by Ali Parker
"And if he doesn’t?" Tears filled her eyes and my worry crept up another notch. She was close to going off the deep end.
"Then we'll find another guy who's way better for you, Jackie. You're not yourself at all. You need to get some sleep."
"Maybe you're right." She pressed her hands to her face, and I took the opportunity to move up beside her and wrap my arm around her shoulders. I guided her back toward the parking lot and stopped beside my car, fumbling with the keys to get the damn thing unlocked.
"Let me take you back to your apartment and you can get some sleep. Does that sound okay?"
"I guess. I'm so tired, but every time I try to get some rest, all I do is think about how much I miss him, or how good we were together."
"I have some sleeping pills at the house. Let's just go back to my place instead. How does that sound?"
"I like that idea too." She pulled me into a tight hug and pressed her cheek to my shoulder. "Don't let me turn into a lunatic."
"I'm working on that, but you're not being much help in the matter." I forced a laugh and helped her into the car.
Cameron's red Honda was sitting outside of my apartment complex when I drew up, causing the morning to go from bad to worse. First Jackie acting like a psycho and then having to deal with Cameron?
Shit. Kill me now.
I got out of the car and reached for Jackie's hand as she got out of her side and glanced around.
"What are you looking at?"
"Nothing. Come on." I helped her up the stairs and barely got her settled in the darkness of my bedroom when a knock resounded at the front door. "Get some rest. I'll wake you up for our shift later today."
"Okay. Don't forget."
I closed the door and let out a soft sigh as the person knocked again.
"I'm coming," I mumbled and walked to the door, making sure to peek through the peephole in the door first. Cameron. Of course. Who the hell else was I expecting?
I opened the door a little bit as a chill ran down my back. "Hey there."
"Hi Dana. Can we talk for a few minutes?"
"I'm kind of busy right now."
"Is Jackie okay? I saw you almost carrying her up the stairs."
"She's fine. Now isn't a good time."
"Please? I'm not here to do anything but talk. I promise. I fucked up and I wanted to apologize. I don't know where we went wrong, but I take one hundred percent of the fault for it."
"And you should." I slipped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me. "I was completely sold out on us being together forever."
"I still am."
"Right, well, that ship has sailed. You treated me like shit, made me feel like the most unattractive woman in the world and wouldn't make love to me if I begged you."
The snicker from the guys that passed behind Cameron only caused my anger to burn brighter.
"I was a fucking idiot. You're a hard working woman, you're intelligent and so far beyond hot it's painful to think about never making love to you again. Give me another chance. Please. Two years shouldn't be thrown down the drain that fast without us trying to get it back. I'll do anything."
"No." I shrugged and pressed my back to the door. It wasn't even about me finding Kendal and starting to dream about all that we could become. It was about me being unwilling to let the fucker in front of me weasel his way back into my life only to push me down again before I could blink twice.
"No isn't going to work. Maybe? Yes? Those are great, but no isn't what I'm looking for."
"Fuck you then. You don't scare me, and you're not going to intimidate me. You walked out on me and left me trying to pay rent in this expensive ass place without any notice at all." I poked my finger into his chest. "You didn't even have the decency to call."
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to see that the hospital was calling.
"Dana-"
"No. I need to take this. We're done. Through. Leave me the fuck alone." I turned and walked back into the house, locked the door and dropped down on the chair nearest me. "This is Dana."
"Hey. It's Tinsley." Never in a million years would I have expected the bitch on the other end of the phone to have an almost caring tone when talking to me.
"What do you want?"
"It's Amanda. She just flat lined. They're about to call in Kendal. If you're anywhere near him..."
"Fuck." I jumped up and grabbed my keys as horror raced through me. "Give me ten minutes to get to him. Please."
"You have five minutes at most."
"Thank you." I dialed his number and ran down the stairs, almost tripping three times before I made it to my car. It went straight to voice mail, which left me with no choice but to race from accounting room to accounting room in search of him. I'd never make it in time, but I certainly had to try.
Chapter 19
Kendal
I wasn't sure anything could get my mood down as I walked into the classroom on Monday morning, not even having to meet with Heather later that day. She could push and shove as much as she wanted to, but I had Eliza on my side, and I would soon be meeting with Mark to let him know what was going on. If she made it to him first, I would count my blessings and explain my side of the story. Though sexual harassment cases were rare with a male being the victim, it still happened. I would just start being smarter about my private interactions with Dr. Turner and would tape them on my phone from here on out.
"Bethany." I stopped at the opening to the large auditorium where I taught.
"Hey, Dr. Tarrington."
I closed the door behind me, and almost told her to call me Kendal, but we both knew better than to be too casual with one another on campus. We could be friends outside of UT, and would be a part of each other's lives for a long time thanks to her being part of Damon's family now, but in the classroom, we were strangers.
"It's not Tuesday, right? I don't have my days mixed up do I?" I forced a smile and moved to take the seat beside her.
"No. I just wanted to stop by to see you." She glanced down at her hands and let out a shaky breath. "I went on a date last night with Philip."
