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  “Mom, I’m not worrying. Everything’s fine. I’m just waiting for her to get back from the MRI.”

  “And you’re thinking the absolute worst, because that’s what you’ve always done. Honey, she’s going to be okay.”

  I sighed, closing my eyes tightly and taking a deep, even breath. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Your dad and I are praying for you both. And so are Sandy’s parents. Please keep us on speed dial and call as soon as you hear what’s going on. Do you have me on speed dial?”

  “Mom, I have an iPhone, I can just say ‘Mom’ and it automatically calls you. It’s not the nineties anymore… okay, wait, she’s coming out now, I’ll call you back.”

  I disconnected, shooting to my feet as the attendant rolled Sandy’s bed back into the room.

  “The doctor should be in shortly,” the man assured me.

  “Did you see anything weird? Tumors?”

  “Jason, he can’t read the MRI and tell you anything,” Sandy protested. I gripped her hand, and the nurse smiled and nodded toward Sandy.

  “She’s right. I’m sorry sir, the doctor should be in very soon.”

  The sounds of the hospital frayed my nerves. Sandy held my hand, drifting in and out of sleep. After she’d passed out, the EMS brought her back with smelling salts, and she complained the entire way to the hospital about how badly the salts made her feel.

  They’d given her something to calm her down. Whatever it was had worked; she moved in and out of sleep, and I smoothed her curls away from her face.

  When the doctor finally came in, it was after two AM.

  “Mr. Brewer,” he said, reaching to shake my hand. He was a stately, older man, and there was something gentle in his eyes that worked to calm my nerves.

  “Is she okay? What’s happening to her eyes?”

  He looked over at Sandy, and then glanced down at her chart. “She had a hospital stay just a few weeks ago?”

  “Yes. Her boyfriend beat her up, but he never will again.”

  “And that wasn’t the first time?”

  My body tensed; my heart dropped into my stomach. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a mountain, and everyone was screaming at me not to look down.

  I had to look down.

  “No, it wasn’t the first time,” I admitted angrily.

  He nodded, sitting back on the rolling stool near the counter. “Alexandra’s test results show that she experienced some retinal damage to her right eye. This new trauma might have led to the complete retinal detachment, which must be corrected. We are prepping for her surgery right now.”

  “Wait, now?” I tried to absorb all of the information, but all I could hear were key words.

  Damage. New trauma.

  Jack.

  “We’ll take her back within the hour. When the retina detaches, it loses oxygen…”

  I tried to listen. I tried with all of my strength to listen to what the doctor was saying, but my temper was flaring. I wanted to get in my truck- no, fuck that, I wanted to get on a plane- and murder Jack.

  He hit her. He hit her, more than once, and damaged her eye. Now she needed surgery.

  “Why didn’t they see this when she was in the hospital three weeks ago?” I demanded.

  “I can’t answer that, Mr. Brewer. I’m sorry. All that I can tell you is that we have to take care of this now to make every effort for Alexandra to see again out of her right eye. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” I nodded, realizing that I was holding Sandy’s hand so tightly that her fingertips were white. I eased my grip. “I understand.”

  The surgery ended up taking more than two hours. A nurse came out half-way through to let me know that she was doing just fine, and that they’d found some scar tissue, which would mean a little extra time in surgery.

  I talked to both of Sandy’s parents, and both of mine. By the time Scott called me, I was edgy and was pretty sure that I sounded like a zombie.

  “Jason, you want me to fly out there? You know I will. Emily is fine with it.”

  “No,” I sighed, resting my elbows on my knees and my forehead in my hand. Stay with your girls.”

  “Sandy’s our girl,” he replied, matter-of-factly, and I winced, fighting back the burn of emotion in my eyes. “She’s like a sister to me, man. Just say the word and I’ll be there.”

  “Thanks, Scott.”

