Resisting Her Ex's Touch

by Amber McKenzie

  “I already have you, Kate, and this time I have no intention of walking away. The sooner you accept that, the sooner we’ll all be better off.”

  Then, without warning, he stood over the table, leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. This time he lingered. She could smell his cologne, breathed in his scent, and felt that heat of his body, before he pulled away. Then, just as he had joined her, he turned and left.

  Shock seeped through her from her forehead, which he had kissed so sweetly, to all the muscles inside her that contracted at his touch. Several parts of their conversation competed for attention in her mind. Had he remembered the night she had cried about her mother and he had kissed her on the forehead after carrying her to bed, the night she had realized she was in love with him?

  Then there were his words, not just the words but the way he had said them. He had left no room for doubt that he had meant everything he had said. But would she know if he hadn’t? She had spent her career learning to trust herself and her instincts, but with Matt she couldn’t trust herself, her feelings, or him. All the words, declarations, and touches couldn’t change the words that had been carved into her soul. “Katie, I’m sorry. I don’t love you.”

  The offensive wail of her pager broke through her thoughts and provided temporary respite. She dialed the hospital operator and was patched through to the emergency department. Within a minute she was gone from the shop, her focus back where it needed to be and the past left behind.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE REACHED THE hospital within fifteen minutes and was in the trauma room gowned and shielded before the ambulance arrived. Chloe was standing next to her, both women waiting. This time their entire interaction was succinct and directed towards patient care.

  The ambulance attendants rolled a gurney into the trauma room and the patient was transferred to the hospital bed. The young man appeared to be in his early twenties and was strapped to a backboard with full C-spine precautions. Chloe took the head of the bed and assessed his airway and level of consciousness while he was hooked up to monitors, and Kate and the trauma-team nurses completed a full body survey, assessing for areas of maximal trauma and prioritizing injuries for care.

  “His airway is compromised and GCS is six—we need to intubate,” Kate heard Chloe order. And for a window of ninety seconds the team stood back while Chloe intubated the young man. After the endotracheal tube was in place, she and Kate auscultated the lung fields. She didn’t hear any breath sounds on the right, and Chloe confirmed the finding.

  “Set up for a chest tube,” Kate called. A sterile tray of instruments was opened and after quickly prepping the skin and changing into sterile gloves, she made a stab incision above one of the man’s ribs and inserted the hard plastic tube until she felt a loss of resistance and heard the trapped air escaping, allowing the man’s lung to reinflate.

  “Breath sounds on the right established. Good job, Kate,” Chloe said.

  Once the patient’s airway, breathing and circulation had been stabilized, Kate continued. “Details,” she called to the paramedic team, who remained in the room.

  “Unknown male, traveling by bicycle when he was hit at moderate speed by a mid-sized SUV. The patient was found several yards from his bicycle, with his helmet still in place but cracked in multiple locations.”

  “Has he been conscious since your team arrived?”

  “No.”

  “Chloe, once you’re happy he’s stable for movement, we need to move for a full-body CT. I need to know what to worry about first, blood in his brain or blood in his chest and belly.”

  “He should be stable enough in five minutes. He needs more volume so that he can maintain his pressure and make up for any ongoing losses prior to going to the operating room.”

  “Okay. I’m going to call the OR now and have them set up. Have the team page me once his scans are done so I can review them immediately with the in-house radiologist.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks.”

  Four hours later, Kate was finally leaving the intensive care unit, where she had just dropped off her patient direct from the operating room. She was still strapped to her pager as the trauma team leader for the week, but now had a momentary reprieve. The cyclist’s helmet had saved his life. His brain had fared okay in the collision.

  Unfortunately, the same could not have been said for his spleen, which had suffered a massive laceration after he had hit the curb. The young man had needed an emergency laparotomy and splenectomy, along with several units of blood and blood products, but was going to recover.

  Kate walked back to the emergency department to find Chloe finishing up the paperwork from a shift that should have ended an hour and a half earlier. Kate hadn’t bothered to change out of her scrubs and the clogs she’d worn in the operating room and felt exhausted from the fast pace and physical demands of the procedure. Chloe looked like she felt the same, appearing pale in contrast to her bright red hair and the dark blue of the hospital scrubs the emergency doctors also wore. Kate slumped into the chair beside her friend, losing her normal good posture.

  “He’s okay. It was a spleen trauma, but it’s out and he’s stable in the intensive care unit,” Kate reported, knowing Chloe’s desire to follow all of her patients.

  “Thanks for coming back and letting me know.”

  Chloe stood from her chair and wavered before reaching down to the desk for support.

  “Are you okay, Chloe?” Kate asked.

  “Yeah, just tired, stressed, busy, the usual. I think I might have some low-grade virus or something that has pushed me over the edge.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” Kate asked, concerned that for the first time her perfectly put-together friend was actually admitting to struggling. Chloe had always made everything seem effortless, which made Kate worry that she was feeling a lot worse than she was admitting.