My heart almost stopped in my chest. Where she and Damon were technically apart, I knew my best friend. If she slept with this Philip character all bets were off. I tried to think through how to ask her and yet not be too crude about it. She trusted me and was there for advice from me. I couldn't deny her my thoughts or my attention, even if it felt like stepping on Damon's dick in some way.
"All right." I leaned back in my chair and dropped my hands into my lap.
"And all I could think about was Damon." She pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "He's not the right man for me, Kendal. I know he's not, but I can't get him out of my head. It's driving me insane."
"Love does that." I swallowed hard and clasped my hands together. "Bethany, you didn't, you know..."
She glanced up, her expression tight. "Didn't what? Tell Damon? Hell no. He would kill Philip with his bare hands."
"No, you didn't sleep with this guy, right?"
"With Philip?" Her incredulous tone let me know that there was no way in hell she slept with the other guy.
Relief raced through me in large waves, leaving me panting softly as my heart tried to catch up to the news that my best friend still had a chance to make things right with his woman.
"Thank God." I stood up and walked toward the stage. "He wouldn't forgive that."
"I know that. I wouldn't forgive it either. We might be on a break, but he still belongs to me." The fierceness in her voice caused chill-bumps to break out along my skin. She still loved him. I wanted a woman to be that possessive over me. I wanted Dana to demand my time, my attention, but it was still too soon.
"And he believes that you still belong to him." I turned to face her. "He didn't hire Delilah. Kent did."
"How do you know that?"
"We played golf together on Saturday and I asked him."
"Was he angry about your ask
ing? Did you tell him it was for me?"
"No, because it wasn't for you. I wasn't even sure I was going to tell you what I found out." I sighed and rubbed my forehead. "You two are acting like fucking children over this thing, Bethany. You're not a young girl looking for your prince charming, and he's not a broken soul who can find healing in anyone but himself. You can't make each other complete."
"Says who?" She took a few steps toward me and pressed her fingers into my chest. "Love has the power to do anything it wants to do."
"And what does it want to do, Bethany? Save you both?"
"I don't know, but I can't hold on too much longer." She pressed her free hand to her chest as her face crumbled. "I'm hurting so bad right here. It feels like someone has a fucking vise grip around my heart and I need him so badly."
"Then go to him. Let him hold you and remind you how much he loves you. Stop fighting this shit and embrace it."
"Then he wins." She pushed at my chest as an ugly cry rose up out of her pretty mouth. "If he wins he'll never respect me for who I am."
"You don't know that." I gripped her hand tightly and pulled her toward me as a flash of color outside the window to the auditorium caught my attention. I ignored it and the buzzing in my pocket as I gave Damon's girl my full attention. "Stop speaking for everyone around you. You don't know what he has to say about his feelings for you or the reason he hired Philip. Maybe that was to show you that he trusted you to make the right decisions, but you're not doing that."
"I'm not a fucking puppet." She pulled her hand from mine and walked toward the door. "Your class roster is on your desk. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Bethany, go talk to him. I can't solve this for you guys."
"I wasn't asking you to." She paused by the door and glanced over her shoulder. "What would you do for love? Would you give up your rights and become whatever your lover wanted you to?"
"Is he asking that of you or are you forcing yourself to believe a lie to stay protected from possibly the greatest thing you might experience in this life." I hated to push her, but someone had to, and it wasn't going to be Matt or Jake.
"Would you change everything, Kendal? That was the question."
I pulled my phone from my pocket and swallowed the worry that rose up my chest at seeing that both the hospital and Dana had called several times.
"Yes. I would change everything for the kind of love that promised to sustain me through loss and death, through fear and loneliness. There isn't anything I wouldn't give up for that."
"Not even your rules?" Her eyebrow lifted and she had me.
"Perhaps that's the only thing." I smirked and shook my head. "Get out of here and go mend what you've almost let get broken. It's not worth all that, and if I stand correct, neither you nor Damon have rules."
"Thank God for that." She patted the door and mumbled her thanks before walking out.
I dialed Dana's number and pulled the phone to my ear as my heart hammered in my chest.
"Dana?" I barked into the phone as someone answered it.
"Who was the girl, Kendal?" Her tone was ugly, her voice filled with a thick hurt I'd felt myself far too many times.
"What girl?" I glanced around. Was she on campus? If so, how did she find me and why was she looking for me? What was going on?
"The pretty brunette you had pinned to your chest a few minutes ago."
"No, baby. That was Damon's girlfriend, Bethany. She's my TA."
"I know what I saw." She sniffed. "I'm outside. Come out here please."
"Of course. Wait right there." I put the phone in my pocket and moved out into the hall as students started to file into my classroom. The phone buzzed again and I pulled it out as I side-skirted running into a handful of kids and finally got outside.
"Hey. Where are you?" I stopped and glanced around, unable to find Dana in the mass of people milling about.
"I'm at the hospital. It's Tinsley, Dr. Tarrington. We need you to come up here now."
"Is it Amanda? Is she okay?"
"Just get someone to bring you up here, Kendal. No rush, okay?"
