by Melinda Minx
I smile. “It’s not that, I just like enjoying the music without all the crowds.”
She nods, squeezing my hand. “Some people say two’s a crowd.”
“I think it’s three’s a crowd,” I say, leaning closer to her.
“Some people must say that, though. You know, people who really like being alone.”
“Two isn’t a crowd for me,” I say.
As soon as I kiss her—for real this time—there won’t be any going back. The line will have been crossed forever. But I realize I want to cross it, more than anything.
I lean in even closer to her, and her eyes widen. “Wait,” she says.
I stop cold. Shit, did I seriously read her wrong?
She burns red, then says, “I want you to, I really do…”
Relief floods through me. But why did she ask me to stop?
“Before we do, though,” she says, “I want to know...will this be our first kiss?”
She remembers.
“No,” I say. “But that first kiss...it was a kiss goodbye.”
“What do you mean?” she asks. “I thought I dreamt it.”
“I thought the device didn’t work,” I say. “And I thought they were going to pull the plug on you. I thought they were going to throw me in jail. I’d spent five years by your side, Rose, and I wanted to kiss you goodbye.”
She licks her lips and nods. “I see,” she says. “How long did you want to kiss me?”
“I wanted you to wake up,” I say, pulling her body up against mine. I feel her big breasts pressing softly into my abs, and I grab hold of her tiny waist. “I didn’t want to...I wanted us to kiss, not—”
She closes her eyes. Her lips part, and I lean down toward her. I press my lips against hers, and a rush of emotions floods through me. My heart races as I feel her wet lips press into mine, and then I slide my tongue into her mouth.
Her fingernails dig into my back, and I pull her even tighter against my body. My tongue dances with hers, and I lose all sense of everything but our bodies pressing together. The music seems to get louder as the pace of our passion intensifies. There’s a sax solo playing, and it reaches a frenetic pace as we kiss deeper, with more and more hunger, deeper and deeper need.
I feel her hand sink down to my ass, and she squeezes it. My cock is rock hard, and through my jeans, I know it’s pressing into her soft, flat stomach.
We kiss long and deep, and the saxophonist runs out of breath before we do. The standing bass guitar picks up, and the other brass comes in, giving the saxophone player a breather. But Rose and I keep going, and long after the song has finished, we finally break away from one another.
My skin feels electrified, and when I look into her eyes, I feel completely at ease and at peace, despite how reckless it was for us to do what we just did.
“I do need to take you back,” I say, finally.
She nods.
“To the hospital,” I say, in case there was any ambiguity there.
“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”
We walk back to the car, hand in hand. We can’t stop looking at each other. I’ve looked at her for so many years, but having her look back at me still feels so fresh and new.
We drive back to the hospital in total silence. It feels as if there’s nothing more that we need to say—even though that’s not at all the case.
I need to tell her about the accolades, about Dr. Bell, the award. About Dr. Bell’s warning to me—and Dr. Meiner. There’s so much I need to tell her, but it all feels like it needs to wait for tomorrow. Like it would be wrong to ruin this night with any of that.
I get her back to her hospital room, and she changes back into her gown.
“I can fall asleep on my own now,” she says. “You need to get some sleep yourself.”
I nod. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We both look at each other, realizing this is the time to kiss each other goodnight. But luckily she realizes without me saying anything that it’s a bad idea, so she just smiles as I close the door behind me.
8
Rose
I wake up glowing. I can feel the sunlight shining in on me, and I pop right up at the crack of dawn, just like I said I would. Every day now is a new chance. A new opportunity to do something. I’ve slept long enough.
I had no idea what my life might look like after I leave the hospital, but at least now I know that Kaden will stay in my life—not just as a doctor, but as something much more than that. The future and my place in the world is still incredibly uncertain, but Kaden can be my anchor. My rock.
Then Dr. Bell appears. She’s only spoken to me a few times, but here she is, in my room, first thing in the morning. Seeing her is a bit of a reality check. I realize that Kaden can’t tell anyone what happened between us. What is still happening. It’s a bad spot for him to be in, and Dr. Bell is the main person we need to tiptoe around.
“How does it feel to wake up every morning?” she asks, smiling.
“Amazing,” I say.
“Pittsburgh Memorial’s state of the art research and medical team really pulled through for you,” she says.
“Dr. Prince saved me,” I say, feeling a bit uneasy.
“Yes,” she says. “He played a big role, but it never would have been possible without Pittsburgh Memorial’s aggressive investments and unwavering faith in experimental research and technologies.”
“You...don’t have to advertise to me, Dr. Bell,” I say. “You’ve already won me over.”
She laughs. “So nothing I said sounds disingenuous then?” she asks.
“It’s, uh,” I say, remembering the guard tackling Kaden. “Not exactly the words I would use?”
“What words would you use?” she asks.
“I’d just say that I’m very grateful to this hospital and to Dr. Prince for what you did for me. For not giving up on me…”
I trail off, remembering that this is the woman who did give up on me.