  “Don’t you think you have enough on your plate?” Chloe asked, one eyebrow arching upwards, in a friendly, teasing tone.

  “More than I ever wanted, but I’m sorting through it the best I can.” She stared at Chloe, knowing what she should say but fighting a lifelong instinct to keep things inside. “I know that you’re tired, but I was wondering if I could drive you home and maybe we could talk a bit.”

  Chloe stopped all the other tasks she was trying to finish and looked Kate in the eye. “That would be more than okay. Give me ten minutes to hand over my patients and I’ll meet you by the parkade elevators.”

  True to her word, Chloe met her and they managed their escape without further interruption. “Are you hungry?” Kate asked, realizing she had missed lunch and supper while dealing with the trauma.

  “A little bit. Do you have anything at your house?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. Eating out, it is.”

  Creatures of habit, Kate and Chloe tucked themselves into the back of the small Italian restaurant where the staff knew them by name. Kate waited to order and for their drinks to arrive before she drew in a breath and took the plunge. “Matt wants me.”

  Chloe didn’t appear surprised. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “I have no idea. At first it seemed purely physical and I thought you were right about it stemming from jealousy over Tate, and I told him that I wanted nothing more than a lawyer-client relationship. Then he told Tate about our past and we had a huge fight, which didn’t seem to deter him at all because he showed up again today.”

  “And?”

  “He said I was his and that I always have been and I always would be.” She shivered, saying his words aloud having no less impact than hearing them from him hours earlier.

  “Is he right?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand what happened between us all those years ago and I don’t understand what’s happening now.”

  “So stop trying to think through and understand everything. How do you feel, Kate?”

  “Terrified.”


  “What are you terrified of?”

  “Of trusting him. Of making the same mistakes, getting hurt and losing myself all over again.”

  “Okay, that’s a start. If you could trust him and weren’t going to get hurt, would you want to be with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still in love with him?”

  “Yes.” She was surprised at how quickly the words left her, but knew in the instant she heard her own answer that it was the truth.

  “Can you talk me through what happened last time?”

  “He was my everything. We met in my third year of undergraduate studies at Brown and became friends. He still had a long-distance girlfriend back in New York. During our friendship I fell in love with him, but never told him or acted on my feelings. After graduation he was going to law school in New York and I had a full scholarship to medical school in Boston.”

  “So what changed things?”

  “Our last night together was unbearable. It was the end: he was going to go on with his life and me with mine. I spent the evening torn between telling him I loved him and just saying goodbye. Then before I said anything he kissed me.”

  “And?”

  “And I thought we made love.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “We had sex. I told him I loved him and fell asleep in his arms happier than I had ever been in my entire life. The next morning I knew I couldn’t say goodbye and I told him I wasn’t going to.”

  “And?”

  “He said he didn’t love me and it had been a mistake. Then he went back to New York to be with his girlfriend and I never heard from him again.”

  “Oh, my God, Kate, I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how devastating that must have been.”

  “What’s worse is that I didn’t believe him at first. After he left I waited for him to come back to apologize, to tell me the truth, that he loved me and things were going to be okay. But he never came back. I sat in his apartment for hours, waiting, hoping, and he never came back. Even after I left his apartment, I still thought he just needed time, that there was no way he could touch and hold me the way he had and not be in love with me too.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I held on as long as I could. I gave up my scholarship to Boston and managed to secure a place at Columbia in New York. I begged my father to take a second mortgage on our house to cover the lost scholarship and I left messages for Matt to tell him I was in New York when he was ready to talk.”

  “He never tried to contact you?”

  “No, he never looked back. I believed in him so much that I lost all faith in myself.”

  The waitress arrived with their order and Kate was grateful for the interruption. As cathartic as it felt to finally talk about what had happened, it also brought to the surface how she had felt.

  Both women were silent as they began to eat. Kate’s mind kept telling herself the story. Matt’s abandonment had left her with a small seed of self-doubt that had germinated over months of loneliness. She hadn’t been able to resist following the coverage of his life in the society pages, and seeing him with other women had intensified her loneliness.

  It had been a cold, windy day in November when she’d seen him again, walking across campus. She hadn’t seen him in five months but had recognized him instantly in the crowd. She’d called his name and he’d turned to look and then kept walking. She’d convinced herself that he hadn’t seen her. The second time she’d seen him she’d called his name more loudly and he’d moved his head slightly in her direction but hadn’t turned around.

  The final rejection had come in March. She had been sitting in a local coffee shop, studying, determined to make the dean’s honor list so she would qualify for a scholarship the following year. She had been deep in thought when she’d had a sense that she hadn’t felt in almost a year. She’d looked up and seen Matt, the same old Matt, in jeans and a cream sweater, with his brown leather tote bag slung across one shoulder. She’d seen him as he’d been looking at her and turning away.