  Sandy was in recovery when I finished the second round of phone calls. I called my dad last, though his voice was the one I wanted to hear the most. “She’ll be alright, son. You’ll get through this just like anything else. And you’ll look out for her going forward. I’m proud of you.”

  Sandy woke up as I was dragging the back of my arm over my eyes. Her right eye was covered by white gauze, and she focused on me with her left. “Are you crying? Did they have to remove it? Do I have a glass eye?”

  I exhaled a breath of laugher, forcing myself to remain calm. “No, you’re fine. You’ll be okay. You only have to wear the eye patch for a day, though, so we need to hurry up and have our kinky pirate sex before Friday.”

  She gave me a small smile, drifting back to sleep.

  I drove her to the beach house, and by the time I helped her to bed, it was almost eight AM. Joplin hid in the corner, ashamed that she’d shit on the living room floor. Sighing, I cleaned up the mess and stretched out on the couch.

  She whined, and I patted my chest. She jumped up on me, resting her nose on my shoulder.

  “It’s okay, girl. We were gone a long time.”

  The papers detailing Sandy’s recovery lay on the coffee table where I’d dropped them, and I reached for them, scanning the words.

  Swelling… eye drops… first day after surgery the worst due to inflammation. Double vision for the first few days.

  Her phone buzzed, and I reached for it, expecting it to be Jess.

  When I didn’t recognize the number, I swept her phone open. “Hello.”

  “Alexandra, please.”

  “What the fuck,” I hissed, glancing once at the screen and then slamming the phone back to my ear. “Jack? Is that you?”

  “Listen, Jason, I don’t want to argue with you. I’m asking you to please put Alexandra on the phone. I’ll be brief. It has to do with the motion that she filed against me.”

  “You mean, the fucking restraining order?” I sat up, hurrying to the bedroom to pull the door closed. I made it out to the balcony before raising my voice.

  “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “No, Sandy’s asleep. I just spent the entire night with her at the hospital.”

  “Is she okay?” he rushed out.

  His concern for her physically sickened me. I thanked God that I was at least four states away from him, because all I wanted to do was blow his fucking head off.

  “No, she’s not. Blunt trauma to her eye caused her retina to detach. She spent hours in surgery. She can’t see out of her right eye, and we don’t know if she ever will again.”

  “What?”

  He had the decency to sound bowled over, and I shook my head, gripping the balcony railing.

  “Fuck you. Don’t you ever call her again. Don’t even think about her again. You stay the fuck away from her, or I will kill you. The long, slow way that involves blunt fucking trauma.”

  I disconnected.

  I was running on too little sleep, and I knew that I needed to remedy that immediately.

  Sometime later, I fell asleep on the couch with Joplin, and the sound of Sandy’s voice lulled me from what felt like fevered dreams.

  “Brew? Can you help me find some Advil?”

  I shot off the couch, and Sandy held her hands out, gripping the edge of the coffee table. “San, sit down…”

  “No, I’m okay, I just… I just need some Advil,” she repeated.

  I moved her to the couch, and once she was settled, I hurried to the kitchen for a bottle of water. “How do you feel?”

  “Sore. Not too bad,” she assured me. �
�I’m kind of out of it.”

  “Here.” I placed the pills in her palm, and she took them with quiet thanks. “Can I make you some toast?”

  “Sure,” she agreed.

  “Peanut butter and honey?”

  “Is there any other way?”

  She tried for humor, but I could tell that she was in pain. I made her breakfast in silence, managing to put on a pot of coffee for us both.

  I lowered her mug to the table, and she lifted her beautiful face to mine.

  “You’re being too quiet. Am I going to be able to see again?”

  I froze, lowering slowly to the seat next to her. “Baby, of course you’ll be able to see.”

  She tore at the napkin beneath her cup, and I watched one single tear race down her cheek as her chin trembled.

  “I hate him,” she burst, her shaking hand covering her mouth.

  I wrapped my arms around her, and her shoulders shook.

  She suddenly felt so small and frail in my arms.

