by Max Monroe
I can’t get the sounds of hearing you sleep with Emily out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that you carelessly left me in the dark about what happened during the filming of the show. I can’t stop wondering if there is more to the story on why you didn’t want to tell the office about our relationship. I can’t stop replaying and thinking about your lie over and over and over again.
I fear that I gave my heart to someone who, despite his best efforts not to, will crush it.
And that was the real crux of the issue. Despite all of his trespasses, I really did believe that Will thought I was the best thing for him. I just didn’t know if he was the best thing for me.
“Talk to me,” he urged, and his brow furrowed deeper when I gave him no response. “Melody,” he said, and his long strides quickly closed the space between us. He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight to his chest. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
I didn’t react. I couldn’t react. I just stood inside his embrace with my back stiff and my arms hanging limply at my sides.
“Just give me something…anything…” he whispered. “You’re scaring me.”
You’re going to break my fucking heart!
“I can’t do this,” I blurted out, and Will stared down at me with wide eyes.
“What?”
I shrugged out of his arms and put some much-needed distance between us. “I can’t do this,” I repeated and gestured between the two of us with an impatient hand. “I can’t do us.”
“You don’t want to be with me?”
“It’s not like that.” I want to be with you too much. It makes me want to give up everything else I’ve ever wanted.
“Then what is it like, exactly?”
“I don’t think you’re ready for a long-term relationship, Will,” I explained, and his eyes squinted in confusion. “I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t fall into the same trap I did with Eli.”
That was bullshit even to my own ears, but I went with it—to protect myself from him and to protect him from the mess inside my head.
His jaw dropped wide open, and a hint of anger tinged his already tired voice. “I’m not Eli.”
“I know you’re not, but—”
“But what?” he questioned in irritation. “You know I’m not him, but you’re using your ex-boyfriend’s fuck-ups against me anyway?”
Everything I’d been working so hard to contain bubbled up and boiled over.
“No,” I said in a hostile tone. “I’m using your fuck-ups against you.”
Outrage covered his face. “When did I fuck up?”
“I saw the episode, Will,” I enlightened, and his back stiffened. “You know, the one where you and Emily stepped into the call room for a little afternoon delight.”
“No, actually,” he smarted. “I don’t know. You know I’ve never had any fucking clue what they’re going to air on the show or when they’re going to air it.”
“That’s not why it upset me, Will!” I shouted back. “You had more than enough opportunity to be open and honest with me about what happened during filming,” I said through gritted teeth. “But even after I’d told you that it was making me really uncomfortable to have to watch you flirt with nurses on the show and witness the parade of flirtatious patients stroll in the office, you never told me you slept with one.” I paused, a horrifying thought occurring to me. “Or more.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “I don’t give a fuck about anyone but you. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that I’m in love with you?” he asked and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t want anyone else but you, Melody. You’re all I care about.”
“Your actions speak louder than your words, Will.”
“What in the hell do you mean by that?”
“If you cared about me so much, you would’ve acknowledged my feelings, and you would’ve made damn sure that I knew what happened during filming. You wouldn’t have left me in the dark and let me get railroaded by it. I had to watch you…” Tears clogged my throat as I remembered it. “…on your fucking television, have sex with someone else. I had to hear it. Your moans. Her moans. All of it.”
“God,” he whispered, clearly tortured by the sound of my voice. “I’m so sorry, Mel. That’s…” He paused, seemingly at a loss for words, and I answered for him.
“Fucking awful,” I answered for him.
“But, Mel, I didn’t know they filmed it. Of course I would have told you—”
“And you know what’s even worse?” I asked, cutting off words I knew were an outright lie. “What’s worse is when watching someone like that is how you find out that the one person you love can lie so fucking easily.”
“What? When did I lie? What are you talking about?”
“Patient exam room six, Will,” I explained, but he still didn’t understand. “You know, that day you’d pulled me inside that empty room to have sex. The day you’d told me that you’d never done something like that at work. Do you remember that day, Will? I know I can’t get it out of my fucking head.” I mocked his words by lowering my voice into a poor example of his own. “Never.”
He stared back at me with a plethora of emotions in his eyes. Sadness. Apology. Fear.
But I couldn’t find an ounce of sympathy for him in that moment.
“A relationship needs honesty,” I said, and he started to interject. But I held my hand in the air and continued. “I’m sorry, Will. I just can’t do it. I can’t be in a relationship with you.”
In that moment, I wasn’t sure what hurt more, Will breaking my heart or my having to end things with a man I’d honestly thought I would spend the rest of my life with.
“So…that’s it?” he questioned and stared at me with an ocean full of hurt in his eyes. “You’re just walking away without giving me a chance to explain? You’re just giving up?”
I’m not giving up. I’m saving myself.
I had been able to leave my relationship with Eli unscathed. But I felt like if I stayed with Will, I was playing Russian roulette with my heart. And I knew he had the power to hurt me past the point of no return.