  That time she hadn’t been able to say anything, she hadn’t called out his name or even moved from her seat. She’d watched in horror as he’d walked away from her and out of the shop. In an instant all her fears had been confirmed. She had no longer been able to deny that he knew she was in New York and he’d wanted nothing to do with her.

  She looked up to see that Chloe wasn’t eating. She glanced at her own plate, which was almost full with her favorite pesto linguine that she had no appetite for. “Do you want to get this to go?”

  “Yes, please. I’m exhausted,” Chloe replied. As they waited for the check it was Chloe who broke the comfortable silence.

  “Kate, can you think of any reason why Matt walked away from you?”

  “I’ve thought of every reason. The only one that justifies his actions is that he really didn’t love me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what do you want now?”

  “I want the impossible. I want to trust the man I love to love me back and not break my heart again.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT WAS ANOTHER week before she heard from Matt again. A whole week to replay their entire relationship from their friendship to the night they’d made love, and the repercussions that had followed.

  Kate was once again in the emergency department, reviewing consultations with the junior residents, when her pager went off. She looked down at the little black box that seemed forever attached to her and didn’t recognize the number.

  She reached for the nearest phone and dialed the displayed number. “This is Kate Spence. Someone paged?” she answered once the person on the other end picked up.

  “It’s Matt.”

  She paused, not sure what to say. Her conversation with Chloe had helped her understand her feelings towards Matt and it felt even harder to talk to him knowing she still loved him.

  “Kate.” Matt said her name.

  “I’m here.” She had lowered her voice, not sure where the conversation was headed but knowing she didn’t want it overheard.

  “We need to get together to talk about that night,” Matt stated, in what Kate considered to be an overly businesslike tone for something so intimate, something so personal. She arched her back in defense and looked around the crowded emergency department to ensure that no one was within earshot.

  “I gave you more than enough opportunity to talk about that night nine years ago, Matt. I don’t want to talk about it now.” She waited and heard him exhale slowly.

  “I meant the night that Mr. Weber died, Kate. I need to finish your statement to help with the case. But, for the record, a talk about the other night is long overdue.”

  It was her turn to sigh now. She felt embarrassed and could feel color flooding her face. She looked down and studied the linoleum floor as if the more intensely she stared, the more she could avoid Matt’s presence on the other end of the phone.

  “I can meet you after you’re done working,” Matt offered, saving her from having to respond to his earlier statement.

  “Okay, but not at the hospital.” She actually didn’t know where the best place to talk with Matt was. Nowhere, she thought. She wanted to avoid a public scene but it would be worse to be together in a private place.

  “I’ll pick you up at nine—will that give you enough time to finish up? You can tell me then where you want to go.” He was giving her control, but the gesture did little to put her at ease.

  “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be waiting outside my place at nine. See you then.” And she hung up before she could embarrass herself further.

  Matt was becoming more of a contradiction each time she talked to him. Everything she had believed about him was changing. She’d thought he didn’t want her, but now he did. She’d thought what they had been together had been a lie, but he’d said she’d belong to him always. Now, after nine years, he thought they needed to talk about that night, aft
er he had done everything possible to avoid doing that.

  Kate returned to the waiting resident and did her best to focus on the patient’s history. After examining the middle aged woman together and then arranging her admission for management of a partial small bowel obstruction, it was eight p.m., and Kate found herself sprinting home.

  By the time she entered the brownstone apartment she was breathless. She had twenty minutes before Matt would be arriving, and she knew she had just enough time to shower and change. Years of rushing to and from the hospital at a moment’s notice had taught her to be efficient.

  She showered and washed her hair, toweling it dry and twisting it into a knot on top of her head. She rubbed in the lotion her skin desperately needed after long days spent in the dry, non-infectious conditions the hospital maintained. In her bedroom, she managed to find a pair of clean jeans and a long-sleeved black sweater. She was just bending to put on socks when the front buzzer rang. She slipped her feet into tall black leather boots, grabbed her wool coat and applied lip moisturizer as she locked her apartment and proceeded down the stairs to meet Matt.

  He was waiting in the entry. He had obviously been home since the office, because the business suit was gone and in its place was a pair of dark jeans with a dress shirt and blue sweater layered over the top. Despite the layered look there was no mistaking the broadness of his shoulders and the build of his chest. The chest she had seen, had felt pressed against her. Damn, this is not what she needed to be thinking.

  Matt didn’t say anything. He held open the front door to her building and followed her out to his car, where he opened the passenger door for her as well. Once she was settled he closed the door securely and circled to the driver’s side. It felt like being taken care of, it felt nice, and she didn’t want to be feeling that again with Matt.

  “Where do you want to go?” Matt asked, turning towards her with his full attention.

  “I don’t know,” Kate answered honestly, too off balance by the situation to think properly.