  “San,” I whispered, kissing her forehead softly. “Don’t cry.”

  “I wasted so much time loving that… monster,” she sobbed. “I didn’t even realize that I was… changing. I was rushing home when he called me, or not going out if he didn’t want me to. He was controlling me, and I had no idea,” she poured, whimpering as she held her hand to her forehead. I knew that the pressure in her eye from the tears had to be painful, and that she was trying to calm herself down. “I was so fucking stupid-…,”

  “You’re not stupid. You’ve never been stupid. You’ve been in love, and sometimes love makes you blind to what’s hurting you. Especially when it’s him.”

  She sniffed, nodding and pulling away. “I’m not hungry. I’m going to go back to bed,” she managed, letting me walk with her to the bedroom.

  I stared at the coffeepot and the dishes in the sink, finally grabbing my phone and crawling into the bed next to her.

  She was restless. I felt so sorry for her as she tossed and turned next to me in the bed. She tried hard to get comfortable, finally covering her face with her hands. “I never sleep on my back, and I can’t lay on my side without… the pressure…”

  “Hey.” I stretched my arm behind her, and she lifted her head, settling on my chest. “What can I do to make it better?”

  “Talk to me. I want to hear your voice.”

  I glanced around the room, reaching for my phone. “Want me to read to you?”

  “Anything. The way your words rumble in your chest feels good against my head.”

  “Well, glad to be of service,” I teased, pulling up my Kindle app. “Tolstoy?”

  “You’re reading Tolstoy? Wow. You were taking the ‘I’m-dating-an-author’ research way too seriously.”

  “Maybe I wanted to read Tolstoy.”

  “You think Carissa Steel reads Tolstoy?”

  I smirked. “Quiet, Boss.”

  She smiled.

  I took a deep breath, opening the book. I was proud that I’d at least made it to Chapter Nine of Anna Karenina but had put it down a week ago and never opened it again.

  I read for a while, and felt her body relax against me. She had her arm wrapped around my waist, her ear pressed to my chest.

  More than ten minutes passed, and I was almost positive she was sleeping.

  “He stepped down,” I began softly, brushing my hand over her hair, “trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

  I paused, re-reading the passage in my mind. She gave a soft sigh.

  “That’s how you are to me,” I finally realized, lowering my phone to the bed. “You’ve always been there. I just couldn’t look at you, but you have always been the brightest place in my life. Loving you isn’t new, Sandy. Letting myself love you is new.”

  Her reply was soft, a half-breath, and I knew that she was finally asleep.

  I closed my eyes.

  We slept for hours. Sometime that evening, I woke up as she struggled through a nightmare. When she finally was fully awake, she made her way to the bathroom. I stood to help her, but she held her hand up to stop me.

  “I’ll be okay.”

  When she returned to the bed, she’d taken off the gauze. Her eye was swollen, but not nearly as bad as after Jack had hit her.

  I gazed at her, and she gingerly lowered her head to the pillow. “We need to go home,” she whispered.

  “Do you want to go home?”

  “Yes.”

  I reached for her hand, and she curled her fingers in mine.

  “Do you feel up to the ride?”

  She nodded.

  Long minutes passed, and finally, she tried for her voice. “Jason, thank you. For being there for me.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  She sighed.

  “Can we leave tonight? Do you feel up to driving?”

  That took me by surprise. I nodded, tightening my grip on her hand.

  “I can, if you want to leave.”

  “I need to see my mom,” she admitted softly. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, San, don’t be sorry. I’ll start gathering our stuff.”

  We were on the road within the hour.

  The drive was long, and I kept the music playing to fill the silence between us. I knew that she was uncomfortable, and I was glad that we were traveling at night so the sun wasn’t bothering her eye.

  We stopped halfway home, and I saw her reading through her phone while I took Joplin out to walk. When I climbed back in the truck, she turned to face me.

  “Jack called? You talked to him?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What, did he call back?”