She seems really good at reading my face, though, and she always steps right in before my negative thoughts can surface.
“You have to understand, Rose,” she says, “that as director, I’m not responsible for just one patient. It’s not just about money—we have limited staff and personnel. I have to make cold and calculated decisions at times—it’s my job to do that—and with how we planned to handle you...it was a difficult decision, I acknowledge that.”
I just look at her, not knowing how to respond to such an admission of guilt.
“But,” she says, “there’s a reason I keep loose cannons like Dr. Prince on staff. There’s a reason I search out doctors like him, to act as a check and balance against me. Doctors like him are the heart of this hospital.”
“And you’re the brain?” I ask.
She laughs. “We’re going to be presenting Dr. Prince with a distinguished service award. It’s very rare, and only given to our top doctors.”
“He deserves it,” I say, quickly.
She smiles, but it looks fake. “It would be great if you could be present at the ceremony...maybe if you could even say something? It would give a really personal touch to the acknowledgement of his accomplishment.”
“You want me to say the commercial-sounding stuff that you said earlier, don’t you?” I ask.
“That was just an example,” she says, briskly. “Why don’t you draft it into your own words, and then let me have a look at it. We can work on it together.”
I don’t really want to, but if it helps Kaden, I can probably stomach helping Dr. Bell. As uneasy as she makes me, I can’t deny that she could have thrown the book at Kaden, but didn’t. I shouldn’t do anything to risk turning her against him.
“Keep it professional,” Dr. Bell says, standing up. “When you’re on stage with Dr. Prince.”
I feel my heart pound, and I try to look confused, but I fear I know what she’s saying. “What do you mea—?”
“Don’t play innocent with me,” Bell says.
“While the bright spotlight is shining on Dr. Prince, it’s best that you behave yourself. Once those fifteen minutes of fame are up, I don’t care what you do. Understand?”
I nod, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach.
Kaden comes by to visit me later, and I tell him what Dr. Bell said.
“Don’t do it if you don’t want to,” he says.
“I’m not worried about speaking, Kaden, I’m worried about...the other thing.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s my responsibility. I don’t regret—”
“I don’t either!” I say. “That makes it our responsibility.”
“I have your discharge papers,” he says. “You’re being released in five days.”
“So I only have to wait—we only have to wait—five days?”
He nods. “Looks that way.”
I bite my lip, wishing I could kiss him again. Taste him again. Now. Not in five days.
I want to do much more than that with him, though, and at some point, I’ll have to tell him that I’ve never... ever...done that.
Dylan comes in right then, and Kaden turns around to shake his hand.
“I just got the news,” he says, grinning, “Five days!”
Kaden smiles. “Faster than we expected, but Rose is doing great.”
“I got a bed for you on Craigslist,” Dylan says. “You can stay with me for as long as you need to.”
I smile. It feels good to know that Dylan is still there for me. The loss of Mom and Dad still hasn’t totally hit me yet. I feel like it will soon, and it will be gut-wrenching. Every time I remember they are gone—and have been gone for years—it just hits me like this odd and confusing wrinkle in reality. I keep thinking that one day I’ll realize everyone was confused, and Mom and Dad are still here. Kaden said that my brain may just be partitioning off certain traumas while it reboots.
“I received permission to take you out again today,” Dylan says. “I can show you around and stuff.”
“Oh,” I say. “Without Kaden?”
I feel a little bit disappointed, but then I realize that Dylan is my brother, and any reason to leave the hospital is too precious to second guess.
“I’m supposed to call if anything even slightly worrying happens,” Dylan says. “But other than that, we’re free to go!”
“I’ll get dressed,” I say.
I go ahead and put on the yoga pants this time. I want Kaden to get a good look, so that he’ll know what he has to look forward to.
When I step back into the room, fully dressed, I’m pleased to see Kaden’s eyes dart back down to my hips and ass. I smile at him when he realizes I caught him looking, and he licks his lips.
“Ready?” Dylan asks.
I nod.
“I’ll take good care of her, Dr. Prince.”
“I know you will,” he says.
He drives me around our old neighborhood in Highland Park, showing me how things have changed. When he pulls up to where we used to live, he slows down and stops the car.
I look out at the house. It’s a two-story, three-bedroom house with only one bathroom. A bathroom Dylan and I fought over relentlessly growing up.
“Who owns it now?” I ask.
“Some young family,” he says. “Just one kid, though.”
I smile. “Less fighting over the bathroom.”
“I miss it sometimes,” he says. “Living there, even though we were kind of shitty to each other.”
I want to say I miss it, too, but I realize we have two wildly different reference points. To Dylan, it was over six years ago, while to me, it was just a few weeks ago. I haven’t had time to miss it, it’s just gone.
I feel myself starting to tear up, and I bring my shoulder up to wipe preemptively before it’s visible.
Dylan flashes me a sympathetic look, but I just say, “Had an itch.”
He smiles, pretending to believe me. “Want to see the new pad?”
“Sure,” I say.
We drive up to a six-story apartment building.
