Loved You Always

by Natalina Reis

  He pulled me toward him in a tight embrace. “Maybe I should move in with you.” That floored me! Where did that come from? In all the time we’d been dating, that subject had never really come up. Why now? “That way I could be close if you needed me.”

  Shaking, I hid my face in his shoulder. I did not want him to see my expression. “That’s very sweet of you, Dave, but we have our professional lives and I really don’t need someone watching over me.”

  I must have sounded a bit too rough because he pulled me back and looked me in the eye. “Are you saying moving in together is out of the question?” No, no, no… why now?

  “I’m just not ready to talk about it right now,” I fudged. “So much has happened in these past few days, my head is reeling from it all. I need time to relax and clear my mind. Surely you can understand that, right?”

  He nodded, his honest, handsome face very close to mine. “Of course, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” Don’t apologize. Please, don’t apologize. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You need your space and time. We’ll talk about this later.”

  Or never.

  Before I could move away, he came in for a kiss. I had always loved the feeling of his generous lips on mine, but now they felt flat. I did not want to lock lips with him. Not now. Maybe never again. What was wrong with me? This was the same sweet man I had been dating and making love to for the past two years, and now, out of the blue, it felt awkward to be the center of his affection.

  Thankfully, Dave had to leave shortly after that. His business couldn’t run itself, and it was still quite a long ride from the hospital to town. We said our farewells back in my room just in time for my sister to come back. Celia was flushed and I could have sworn her lipstick was slightly smudged. What had she been up to?

  “So, what do you want to do now?” she asked, rubbing her hands together as if plotting the caper of the century.

  “I would very much like for you to introduce me to the doctor who has been exchanging kisses with you while your sister is languishing in her hospital bed.”

  She threw a pillow at me. So, I was right after all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  __________

  Angels in Hospital Gowns

  Her leopard-print palazzo pants kept distracting me. Sometimes it was very hard to keep your focus in the presence of Marcy, the witch. Her clothing was as hypnotizing as a magician’s watch. Today she had topped her outfit with a pretty, plain white shirt, tied into a knot by her waist, and her crazy, red, frizzy hair was marginally controlled by a crocheted black beanie. Where did this girl shop for clothes?

  “You are not listening to me,” she said in an accusatory tone.

  “Sorry, Marcy.” I refocused my attention. “Are you saying you think we’re safe now?”

  “Your auras are clean,” she said with a very serious face.

  “Did you wash them?” Celia threw me a look that could only be described as metal-melting. “Bad joke. I just have trouble… believing in that stuff.”

  The little witch adjusted the waist of her pants. “I know, and that’s okay as long as you listen to me the next time I tell you to run.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Coincidence or not, it was just slightly spooky that she had warned me of danger minutes before it had actually happened.

  “I promise to give your warnings the utmost consideration,” I said by way of a compromise, pushing the IV tube out of the way. “Can you see in your crystal ball when they’ll remove this contraption from my arm?”

  Marcy laughed. I loved the way she laughed. It was genuine and heartfelt. “Silly. Witches don’t use crystal balls.” Then again, she seemed to have a hard time identifying sarcasm when she heard it.

  “Mom and Dad called,” Celia said, fussing over me. “They’re back safe and sound. They wanted me to tell you that they still have that god-awful flamingo you gave them when they first moved to Florida. They say it turned out to be super helpful scaring the gators away.”

  I giggled. It was a seriously hideous yard flamingo. My parents had left the day before, after a short visit. They wanted to stay longer, but I fought them all the way. No point in them worrying themselves sick when I was perfectly fine. Maybe a little shaken, kind of like James Bond’s drinks, but not stir-crazy.

  Jem’s parents had arrived in town with mine. Leave it to parents to plot a mass attack on their children. Smooth talker that he was, Jem had been able to convince his parents to go back to their laid-back retiree life along with mine after a very short visit. Both sets of parents had moaned and groaned, but in the end they gave in. Now with them back in sunny Florida, we both could breathe a little easier.