“I’m sorry, Will,” I repeated, and before I could talk myself out of my next decision, I added, “Today will be my last day at work. Consider this my official resignation.”
A shocked gasp left his lips, and I couldn’t find the strength to meet his eyes.
Instead, without another word, I kept my head angled toward the ground and left his office.
And fifteen minutes later, I was sitting on the subway, heading home to my parents’ apartment, jobless, Will-less, and feeling more lost than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
One week.
It’d been one week since Melody had left my office after quitting her job and ending our relationship in one painful as fuck swoop.
She’d seen an episode where I’d hooked up with a hospital nurse named Emily, and like a goddamn tic burrowing under a human’s skin, the show from hell had succeeded in planting a seed of doubt into Mel’s head.
She thought I was dishonest with her. No, that made it sound too nice. Like an honest mistake—which it was.
But what she thought was that I’d lied to her. Willfully and with intent.
Knowing she could think that of me burned deep inside, singeing my organs enough that I was in constant pain with absolutely no chance of respite from actual death.
But the worst accusation of all was that I’d been careless with her feelings. Again, willfully and with intent, as though I was the kind of person who couldn’t see beyond himself.
And that fucking hurt.
If there was one thing I never wanted to do, would never on my life do intentionally, it was hurt her. In my world, the sun rose and set over Melody’s smiles and laughs and anything else that made up the woman I’d honestly thought was the woman for me. The one I’d settled down with. The one I’d marry. The one I’d spend the rest of my life with.
God, how in th
e hell did things go so wrong?
I’d spent the early part of this week trying to call her, trying to talk to her, trying to somehow get her to give me time to explain. But it was all to no avail. She either didn’t answer or the calls went straight to voice mail.
Once, I’d even tried to ambush her at Janet and Bill’s, but her mom had said she wasn’t home. She’d had sad eyes as she said it, but I was still the enemy. No one fucks with a mama’s little girl.
Basically, Melody was avoiding me, and I didn’t know how in the fuck to fix this situation.
I wanted to—days without Mel were absolute hell. I just couldn’t figure out how.
Fucking Dr. Obscene. I was really starting to hate that guy.
Too bad that guy is you…
“Congratulations!” Marlene cheered as I entered the office. “The show is finally over, and all of our new patient positions are filled. Thank God.”
I attempted a half of a smile, but it didn’t feel like the result was anything resembling happiness at all. Yes, the show was finally over. Yes, the focus would be shifting to Scott Shepard next week as episodes of the Dr. ER version of The Doctor Is In would start to air.
But I’d had a taste of everything I wanted—everything I really hadn’t been sure I’d find out of life—and now I’d never have it again. Melody officially wasn’t my nurse anymore, and even more officially, she wasn’t my girlfriend either.
Fuck everyone and everything.
“Thanks. I…yeah. Thanks.”
I shook my head and moved down the hall, but Betty didn’t talk quietly enough to keep me from hearing the moment the gossip started up.
“God, he looks miserable.”
“I knew that Load-y chick was bad news,” Melissa chirped happily, like she’d won a prize or something. Goddamn rotten bitch.
“The whole reason I hired her on the spot was because she hadn’t heard of the show. She wasn’t lusting after him like all the other little tarts I met with. Clearly, that backfired.”
“She probably wanted him from the beginning. Lied about not knowing about the show,” Melissa proposed just because, without Melody here to defend herself, she could.
Going crazy from the comments but having literally zero energy to deal with them, I ducked inside the break room instead of going all the way to my office, tossed my briefcase down on a chair and sank my face into my hands.
Fucking shit, I don’t want to live like this anymore.
Up and down, I scrubbed at the skin as if it could erase every miserable thing that had happened in the last week.
The show. The goddamn breakup. Life here, without her.
I hated all of it. And this one fucking week felt like it had lasted a year.
Frustrated that I couldn’t get any relief from the terrible ache in my chest no matter how hard I scrubbed at my face, I snatched my briefcase from the chair and turned to leave the room when bright blue and pink icing caught my eye.
A cake, celebrating the end of the show.
Congratulations, Dr. Cummings, it read. Dr. Obscene has cum to an end.
Cute.
Obviously, I wasn’t in much of a mood to gorge on sugar and celebrate the ending of a docuseries that had pretty much ruined my life.
All of the rage inside me built and broke at once, raising my arm with my briefcase up above my head involuntarily and bringing it down roughly…right on the cake.
Icing and perfectly moist crumbs shot out the sides and sprayed the fabric of my pants, the table, and everything else within a three-foot radius.
All of the women came running.
Marlene was actually the first to slide through the door—and start to cackle hysterically.
“Oh dear,” Betty remarked.
Melissa and Beth just stood there, hands to their mouths.
Done with it all, I grabbed my icing-coated briefcase and headed back for the door.
“I’m taking the day off.”
