Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3)

by Phoebe Fox

  “And I’m sorry for that,” he said, the smile chased off his face. “Sorrier for that than anything I’ve ever done.”

  The words undid me. A strangled noise rose out of my throat, and when Michael stood and came around to sit beside me, to wrap me in his arms, I didn’t even try to stop him. I clung on to him like a piece of floating flotsam after a shipwreck.

  For the first time in two years I felt at peace.

  It was dark by the time I drove back home, Jake curled into an impossibly tight ball on my passenger seat, his head wedged at an unnatural angle up the passenger door and his paws poking straight out almost to the dash.

  Michael and I had talked for hours, sitting side by side on a rickety swing set rusted at the joints that groaned out a protest as we swayed gently back and forth, overlooking the placid gulf at low tide. We stayed away from the immediate aftermath of our broken engagement—it was still too tender a wound—but we caught each other up on the last two years of our lives, words pouring out of us. Making our peace together felt as though a part of me that had shriveled up was regenerating, tender spring leaves shooting from a withered brown branch. It was healing and comforting and soothing—but I didn’t know what it all meant.

  I knew who would help me figure it out, though.

  I was dialing Sasha before I even waved goodbye to Michael as I pulled out of my parking space, but the call went to voicemail—just as it had when I’d called her on the way here. Did she have a late interview today? I couldn’t remember. But it bothered me that I still hadn’t spoken to her since family dinner last night.

  “Sasha…call me. I need to talk to you,” I said to her recording.

  When I pulled into my garage I had to coax Jake inside the house—he seemed perfectly content to sleep where he was all night if only I’d agree to stay there with him, worn out from a taxing evening of trotting back and forth as we’d sat on the swing, trying to keep his head beneath our hands. When he saw me get out and open his door, though, he pulled himself wearily up and lumbered out his side of the car. I tried Sasha again, rolling into voicemail. “Sash, where are you? Please call me as soon as you get this.”

  I fed Jake and myself, and as we both ate—him from his bowl beside the sliding door to the patio, me at the kitchen island beside him—my phone finally rang, and I lunged for it, hungry to talk things over with my best friend.

  “Hi, Brook,” came the familiar voice, and my heart thumped involuntarily in my chest.

  “Ben,” I said, and then promptly choked on the food I hadn’t bothered to swallow.

  After a hacking fit that lasted at least close to thirty embarrassing seconds, during which my watering eyes didn’t allow me to find the “mute” button on my phone, I brought it back to my ear from where I’d tried to muffle it under my armpit. “Hey…how’s New York?” I said, as though there’d been no interruption.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, fine,” I replied breezily. “Just a…a frog.” Ben was calling me on his romantic getaway with Perfect Pamela? Things couldn’t be all that romantic if he was thinking of me. “It’s really good to hear from you,” I said.

  “I just wanted to make sure everything’s going okay with Jake. He being a good boy?”

  “Oh…Yes, of course—wonderful. I love having him ba—having him here,” I corrected myself. “Are you guys having just the best time ever?”

  “Well, I guess,” Ben said after a moment, seemingly taken aback at my overcompensation. “It’s not really all fun and games, of course.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Well, she’s been prepping for the interview, which is tomorrow, so we’ve pretty much stayed close to the hotel. But hopefully we’ll get out and see some of the sights after that.”

  “The…the interview?” Was Pamela up for a job in New York? Was she moving away?

  As quickly as I seized on that thought, a shard of ice slid into my chest. Was Ben planning to move with her?

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s why we came. For Doctors Without Borders?”

  I didn’t know which was worse—the idea that Ben might have been moving away with Perfect Pamela, or that she wasn’t just perfect…she was saintly.

  “Wow, well, that’s…Wow. Well, good luck to her. And to you. I mean, you’re not interviewing, of course. I just mean…Um, that’s…quite impressive, isn’t it? She’s…amazing…” I trailed off miserably.

  “How are you doing, Brook?” Ben said into my self-pitying silence. “I mean with Jake?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Jake’s fine—I’m taking good care of him, and you have nothing to worry about. I promise.”

  “I never worry about him when he’s with you.”

  I blinked at his words. “That’s…Thanks,” I said quietly. After everything that had happened between us, I was floored that Ben could say he trusted me again.

  “So we’ll be back Thursday,” he went on. “How about we meet somewhere dog-friendly, and I can buy you dinner that night to thank you?”

  The idea of sitting through dinner with Ben and Pamela to hear all about their trip and her attempts to save the world practically triggered my gag reflex. “Why don’t I just swing him by your house when you two get back? I’m sure you’ll want to…you know…um, get unpacked.”

  “Oh. All right. Then…that’s fine. Thanks.” He sounded disappointed, and I winced at how ungracious I’d sounded.

  “It’s a really nice offer, but not necessary,” I tacked on. “I’m happy to have Jake. Anytime—really. I’ve missed him.”

  “He misses you too, Brook.”

  I listened to him breathing for a moment, unsure what to say, unwilling to hang up.