"What? Why isn't there a rush? What the hell is going on?" I glanced around as white-hot fear filled up my insides.
"Did Dana not tell you what she and I discussed on Saturday?" Tinsley's voice was almost too soft to hear, or maybe I was shutting her out. Reason would ring true if they needed me up there, but if there was no urgency to it than my sister had lost her fight with MS. There was no fucking way I could accept that. I hadn't seen her in a couple of days and...
"What discussion with Dana?" I closed my eyes as my knees went weak. My latest obsession had been so adamant about me going up to the hospital to see my sister. Why? What did she know?
The look on her face as she cried in the kitchen swam past my closed eyes. She knew something that night. She'd played it off as having lost her favorite patient, but it was more than that. Why the fuck hadn't I pressed her on it?
Simple... I trusted her to tell me without having to push.
"The date of your sister’s prescribed end."
"Prescribed end? What the fuck does that even mean?" I pulled the phone from my ear and glanced down at it as the world spun around me. "Is Amanda dead? Tell me."
"Just come up here, Dr. Tarrington." Was Tinsley crying? It sure as hell sounded like it.
I put the phone in my pocket and jogged back toward my classroom as bile rose up in my throat. I was going to lose my breakfast the minute I bent over and took a deep breath.
Hold on. Everything is fine. Amanda is perfectly fine. You're overreacting and reading something into nothing. Chill the fuck out.
I made it back to the classroom and walked toward my bag as some of the students greeted me. I nodded politely and prayed like hell that I didn't look nearly as bad as I felt. Not only was my sister quite possibly dead, but the woman I was hoping to start dating knew that Amanda only had a few days left and didn't tell me? Why? Was she trying to protect me, and if so, did that make it okay that she left me fucking waste the last few times I could get up to see my baby sister before she left me?
Was it really Dana's fault or my own?
I needed it to be mine. Something that important left me wanting to pull back and not let anything else develop between the two of us. I was being unfair and overreacting, but it was what it was. Holding myself in check was all I had the strength to do as I stopped by my desk and grabbed my bag and keys.
Jake walked up and patted me on the back before jerking his hand away. "Dr. Tarrington? What's wrong? You having chest pains?"
"What? No." I glanced over at him. "Do tell Mark that I need a sub for today. My little sister just died."
I wasn't sure of my own claims, or maybe I was and wanted to deny them. And where the fuck was Dana? She said she was on campus and then disappeared when I went to look for her. Had she come to confess about Amanda's death date or maybe offer me comfort when I got the news? What the fuck was going on?
"Holy shit. You need me to drive you to the hospital?"
"Hm? No. I'm good, just go tell Mark for me."
"The dean?"
"Yeah. Thanks." I grabbed the registration list for my mini-mesters, my keys and my bag and walked for the door. I kept my eyes on the paper as a ploy to keep from having to acknowledge anyone around me. I made it to my car about the time I heard her call my voice from behind.
"Kendal. Wait."
I turned and started to tuck the papers under my arm as something left me disturbed far beyond anything else I'd encountered lately. I pulled the paper back toward my face and scanned the names on the list of students taking my master's-level financial statement analysis class.
Dana Young.
"What the fuck?" I glanced up as my heart broke in my chest.
"Did they reach you? Did you hear about Amanda?" She reached out, but I stepped back as shock rolled over me.
"What the fuck is this?" I ignored the situation she was going on about and shoved the paper
toward her.
"What? What is this?" She took it and scanned it before handing it back to me. "Snap out of it and get in the goddamn car. Amanda didn't make it through the night. We need to get up there. Who the fuck cares about the class schedule. It was supposed to be a surprise. Give me the keys to the car."
"No." I gripped them tightly. She was going to be my student in seven days. My goddamn master’s student. As if her lying about the situation with Amanda wasn't enough... this was too much. I had rules. I'd made them to protect me and no matter what, I wasn't breaking them.
Not for her.
Not for anyone.
Not even for love.
Chapter 20
Dana
Watching Kendal drive away with anger all over his handsome face left me broken in two. The schedule clutched in my hand was the reason behind his pissy attitude or was it more than that? Most people in the middle of grief will turn to anything and everything else in hopes of hiding the soul-wrenching reality they're forced to face.
Amanda was dead. Kendal's little sister hadn't made it through the night. Her MS finally won the battle and now he was forced to face death with no one by his side. Both of his parents were gone from what I'd read in Amanda's file at the hospital.
Tears burned my eyes as he tore out of the parking lot at UT and never looked back. Maybe it was for the best... Sadly enough, it didn't feel that way.
I glanced down at the schedule and folded it up slowly as students moved all around me. I'm sure the spectacle of Kendal screaming in my face would be the talk of the campus for a few days, but it was irrelevant. I didn't know many of them, and they didn't know me.
The one person I wanted to know wasn't going to allow any closeness between us from what I could tell.
"Hey. You okay?" A thin guy in a wheelchair moved up beside me and glanced up. His blond hair was cut in a way that left his bangs dripping into his line of sight.