  “He texted me. He said you told him about my surgery. I can’t believe you told him,” she cried, and I shoved the key into the ignition.

  “Sandy, I was exhausted, and we’d just gotten home from the hospital. I admit, I wasn’t one hundred percent on my game-…”

  “I hate that he knows! I feel like he hit me all over again, Jason, like I just keep letting him hurt me, over and over!”

  The desperation in her voice urged me to press the brake. I pulled along the curb of the rest stop. “San…”

  “He has all this… power over knowing… what he did, and I just keep feeling like a victim,” she sobbed, gripping the handle on the door. “And now he’s texting me, begging me to forgive him, saying that he made the worst mistake of his life and it’s killing him that he can’t be there for me, to help me heal… and….,”

  She cried into her hands, and I froze, wanting so badly to reach for her. “But he’s the one who hurt you, baby.”

  “I know that!” she screamed, and Joplin whined from the back seat. “I feel like if I let him apologize, I can just put it behind me… and let it go, not continue to play this… victim. I control my choice, I let him apologize to me. That’s what I want!”

  I scrubbed my hand over my face, sitting back to stare at her. “If that’s what you want to do, then do it. I’m not going to stop you.”

  She turned away from me to look out the window, and I shifted into drive.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sandy

  Ambivalence, I found, was a state of being.

  I watched my life though shadowy glass. The rage that I felt for what Jack had done to me had dissipated, leaving me drained. The court order, the counseling, the full-steam ahead attitude toward my life with Jason, all of it took a backseat to my overworked mind.

  Dr. Adams prescribed me something stronger than the herbal supplement. I took the written prescription without protest, sliding my big sunglasses over my eyes and meeting Jess in the parking lot of the doctor’s office.

  “Hey,” she said softly. Smiling, she took a moment to rest her head against my shoulder. “You okay, hon?”

  “Hmm,” was all I could manage, turning to stare out the window.

  “Jason called. He asked you to call him as soon as you could.”


  I thought about our first days home from the beach, nearly three weeks ago.

  At first, I stayed locked inside my room- or the guest room- for two days. Jason had waited on me hand and foot, making me meals and taking me to the follow-up appointment for my eye.

  On the way home from the eye specialist, I asked him to take me to my mom’s.

  “Sandy, please let me be there for you. Just to support you, nothing else. No pressure, no wedding talk, nothing like that. Just me.”

  “I can’t do this right now,” I’d sobbed, curled in his passenger’s seat. “I can’t be anyone’s burden-”

  “You aren’t my burden, how can you say that? I love you. I love you so much. San.” He’d reached to brush his hand over my curls, but I had forced myself not to turn into his touch.

  “I love you, too.”

  ~

  He’d taken me to my parents’ house. Jason came over for dinner the first few nights, and I poked at my food and answered him when he spoke to me. I couldn’t find the will to laugh about things at work.

  One night, I went up to my old room and cried until both of my eyes hurt too badly to continue.

  My mom came in, lying next to me on my canopy bed, tucking the blankets around me. “I’m here, honey. Just rest.”

  “Mom,” I sighed, accepting the tissue that she offered me. “I feel like my life is falling apart. And I don’t want him to have that kind of power over me, you know? But no matter how hard I try to… to move on with Jason, or to make plans, or… I just end up even worse than I was…”

  “That’s my fault. I pushed you with the wedding plans. Your dad was the one to show me that I was wrong to do that.”

  “No, I got caught up, too. So did Jason.”

  “You both feel a sense of urgency, because you’ve known each other for so long. You feel like you have to make up for lost time,” my mom explained, and I accepted my favorite stuffed teddy bear as she tucked it into my arms. “And that’s perfectly normal. But what you really need is time right now, sweetheart. Jason knows that. And that’s okay.”

  “It seems like the more time that passes, the worse I feel, instead of better.”

  “Having surgery was an entirely new setback. You have to deal with some of those raw emotions again. Which is exactly what you’re doing.”