“Uh…” Melissa started as I shoved past her, forcing her to pull her body up and out of the way to avoid getting coated in icing. “But what about your patients?”
“I don’t care. Give them to someone else.”
And I didn’t. I couldn’t have cared fucking less in that moment if I’d tried.
Funny, I thought. That damn show tried so hard to fuck up my career and failed. Until the last episode…where it broke two people’s hearts.
My life had been reduced to six cardboard boxes.
Sound familiar?
Well, it was familiar, only this time, I was moving out of my parents’ apartment.
It’d been two weeks since I’d last seen Will. Two weeks since I’d quit my job at his practice and ended our relationship. Time had nearly stood still for the first few days. They’d gone about as awful as anyone could imagine they’d go for a twenty-nine-year-old woman, fresh off of another failed relationship, jobless, and still living with her parents. But, eventually, after I’d had time to isolate myself from the world and lick my wounds to a tolerable level of pain, I’d found a way to pick myself up off of the floor and put myself back on shaky, unstable feet.
It’d taken baby steps, but slowly and with determination, I found things to focus on, things to fill my days so that my mind didn’t have much time to think about Will. And it had worked for the most part, besides when I’d lie in bed at night, without the warmth and comfort of his arms. It was those quiet, lonely moments when I’d realize just how much I missed him. Just how much I still loved him. But before I could do something rash like show up to his apartment and beg for him to take me back, I’d remember just how much he’d hurt me.
How much I’m willing to give up for one of his stupid smiles.
And that was still a very present reminder of why I needed to look forward, to move on.
My frugal money habits had turned out to be a positive force. Before quitting my job, I’d managed to save enough funds so I could put down a deposit on an apartment in SoHo. Of course, I was renting for cheap from a friend of the family and had only enough reserves to pay bills for six months until I figured out what my next career step would be, but it was something.
I wouldn’t say life was good, but I was doing everything I could to make it better.
“Melody,” my mother said as she peeked inside her work-out room, where I was putting the last of my clothes inside an empty box. “Do you want me to box up the microwave for you?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Thanks, Mom, but I don’t need your microwave.”
She’d been at this line of questioning for the past two hours. Like clockwork, every fifteen minutes, Janet would peek past the door and try to give me something from their apartment. First, it was the coffee table. Then it was the sofa. Although, Bill quickly interjected his opposition to that. My father lived for that leather sofa, and the worn-in print of his ass on the seat beside the window proved he’d spent more time on that piece of furniture than anywhere else in the apartment.
Basically, she’d been trying to give me everything but the kitchen sink. Though, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she eventually offered to pack that up in a box, too.
Janet sighed and leaned her head against the doorframe. “I just want to help you somehow.”
“Mom, you’ve already helped me enough,” I said with a thankful smile. “Don’t worry, I’m a big girl. I’ll be just fine on my own.”
“I guess I should just be happy that you’re only moving a twenty-minute subway ride away instead of all the way across the country.”
I grinned. “Exactly.”
She slid open the door and walked toward me with a small white envelope in her hands. “Here,” she said as she held it out toward me, and I tilted my head to the side in confusion.
“What is this?”
“Just a little something your father and I wanted to give you.”
“Mom, seriously, you guys don’t—”
She cut me off with a raise of her hand. “We do, actual
ly. We want to give this to you.”
I stared at the envelope. “I know it’s money, Mom.”
“Yeah, so?” She shrugged. “We’re proud of you, Melody. And we just wanted to give you a little extra funds so that you have the time to find a job that you really love.”
“Wow… I don’t know what to say…”
“You don’t need to say anything right now,” she said with a soft smile. “Because there’s actually someone here to see you.”
Will?
My heart jumped into my throat at the mere thought of his name, but then it quickly plummeted to my feet when the person who replaced my mother in the doorway wasn’t him.
“Need any help packing?” Georgia asked with a friendly grin and a motherly hand resting on top of her belly.
“What are you doing here?” I asked and hated that my voice held a hint of disappointment.
She shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Did Will send you here?” The words flew from my lips before I could stop them.
Jesus. Why couldn’t my heart realize Will and I were done?
“No.” She shook her head, but I didn’t miss the faint spark that brightened her eyes and had her lips cresting into a soft smile. “Actually, Will didn’t send me. I’m here because, even though you and my brother are no longer together, you’re my friend and I want to be here.”
Even though, Will and I had broken up, I’d kept in contact with Georgia and Cassie, mostly through text messages and phone calls, but also because those two were persistent as hell. So, it wasn’t a surprise that she knew I was getting ready to move, but it was a bit of a surprise that she’d shown up, offering to help me move. Packing up boxes and moving shit didn’t seem like the kind of strenuous activity someone who was four weeks away from her due date would want to engage in…
I searched her expression for an answer, and the nervous rap of her fingers against her belly had me wondering if she was here for more than just support.
“That’s…uh…really sweet of you,” I answered, but I really wanted to ask if this was some kind of ploy to get Will and me back together.