  “Say hello from me!” Perfect Pamela’s silken voice in the background cut through my stupor. I wished she’d sounded snarky or controlling or jealous, but no. She just seemed sincere.

  “Hi to Pamela!” I said brightly. “Please wish her big, big luck from me!”

  “Will do. Take care, Brook.”

  “You too, Ben. Bye.”

  I set the phone down, the quiet of my house feeling even more acute. Sasha still hadn’t called back. Ben was gallivanting through the Big Apple with Saint Pamela. Michael was…well, I didn’t know what Michael was. I needed someone to figure that out with.

  Jake had finished his dinner and was lying contentedly at the base of my stool, head resting between his paws. “Hey, buddy,” I said. “Come here. Come here and talk to me.”

  His eyes blinked open and he gazed up at me, but made no move to get up.

  “Jake,” I said. “Hey, Jakie! Come here, boy. Come here! You want some love?” I infused my voice with great excitement, but Jake only closed his eyes, let out a sleepy groan, and farted.

  I sighed.

  seven

  Sasha finally called me back late the next morning. I was with a client, so I missed her call, but when I returned it I got her voicemail. “Call me back!” I said insistently.

  And she did—later that afternoon. Again my return call went to voicemail. The cycle happened one more time that day, and I finally realized she was deliberately calling in the first fifty minutes of an hour, when she knew I would be in a consultation with a client.

  My best friend was avoiding me.

  I remembered how strangely she’d been acting at dinner at my parents’ Sunday night—the last time I’d talked to her directly. Something was bugging her, and there was only one problem she could have that she might feel she couldn’t talk to me about.

  Stu.

  My stomach tightened—was my brother reverting to his old commitment-phobic ways?

  That would devastate Sasha. She really cared about him—and she was herself with Stu in a way I’d never seen her with anyone else: relaxed, comfortable, goofy and…happy.
I’d been certain he felt same way about her, but I couldn’t think of any other reason Sasha would be avoiding me like the clap.

  Her final message said she was meeting with her trainer that evening for an extra-long workout at the gym, and wouldn’t be able to talk. Clever girl. She knew I would never set foot in there.

  I had to talk to her, but Sasha continued to neatly sidestep every call and text I left for her. Intercepting her at her place wouldn’t have done any good—she and Stu had lived together, for all intents and purposes, practically since they’d started dating, and this wasn’t something I could talk about with her in front of him.

  That meant I had to get creative.

  The one thing Sasha cannot resist (besides, up until the recent development of said baby brother, a completely unsuitable man) is a cry for help. So after work the next day I baited a Sasha trap.

  “Hey,” I said to her voicemail on the umpteenth time she ignored my call. “I slept with Michael.” And I hung up.

  Her return call took exactly thirty-seven seconds.

  “What the hell did you do?!”

  “Hey, Sash,” I said despondently.

  “What happened? Why did you do it? Are you okay? Did that bastard hurt you again?”

  I was lounging on the sofa in my living room, contentedly filing my nails, Jake stretched out on the floor beside me. But I produced a few sniffles and a shaky sigh. “I don’t know what to do, Sash…I’m a mess.”

  “I’m on my way over.”

  I almost felt guilty about how easy it was.

  I was waiting for her in the living room when she got there, an open bottle of wine on the cocktail table, two glasses already poured beside it.

  “Okay,” she said, barely stopping to drop her purse and keys on my entry table. “What do we need here—damage control, pep talk, or confidence building?”

  I pushed one of the glasses into her hand and came clean: “None of the above. I didn’t sleep with Michael—but I had to do something to make you stop avoiding me.”

  Sash’s concerned expression melted into relief and then, just as quickly, anger. She set her glass down on my coffee table so hard I thought she’d snap the stem. “Seriously? What are we, twelve?”

  “You tell me,” I countered. “You’ve been playing ‘dodge-call’ with me for three days.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “You’ve been cagey. What’s going on, Sasha?”

  Her face shuttered in a way I’d never seen; Sasha was always an open book—to me and anyone else.

  “Is it Stu?” I pressed.

  “No, it’s not Stu.”

  “Sash.” I folded my arms and gave her my best “quit bullshitting me” expression. I ought to have mastered it, having been on the receiving end of my mom’s for thirty-plus years.

  “It’s not, Brook,” she insisted. When I just kept my stare fixed on her, she sighed. “Your brother and I are fine. We’re great, actually. In fact your call interrupted a really nice blowie I was giving him, and—”

  My hands shot up to my ears. “Lalalalala! Okay! Geez, I was just asking.”

  Sasha gave a dry laugh, but there wasn’t much humor in it.

  I frowned. “So what is it that’s bugging you? Work?”

  “You know, a smart therapist I know taught me that when there are things people don’t want to talk about, they deflect the attention onto someone else.”

  “No fair therapizing me.”

  “Then quit stalling. What happened with Michael? Did you have sex with him?”

  “Hell, no! He wanted to talk, and I…Like you said, I needed the closure.”

  “Did you wear the outfit we bought you?”

  “Oh…I totally forgot.”

  “Brook! I put a lot of effort into that.” She looked so put-out I had to laugh.