“It’s way smaller than the house,” he says. “But there will only be the two of us...so if you do the math on square footage divided by occupants, you—”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say. “Especially after living in a single room, on a bed. All day.”
“That’s fair,” he says. “Let’s go in, and I’ll give you a tour.”
We go inside, and we take the elevator up to the fifth floor. He opens the door, and I see the place really is tiny. The kitchen and living room look like they were hastily tidied—like it was a total mess and Dylan scrambled to clean up, missing the baseboards and other nooks and crannies.
“Nice,” I say, smiling.
“I’ll show you your room,” he says.
He opens a door, and the room actually looks spotless. There’s a nice bed with a headboard, and the walls are covered with framed pictures—some are from my room just as I had left it, and others are new. Pictures of me, of our family. Of my past.
I start to cry straight away. He must have spent so long working on this, all while working full-time and going back and forth to the hospital every day. No wonder he didn’t have time to clean the kitchen.
I look at him and see him swelling with pride.
I hug him as tightly as I can, squeezing the life out of him. “Thank you, Dylan, thank you so much! This is just amazing. Absolutely amazing.”
I go around and look at all of the pictures. Many are of us growing up, with Mom and Dad. The grief really starts to seep in now, though, as I realize that the photos of Mom and Dad are all I really have left. I’m never going to see them again—the memories are all I have.
“I’ll give you a minute…” he says, walking awkwardly out of the room.
There’s a box of tissues on the dresser, and I pull several out and clean my face off and blow my nose.
I get a handle on myself after ten minutes or so, and I go back out into the living room. Dylan is just sitting on the couch, not watching TV or anything. Just waiting for me. “You ready?” he says, sounding antsy. “Let me show you the common areas and stuff...there’s a laundry room, a room you can reserve for parties—”
“I’m sure it’s all fine,” I say. “We can just watch a movie or something if—”
“No,” he says. “Just check it out.”
“Okay,” I say, not knowing why he’s so excited about showing me the laundry room.
We go down the elevator and walk down a hallway. He opens a door, and when I step inside, I see a bunch of banners and balloons, and the room is packed full of people.
“Welcome home!” they all shout, and I see the banner reads, “Welcome Back, Rose!”
I start crying all over again, seeing that the room is full of people I know. People I knew. They all look different now. Older. Some fatter, some skinnier, but all still familiar.
I see my old best friend, Kayla, standing near the front.
“Kayla!” I shout. “I heard you moved to D.C...I—”
“I did!” she says, hugging me. “But I took some time off to come back for this. Dylan got us all to come back at once when he heard you were getting out...we want to make sure you feel welcome and at home, and—”
I squeeze her tighter. “Thank you, it’s so amazing. Thank you so much.”
I turn to Dylan and smile wide at my brother, wiping tears from my eyes.
I look around the room, greeting dozens of old friends. In the back, I notice Ryan. His arms are crossed, and he looks apprehensively toward me. When I make eye contact with him, he looks away.
He looks almost the same, but he’s filled out a lot more. He’s no longer “too skinny,” instead he just looks jacked. Like he works out, a lot.
“Oh,” Kayla says. “Ryan was with you when...when you—”
“Yeah,” I say. “He was.”
I smile at him and wave shyly, and then he approaches me slowly.
“I knew you’d wake up, Rose,” he says.
“I almost feel like you were so bored by the movie we went to see,” he says, “that you fell asleep for seven years.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I snap. “I fell asleep before the movie even got going, it couldn’t have been—”
“Did you dream?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, not really. Not that I remember, at least.”
“That’s good,” he says. “Dreaming for too long could make you go crazy. You should watch that movie sometime, Rose.”
“Maybe I will,” I say. “Now that I can relate to it better. What have you been doing? Do you live here?”
“Yeah,” he nods. “I’m a CrossFit trainer here in the city.”
So I guess he does work out a lot. It’s literally his job.
“We never actually broke up,” he says, grinning.
“So you didn’t date anyone while—”
“I’m just joking,” he says, smiling. “I waited a respectable amount of time, and then…”
“I got it,” I say, rolling my eyes. “No need to go into detail.”
I realize I can’t mention to anyone—even my friends—that I’m seeing someone. The inevitable question would be, “Who? You just woke up a few days ago.”
Food has been catered in from La Tienda, my old favorite burrito place, and I get to catch up with everyone one by one. I can’t believe that so many people who don’t even live here anymore were willing to drop everything to come see me. I start to wish that Kaden could be here, but that would start to raise a lot of questions, I’m sure.
After we finish eating, Ryan comes up to me again and says, “I was kind of joking about how we never broke up...but I wouldn’t mind taking you out sometime, once you’re fully recovered, I mean.”
I awkwardly look away from him. “Uh, I mean, I’m not really looking for any kind of relationship right now—”
“It’s cool,” he says. “Way too soon, I got ya.”
I force a smile, but still feel awkward. I came this close to losing my v-card to this guy. If I had been awake for even a few more hours, it would have happened, but there’s seven years between us now, and one delicious doctor.