Lily's Temptation Vol. 1

by Michaels, C. C.

  I say, “No, but what the hell; let’s go talk to him.”

  Eleanora puts down her paper, arching her eyebrows and inflecting her tone like a parent who just put a band-aid on their kid’s scraped knee.

  “You don’t have to talk to him. That is still an option. You don’t have to pile this on top of your day, too.”

  “I told Mandel’s brother I would try. Besides, the scurrilous rumors have already been handed out. And I wouldn’t want to let down the chatter.”

  Eleanora smiles as she looks down at her paperwork.

  “Well, good luck then,” she says and I walk towards Maddox’s room. There should have been trumpets playing and banners made. There should have been flowers presented and speeches given. But as I strode toward Maddox, the amazing build-up I had expected was nothing more than a lonely hallway. For some reason, I half expected Ms. Margaret, or Jack, or the six o’clock news to show up, but not even Eleanora looked up from her work to watch me. It seemed like a momentous occasion to me but I was wrong. I formed this whole world of emotions around this single conversation that no one else really cared about. Maybe it won’t go well, or maybe it will. To the staff, it is no more than a thing that happened. Just something. But that is because they don’t know the secret I’m keeping. They can’t look inside my heart and see the little rivulet that runs there, created the first day I met Maddox, that mysterious eruption in the heart that we call affection. I like Maddox. I care about Maddox. And so while this doesn’t matter to others, it matters to me. A lot.

  I reach the door and grab the freezing handle when a figure at the end of the hallway moves into my periphery. I turn my head to the right to see Mandel, who is stopped cold at the very end of the hallway. Oh, Jesus. Mandel is the last person I want to see right now.

  His stare is as cold as the metal in my hand and it makes a thudding sound as I open the door. He nods to me from the distance and I walk into Maddox’s room, wondering what Mandel is doing in this hallway and if he’s going to listen in on my conversation from the door. Don’t be so paranoid, I tell myself and make sure the heavy door is shut all the way until I hear it click.

  Maddox is facing away from me; his injuries appear to be healing well but the back of his head is shaved in the spot where a cut formed and the skin is purple and black. Jonathan’s body flashes before me, his brutally lacerated skin, his bandages, his low breathing. Outside, the sun sets slowly over the reaching buildings.

  He swivels his head at the sound of the door being closed. His eyes widen and then set comfortably, and he smiles that alluring smile when he sees my face. The room is cool, which is staggeringly warmer than anywhere else in the building. Maddox has the covers off his skin, poised to soak up every photon the sun will relinquish. He tells me it’s warmer on this side of the building because the sun sets on this side. In a sonorous voice, Maddox says, “I’m glad you came in to see me.”

  And while the sun begins to lower itself past the horizon, it certainly does seem to linger giving this room a few extra moments of warmth. In a way, it seems like the sun is stalling for my sake, giving me extra time to collect my thoughts. I interlock my fingers, then put them at my sides as I walk towards Maddox to see the sun set as he does. I’m standing close enough to touch him now. I think about his kiss. My palms sweat, so I wipe them on my sides. I pitch my head down, then look to the right. I swing my head around to the left and back down again.

  My thoughts go missing and I search for them like a terrified parent who just lost their child in the park. I keep thinking of the right words to say, but all I can do is agree to his statements, like Echo herself, and I end up repeating the last few words, nodding my head like an idiot. It is no use now to try and manipulate the situation so I just blurt it out.

  “Maddox?” His head turns to me and his eyes meet my blank face. He blinks a few times in the silence and a worried look forms over him.

  “What is it, Lily? Or should I call you Doctor?” His blue eyes sparkle and I can’t help but respond. I smile and dip my chin to my chest. The flirtatious tone in his voice makes me feel shy, yet flattered by his attention. It tells me that he likes me and he knows I come in here just to flirt back, but my smile fades as I remind myself that this time is different.

  “Do you know why I am here?”

  “I assume to tell me some good news. I’m feeling a lot better, though I would hate to be sent home so early. I like being around you. ”

  “Did you know I have been relieved of you? I’ve been reassigned. Doctor Mandel has me looking after another patient and that means I don’t have to check up on you anymore.”

  He raised himself in his bed, his tan face contorted in confusion.

  “What? Why were you reassigned? Wait, I know why you’re here. You have the hots for me, don’t you?” A charming smile spreads over his face.

  I fire back with, “I’m sure you have no shortage of women waiting on you.” His smile dissipates. I quickly get back on track saying, “I actually came here for a reason.”

  I look down, interlocking my fingers. The sun still shines through the window and casts long shadows in the room. Maddox leans in, asking, “Is it because that Mandel guy doesn’t like me or something?”

  “No. Not exactly. Listen to me, I have to ask you about something and I need you to be honest. I need you, for everyone’s sake, to tell me truthfully and in detail.”

  Maddox leans back, shifting his eyes at me.

  “What are you talking about? Why are you here?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat and pull a chair up to the side of Maddox’s bed. I sit down and we are at eye level as I ask, “Please, can you just talk to me? I need to hear you tell me the truth.”