  “It’s time for my visit with Jem, so if you ladies would kindly remove yourselves from my room, I would deeply appreciate it.” I pushed the sheets aside.

  Celia gave me a pointed look. “I thought you wanted to stay away from him,” she said.

  “We were kidnapped together. Twice!” I swung my legs off the bed. “It’s a little late for that.”

  My sister rushed to help me get out of the bed. “I’m just worried that you’re getting too close to Jem and losing perspective.”

  I readjusted the IV bag on the stand. “I thought you liked Jem.” I was confused by her attitude.

  “I love Jem and I would love nothing better than you guys getting together,” she said, straightening my hospital gown. “But I also know how you are and how you would never leave Dave, no matter how much you love Jem.”

  “I love Dave,” I protested weakly.

  “Yes, you do.” Celia was staring at me with that I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself look. “And you would be miserable for the rest of your life because you wouldn’t have the heart to tell him you’re in love with someone else.”

  I prickled. “Jem and I are just friends—”

  Celia crossed her arms across her chest. “Are you telling me you guys spent all that time together—alone—and nothing happened?” Uh-oh, she had that truth serum stare.

  I shook my head in denial. “Nothing happened.” Then I glanced at her. “Almost nothing.”

  My evil sister pointed her finger at me. “Ah-ha! I knew it! You guys did the nasty.”

  My face contorted in horror. “No, oh my God, Celia, no!” I yelled. “We absolutely did not do any such thing.” Okay, we may have come close, but no cigar. “We kissed, that’s all.”

  “That’s all?” Marcy exclaimed in unison with my sister. “A kiss is the deepest manifestation of love.”

  Giving up, I threw my hands in the air and left the room huffing and puffing. Well-intentioned women with the most annoying habit of sticking their noses where they did not belong. Let them entertain themselves while I visited my beaten-up friend… whom I deeply, truly, hopelessly loved. Hell! What was I going to do?

  The nurse was just finishing up changing his bandages, and as I walked in I spied the ugly bruises staining his muscular chest with a purplish black. “Nice colors there, my friend,” I quipped while my heart was plummeting to my feet.

  Jem looked up. The swelling around his eyes had subsided substantially, and I could now clearly see his beautiful blue eyes—still bloodshot but open at least. “So, we’re back to being friends?” At my quizzical look, he added, “From frenemies and occasional bed buddies.”

  The nurse threw me a quick glance and smiled, amused. I felt the need to explain. “It’s not what you think. He just means we had to share a bed because it was the only one available.” The nurse smiled wider. “Nothing happened. Really.”

  I don’t think the lovely lady in white was buying it. How could she? I was having trouble myself. Not when my heart was telling me something very different.

  “No funny business.” She waved her long finger at me. “He must get as much rest as he can.” She left with another smile dancing in her eyes.

  “See what you did?” I said, approaching the bed. “Now she thinks we’re an item.”

  “Why does that bother you so
much?” Jem had been taken off the ventilator, but he was still connected to all kinds of monitoring machines. The doctors seemed to think he was out of the woods, so to speak. But they preferred to err on the side of caution.

  “Because it’s not true.” I avoided his piercing eyes. “If Dave hears these… notions, he’ll get upset. I don’t want to hurt him.”

  Suddenly, his smile vanished and a somber expression came over his face. “Won’t you hurt him more if you make him believe he’s the one you truly love when he’s not?”

  “And what makes you think that’s what’s happening?” I grumbled, irritation growing like a roaring fire inside of me. “Why does everybody think they know what’s going on inside my heart better than me?”

  Silence fell around us as I stood by the side of his bed, panting as if I had just run a marathon. The ever-present tears of late were burning in my eyes again. My conflicted self fought with the choice of either running out of the room or finding the comfort I craved in Jem’s arms.

