the plush of his lips and the thick fan of his eyelashes I’d admire if I ever woke up earlier than him. His lips and tongue felt like fire on my skin when he left not even an inch to be spared.
How did this happen? How did I promise myself only one night and end up with my heart on its way to New York?
For most of the day, I mope around the house, imagining where Vik might be now. I’ve picked up the phone at least nine hundred times to see if he’s texted me or if I’ve missed a call. I’ve typed up messages in my head of what I should send. I’ve had full conversations with myself on what I’d say if I called him.
I miss you. Please, come back.
I want to be with you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.
I love you.
But every time I’m about to dial his number, my hands don’t cooperate. The same questions arise over and over again--what’s the point? How would this even work? Aren’t I being selfish by expecting more? Wasn’t this always how it was supposed to end?
At some point that evening, and for an inexplicable reason, I pull out the piano seat and turn toward the piano. With my battered heart barely thumping in my chest, I lift the cover over the keys and gently slide my fingers over them. Without even consciously making a decision as to what I’ll play, my fingers fi
nd the keys on their own, like they’re programmed with the memory. I hear a startled clatter in the kitchen and then a frantic “Sorry” from Dad as soon as I press down on the first notes to Swan Lake before he rushes to settle on the sofa behind me.
For the next half hour, I pour my grief ironically into the instrument that has been a symbol of grief in my life--a symbol of not being enough. As my fingers dance over the keys and my body sways gently on its own accord, my mind travels back to the story I read as a little girl, of the princess who was turned into a swan by an evil curse and now swims in a lake of tears. She awaits her prince to confess his love and break the spell to turn her back into her human form.
I chuckle humorlessly to myself.
How fitting a song.
Except, some curses can’t be broken.
“Lord, you look like shit.” I may not be able to count on the men I’ve shared my heart with to be there for me, but at least I know I can always count on Lynn’s honesty.
“Thanks,” I groan, shoving my things into the locker. “And welcome back.”
Lynn took the week off to go visit her parents in Seattle. Since we hadn’t really talked or texted much through the week, I’m sure she’s going to want to know why I look like I haven’t showered since the last time she saw me.
It’s been a week since Vik left. A week since I received any word from him--not that I’ve reached out, either. A week since I’ve felt like more than a hollow shell walking around. While work has been a solace and I’ve even taken extra shifts to avoid being alone, every moment has been plagued with thoughts of him. Every cell in my body misses him with a desperation that I never knew was possible.
Avni has called me every day to check on me but hasn’t mentioned if she’s talked to Vik. I’m sure she’s waiting for me to ask, but I haven’t had the courage. Our conversations usually dance around her telling me to listen to my heart--which is kind of hard when it’s been missing in action--and to try to figure out what I want.