  “Sure, Lily. About what?”

  “I need you to tell me about how you got your injuries.”

  Maddox sits like a stone. I don’t think even a tornado could have lifted him from his seat. He stares at me with such a focused intensity that I feel his gaze pierce through my eyes and into my very thoughts. It’s like he sees everything. He sees the night with my sister, the mistakes I have made in the hospital, my understanding of Mandel’s son, and he sees the raw little woman that is unhappy.

  His eyes aren’t moving but are like two lasers trained on a target, poised to launch a great missile for destruction. Maddox speaks in a low but decimating tone when he says, “Please leave.”

  The words are like some foreign language to me. I can’t understand them. I hear them fine and know what each word means, but Maddox’s stone-face stare, his flat eyebrows and pinched tongue make the ‘please’ sound forced and mutilated. It’s like a massive wall just went up between us. All the charm and wit he had goes out of the room.

  I plead with him, “Maddox, I only want to help—”

  “Please leave, Doctor.” His voice begins to rise with added frustration.

  I try to mention Jonathan. “There is a young man in the other room that—”

  “You aren’t assigned to me anymore so you don’t have to care.” His voice rises like a tidal wave and crashes over me.

  My breathing picks up and my eyes narrow on Maddox. I feel a rush of words well up in me as I shout back, “God damn it. Can’t you even pretend to be tough? Suck it up and talk to me!”

  Maddox hits the call button for the nurse.

  “Maddox, please, I need to know.” I am getting desperate now.

  “Why? So you can tell the cop that was sniffing outside the door the other day?”

  “I just want to know what happened.”

  “Nothing happened.” Maddox mashes the button harder.

  “Please, what happened? Just talk to me. Was it a miscommunication or a fight or what?”

  A nurse’s voice comes over the speaker and Maddox clears his voice as he says, “Yes, I need you to help me. There is someone in my room who is not supposed to be here. Please hurry.”

  “Oh, my God, are you serious? Why are you treating me like this?”

&nb
sp; “Please leave. I have nothing to say to you or your friends.”

  The nurse blasts into the room, sees me and Maddox and shifts her focus from one of us to the other. Maddox points at me, indicating to the nurse that I’m the intruder he wishes to have escorted out of the room. With that gesture, I feel shame and guilt wash over me, like somehow all this is my fault and now there is this wall forming between us. The nurse looks at me, throwing up her hands in confusion. I hang my head, breathing out full gusts of air. I look at Maddox, who has turned his head towards the window.

  “I’m not your enemy, Maddox. I just wanted to talk.” I stand up, hurt and confused. I walk to the door, shaking my head the whole way. I turn back to Maddox and say, “Is this how you wanted it to be? Is this what you wanted your life to end up as?”

  And then I fly out of the room and down the hallway. Ms. Margaret is at a trashcan in the hallway. She sees me burning down the hallway and follows me, her feet move quickly as she tries to keep up with me.

  “What happened? What’d he say?” she asks in exasperation.

  “Go ask him yourself,” I bark at her, fighting hard to hold back the tears. I’m not going to cry; I refuse to let him do this to me. He doesn’t mean anything to me. He’s just a guy I met at the hospital, just a loner who came in one night after a fight. Why should I care about him?

  Ms. Margaret strains herself to keep my pace. I burn down the hallway, Ms. Margaret in tow. She rattles off questions, asking if I got anything out of Maddox and how did he get hurt, was he the one who beat Jonathan. Each asinine question sprinkles over me in a mist as I turn the corner towards the exit, about ready to explode.

  “C’mon, Doctor, tell me,” she pleads in a whiny voice. My feet stop together and I shoot my head downward. Her tone is jovial, the kind of voice that carries a certain expectation for kindness. I turn around to Ms. Margaret and say, “What do you care, huh? What does any of it matter to a…you?” I want to call her a whore. I’m hurt and I want to lash out at the first person I see, but I stop short of hurling such a horrible word at her. At least I have the wherewithal to stop from myself from hurting Ms. Margaret. “This isn’t your world, darling. It happens to be inhabited by other people, some of which have better things to do than cater to your whims.” Though I try to control myself, my last remark comes out bitter and I know I will have to come back later to apologize, but for now It feels good to release some of my anger.

  I turn around and walk off down the hall towards the exit. When I reach the door, I charge through it with my arms locked. The door flies open and smacks the wall. I hear the door slam shut and hold my hand to my mouth, feeling the tears roll down over my fingers. I face the building and see all the mistakes and misjudgments, all the failures. The building stands over me like a great yardstick that I can never stand up to, a measurement that I can never reach.

  My tears turn to sobs, and all of a sudden my legs give out from under me. I sit in the desolate parking lot, still holding my mouth, while the sound of sirens blare in my ears. I pick myself up and look towards the horizon. The sun has set and gone away. There is only enough light to last for a few more moments before the night sets in, and I think back to the other night when I was on my balcony.

  The world was calmer then. The light mixed with the dark and made beautiful shadows and silhouettes. The land seemed to be at once covered in dark and light. There was both pitch black and searing whiteness. I saw the world as somehow reconciled of its opposites and the conversation about Maddox tonight negated all of it.