  In a quick move, Jem took hold of my hand and pulled me closer. “I held you against my heart and you’ve held me against yours. You may have not spoken the words, but your heart did. My heart did, too. You can’t deny it.”

  I pulled my hand away from his. “Jeremy Peter, you are full of shit and you know it!” I said, my voice a low growl. “No matter what you say, if you really loved me you wouldn’t have run after Tina all the way to another continent.” I hoped he wouldn’t notice I wasn’t denying what he had said about my heart’s desires.

  “I didn’t run after her!” he said emphatically. “I ran in the same direction. There’s a difference.”

  My heart galloped like a wild horse, leaving me gasping for air. “Are you going to lie there and tell me you never slept with Tina? That all these years, your relationship was purely platonic?” Did I really want him to tell me what I already knew? It was almost as if I needed him to hurt me, so I could justify denying myself his love.

  His hesitation spoke volumes and felt like the stabbing of a thousand knives straight to the chest. “I can’t,” he said in a small voice, his eyes falling from mine. “You know very well that I can’t.”

  Bleeding inside and with tears blurring my vision, I took a deep breath and spat out the words. “Right! Exactly! You don’t know what love is.”

  I’m not sure how I managed to run all the way to my room with the IV stand trailing behind me, but I did. Thankfully neither Celia nor Marcy was there. I threw myself on the bed, my face buried in the pillow, and cried. Five years of wondering what had happened, and even more of loving him in secret while he dated every skirt in town, burned in my chest. The last few weeks of yearning for something that came too little, too late poured out into the pillow in a torrent of liquid pain.

  I felt arms encircle me and knew that my sister was back. I would recognize those arms anywhere. Through the years we had comforted each other more often than we would like to admit. “Shhh,” she cooed in my ear. “Everything will be all right.”

  I held on to her as if to a lifeline and cried my heart out some more. “I hate him. I hate him so much.” I did. I hated him for leaving me. I hated him for stealing my heart. I hated him for coming back. And for each I hate him I had an I love him, because one didn’t seem to go without the other. Not for Jem, my best friend who had been there for me so many times in the past I had lost count. The boy, and then the man, I had fallen in love with was not the villain I wanted to believe he was—he was just human, flawed like everyone else. No more, no less.

  The smell of something sweet and warm reached my nostrils. “Drink this, girl.” Marcy was standing by us, a cup of something hot and steamy in her hands. “This will soothe your heart and your soul.”

  I doubted that anything could do that, but at that point I was willing to try just about anything that had the slightest chance of pulling me out of the misery pit I had dug myself into. I wiped the tears that still lingered in my eyes and took the cup from her.

  “Jem called me,” my sister said suddenly. “He said you were hurting and that, since he couldn’t get out of bed and do it himself, I should come and give you a hug.”

  I’m sure I looked utterly pitiful, with blotchy eyes and a snotty nose. I sniffed and took a long sip of the tea. It was very fragrant and bitter with a faint taste of strawberries. In spite of my doubts, I started feeling better immediately. This witch had some skills after all.

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, and it’s really not my place to say this.” Marcy pushed her sliding glasses up the bridge of her nose. “But if you guys love each other—and it’s obvious that you do—why not just give in? You’re fighting your own heart and that’s not a good place to be.”

  My sister answered for me. “The problem, Marcy, is Dave. She doesn’t want to break his heart.”

  Marcy wrinkled her tiny nose and squinted. “But Celia,” she said, lowering her voice, “haven’t you told her about…?” She was interrupted by my sister’s distinctive look of death. What was going on?

  “What Marcy means is that maybe you should just talk to Dave about it.” Nice save. She was definitely hiding something.

  I must have been under some kind of spell because even though my brain was telling me I should inquire further, I let it go. So very unlike me.

  “Dave asked me if he could move in with me.” I took another sip from the miraculous tea.

  Celia’s eyes opened so wide, I thought her eyeballs would pop out. “What?” She was practically screaming. “He did what?”