  “I know—I’m sorry. I’ll wear it. I just…I hadn’t planned to see him. It was sort of an impulse, and I just…went. I left from work, though,” I added, “so I looked nice.”

  She tipped her head slightly, offering me a skeptical look. “Okay,” she said, sinking onto the sofa beside me. “Tell me everything.”

  So I did, from the peace plant being delivered all the way through our hours-long conversation. Sasha listened, rapt, until I finally wound down.

  “So he moved to Seattle after he left you?”

  I nodded. “He said he had to get as far away from the memories as he could. But he hated it. Hated himself.”

  “Rightly so.”

  “He never left his apartment. When he realized that he’d spent an entire week without seeing another human face or speaking a single word out loud, he finally moved to Portland.”

  “Where he joined another band.” She was sorting out the facts to keep them straight in her mind.

  I nodded again. “Except he hated that too.”

  “So now he’s a band promoter.”

  “Well, he was. He got them signed to a label, and he got cut out of the deal.”

  “Too bad. So sad.”

  “Sash. He’s not bitter about it. He’s happy for them. You know, he’s not an awful person. You liked him once.”

  “That was before he broke your heart in the worst way anyone can. That’s unforgivable.”

  “Well, I have,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You have what?”

  “Forgiven him,” I said simply.

  “When did that happen?” she yelped.

  I shrugged. “Sometime between him telling me why he left, and sitting and talking to him. Little by little…I don’t know. It was like a weight I didn’t know I was carrying lifted off me. I’ve been hating him for so long—even after I convinced myself I was over it—that it’s colored everything I’ve done since—and not in a good way.”

  “That’s not true,” Sasha protested. “Look at your Breakup Doctor stuff. You’re doing amazing things for people, helping them in ways you never would have before.”

  “Maybe. But I’ve been so angry, so determined never to let myself get hurt that way again, I haven’t really been open to anything new, have I? I mean…look at Ben.” I stopped, my throat closing up.

  Sasha held up a hand. “Oh, no. You will not beat yourself up over that. You were right to take some time to figure out what you wanted.”

  “I just wonder, if I’d been able to let go of everything with Michael sooner, would I have been ready for what Ben was offering? And now…it’s too late.”

  As if sensing my upset, Jake, who until now had been sitting quietly at Sasha’s feet like a huge, hairy white angel, pushed himself up and padded over to me, resting his head on my lap and gazing at me with his big liquid brown eyes. I stroked his head, a wave of tenderness for him crashing over me.

  “Is it?” I heard Sasha say, and looked over to see her eyeing us with an assessing expression.

  “Well.” I sighed. “He’s got Perfect Pamela.”

  “And you have his dog.”

  Jake broke into a grin as if to agree, but I didn’t have the heart to remind my best friend—or myself—that no matter how much I loved him, the Great Pyrenees was only a consolation prize.

  After Sasha left I cleaned up our glasses—she’d been so laser-focused on me she’d hardly touched her wine—and I realized I never got back around to asking what was bothering her. She’d gotten me completely distracted.

  I straightened, frowning. She’d accused me of deflecting…had she masterfully done it to me without my even noticing?

  What was Sasha avoiding telling me?

  With Michael in mind, I sat down later that night to write my weekly column for the Tropic Times.

  “Putting Down the Weight You Didn’t Know You Were Carrying”

  Somebody broke you
r heart.

  I don’t have to know you to know that’s true—if you’re alive and you interact with people, then chances are you’ve had your heart broken.

  No matter what kind of heartbreak you’ve suffered—romantic or otherwise—it’s the worst kind of wound. Unlike a physical wound, emotional ones don’t heal straightforwardly. They get ripped back open over and over. They fester. They refuse to heal, handicapping everything you do, every new connection you try to make. It’s not that you were hurt once and you fear being hurt the same way again—it’s that you were hurt once and you are still hurting in that same place, the gash in your heart as tender as if it were new, making you overcautious, overprotective…fearful.

  Faced with the choice between a broken leg and a broken heart, most of us who have experienced the latter will choose the leg—as painful as it is—because we know this truth: that physical wounds heal more easily.

  But it’s only when we realize our happiness rests, at least partially, in someone else’s hands that we truly understand what it is to love them—and to lose them. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose—it’s only by understanding what’s at stake that we can appreciate the glorious risk that love is. And that it is a risk worth taking.

  So be grateful to those who broke your heart. Yes, it hurt. Yes, loving someone deeply means mourning their loss just as deeply. And that’s okay. Like a personal trainer, they have pushed you further than you thought you could go, and in the process they helped make you stronger. And when the next love comes around, thanks to the one that didn’t work out you’ll recognize it. You’ll be ready for it. You’ll be open to it.

  But first you have to let go of the injury, let it heal—and get back in the game.

  eight

  Come to office. 911.

  The text came in at eight a.m. the next morning, a good half hour before I usually headed to the office area of my house. When I unlocked the door from the back hallway to my waiting room, Intern Paige was standing outside my office door, her ear pressed to it, knocking urgently.