  My job, my life, my career, and Maddox, who seemed for a moment within reach. As if all three could exist together. If my life were a movie, this is the part where the happy ending is supposed to happen. Where the guy kisses the girl and they fall into each other’s arms. But it’s not. Instead, this is the lowest point of my life.

  So right here, right now, sitting in this parking lot, wiping my tear-stained face with the shirt on my forearm, I realize what I thought was impossible has happened. When I met Maddox, I was happy, but now, so effortlessly, all my hopes are gone and my heart is broken, and for some strange reason I feel betrayed, though I’m not sure exactly why. I give up. You win, Maddox.

  A long time ago, someone gave me a piece of advice about love. They said, “Guard your heart, Lily. Be careful when it comes to love,” and I was strong and followed that motto--until Maddox. I guess in a moment of weakness I was blinded by illusion and I was willing to risk it all. I wanted Maddox to be something he isn’t. But now, reality is a bitch. Falling out of love is as hard as the concrete in this parking lot and I’m left here with all my scars exposed, aching and stinging. Hmph. I was falling for that? Wasting my time on him?

  Mandel is probably right about Maddox. What the hell did I see in him, anyway? He’s just another thug who skates by on his good looks and charm. It was foolish of me to think that he could be anything else. And now that he’s done embarrassing me, I have nothing more to say.

  Chapter 16

  I sat in the parking lot for several minutes just reflecting. How was I to assume there was goodness or hope or a future if people like Maddox existed? There was a sudden lack of motivation; a great chasm opened up and swallowed all the will to care for Maddox. I threw out every concern, tossed it into the void and watched it topple end over end as it sunk out of sight. I would no longer be trying to understand Maddox or people like him. I’ll do what I have to, what is required by me, but I won’t offer my hand to him and I won’t be kind or passionate and I won’t open my heart just to have it stomped on like some burned out cigarette.

  I stand facing away from the merging of the light and darkness of dusk and stare into the windows of the hospital building where I work. Each window is a framed depiction of the failure of the human body. Behind each water-stained glass lays a reminder that the human body is an ephemeral vessel, each and every one in some state of failure. The lights blink on and illuminate the parking lot in a white blaze of light. I walk back to the door, opening it with controlled hands, and go back to work.

  It does me no good to think in increments of twenty-four hour days. I think in minutes and hours, now. I decide what to do by how much time it will take me to: A. prepare to do said thing, B. engage in said thing, and C. accomplish said thing. So, it is the way I have come to see the passage of time and this is what I have to do to make it through each day now. The last couple of hours proved to be a great annoyance. I didn’t get any information out of Maddox;, not one clue, not one insight into this whole mess and I insulted a patient to boot. Everything is pointing to Maddox being the one who beat up Dr. Mandel’s son...and beat up is putting it mildly. Detectives are all over the place looking for answers and Maddox just clams up, won’t even offer a word in his own defense. And to top it all off, I had a bit of a breakdown in the parking lot.

  I hate it when my mind swirls the mistakes I’ve made and sends them spinning about, to ravage my mental state. But filling out prescriptions, consulting with patients and the buzzing pager at my side stave off the vortex long enough for sanity to slip its way into the fray.

  I have to call Mandel’s brother and tell him the bad news. I see Mandel nod his head in a flash of memory. I stop the image and replay Mandel’s action again. He nods just before I enter Maddox’s room. My feet pick me up and lead me down the hallways, turning corners and walking up stairs until I am standing before Mandel’s office.

  I open the door but the room is empty. The domineering bookshelves hang over me as I walk mid-way into the room. The spines of the books point out accusingly at me. The picture on Mandel’s desk is faced away from me. The magnifying glass that usually sits there is absent. I carefully peruse the desk for it, moving aside stacks of papers and pamphlets. The room is exactly the same except for the magnifying glass and its disappearance has made the office seem deserted.

  I haven’t been searching with fevered intent, but I burn solely on curiosity, which makes my eyes jump all over the room in search
of the magnifying glass. I want to know more about it. I plan on asking Mandel someday, why he even needs such an ancient thing in the computer age. Although I’m not exactly sure why my feet dropped me off here, the magnifying glass will be a good ice breaker.

  A drawer pokes out on Mandel’s side of the desk. Curiosity fills my eyes. It is slid out only a little, but just enough for me to see a letterbox view of an object. I slide the drawer open, looking up as I do to make sure Mandel doesn’t catch me. Inside the drawer is a box big enough for boots. I kneel down to take it out of the drawer and its weight is much heavier than I would have guessed. The contents slide and smack the sides. I set the box down on the ground and lift the lid.

  Inside the box, there are dozens of greeting cards. They are nicely colored with elegant writing across the face. In cursive writing, the text reads “Our wishing a speedy recovery,” and “Dear friend.” I open a few cards and inside, the sentimental tone continues. There are mentions of strength in trying times and perseverance in the face of emotionally taxing circumstances. The cards read like one enormous sympathy note.