  I took another tiny sip from the delicious, tart concoction and sighed. “He wanted to move in so he could take care of me.”

  Marcy made a move as if to say something, but she was brusquely interrupted by my sister. “When did this happen?”

  What was in this tea? I felt as if I were walking on clouds. A giggle escaped my lips. “A couple days ago,” I said with what had to be a very silly grin. “What in heaven’s name is in this tea? I feel high as a kite.”

  The red-haired witch laughed. “Yes, it is very relaxing and potent,” she said. “I gave you an extra-strong dose. Glad to see it’s working.”

  Celia looked at Marcy and frowned. “Are you sure she’s okay? She’s acting as if she’s drunk.”

  With an enthusiastic nod, Marcy took the empty cup out of my hands. “She’s fine. In fact, now might be the best time to tell her about Dave.”

  That made my ears perk up a bit. “What about Dave? Is he here? He’s such a sweet man,” I babbled on. I could actually hear myself saying these things as if I were watching myself from a distance. “He doesn’t deserve this. I’m a bad person.” I burst out laughing. “Marcy, did anybody ever tell you that you wear the weirdest clothes?”

  Marcy laughed again. In the back of my mind—way back—I knew I wasn’t making any sense, but I couldn’t stop it. I felt so relaxed and happy.

  Whispering reached my ears, but I couldn’t hear the words. My sister was busy telling the little witch something. She looked worried or mad, not sure which. Nothing was making much sense to me at that moment.

  “Hey, witch!” I called, falling backward into my pillow. “What’s in this tea?”

  “Skullcap and strawberries,” Marcy replied, winking at Celia.

  “Well, the caps of those skulls are something, let me tell you,” I rambled on. “You should bottle it and sell it.”

  I turned on my side and curled into a fetal position. “Feeling very sleepy…,” I said.

  Right before falling asleep, I thought I heard my sister say, “I can’t tell her now. She’s too fragile.” But I was probably dreaming already.

  Sometime during the night, around the time when hospital hallways become this dreamlike world, I got out of bed and walked to Jem’s room in the ICU. The undercover policemen who had been watching his room like hawks didn’t bother to stop me. By now they knew exactly who I was.

  Jem was fast asleep and I watched him silently for a long time. His
golden curls were spread on the white pillow now that they had removed his head bandages. His face, so savagely abused, was relaxed and almost back to its normal shape and size. I used to spend a lot of time watching him sleep when we were younger, fascinated as I was with his ability to sleep soundly and peacefully through just about anything. These many years later, I was still in awe of the way he slept with total abandon, even here in the hospital and after having gone through such a traumatic experience.

  In spite of my earlier anger, I smiled. This was my Jem, my together-forever pal of childhood and teen years.

  Quietly, I climbed in bed with him, careful of all the wires and tubes, pulling the thin blankets over both of us. I settled myself against his side, my head on his shoulder, hand across his chest. I closed my eyes and listened. His heart sang against my ear, a life-giving beat that both energized and lulled me to sleep. Unconsciously, his arm came to rest on top of mine, like it had done so many times in the past. It felt so right.

  Tomorrow I would face reality, but for now I was in heaven in the arms of an angel. All was well.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  __________

  Betrayal and Revenge

  The police decided to keep me in the hospital the full week and a half even though I had been cleared for release less than a week after I was admitted. It was easier to keep us both safe if we were in the same place, they told me. Now that Jem had finally been declared healed enough to go home, I was also free to go. Or at least, I was free to leave the hospital. They were still going to keep us together and under twenty-four-hour surveillance until either Tina was brought back from France, or wherever she was, to give her testimony in court or the one to blame for this mess was behind bars. Jem was in danger until then, and so was I by association. Because of the possible mole in the department, Detective Jarvas had decided there was not much point in taking us to a safe house and was going to allow us to stay at my place, as long as we complied with their rules and didn’t stray without some kind of escort.