The Brightness Duet: Complete Series Boxset

by Bri Stone

When he turns to leave the room, I will myself to disappear just, so I don’t have to see those eyes again... so I don’t make a fool of myself in front of everyone. The questions that I buried so long ago resurface when his eyes do meet mine, when he blinks and does a double take and the realization crosses his face I don’t see what I expect or deserve—I almost see pity. I lose track of how long the moment lasts where he simply stares at me, and I stare back. Where I wonder if he is going to come over and talk to me, or if I’ll get up and talk to him... I stay deciding and wondering until I’m left shell shocked when Thom simply walks right by me, and leaves.

  “DID YOU MAYBE INHALE too much formaldehyde? It happens...”

  “No, I hadn’t.”

  “And you’re sure you saw him?” Clem chimes in.

  I got home and didn’t know who to call first. I just knew I had to tell one of them. I shifted into auto pilot for the rest of the day, something I had done in the very beginning. It was effective and was the only reason I managed to get through the day. Mark respectfully left my shell-shocked moment alone and didn’t talk about it for the rest of the day.

  “Yeah, positive. Mark even said it was him...” I scoff at the memory.

  I don’t usually drink, but the night required a huge glass of wine and greasy take out. But I didn’t even have an appetite, I just liked smelling the food. I sunk into my bed, only because it was the only piece of furniture I bought for the new place. I found a nice apartment a few blocks from the hospital; expensive, but worth it.

  “Shit...” Melinda sighs.

  “Double shit.” Clem adds.

  I don’t know what I would be doing without them.

  “How can I work in the same place as him?” My voice cracks, and I don’t want to cry while I’m on the phone with them.

  I thought I got it all done in my hot shower I nearly jumped into when I got home, but the sting of tears in my eyes begs to differ.

  “Oh Perrie... you can’t leave. You just got there.”

  I laugh humorlessly, “of course I can’t leave, I signed a fucking contract!” I fold my wet hair over my head and lay on my pillow.

  I cover my eyes with my forearms as if it will help, as if I can hide.

  “Oh... right.” Clem says. I hear shuffling on her end and put the phone on speaker, so I don’t have to hold it.

  “He just... he just looked right at me and walked away.” Silent tears flood from my eyes until I can’t hold back the gate anymore. I sob from my gut as I hear them on the other end try and console me, but I just can’t manage it.

  I hang up the phone and continue to cry on my own. For Thom and me... for an ending I still don’t even understand. I know we were in a public place, but the way he looked at me and just left... like he has nothing to say to me. How can I go back into work and keep from seeking him out? Keep from getting answers from him...

  I never got to just sit down and get closure from him. I still wish I had told him I would forgive him, that I must be that fucked up that I didn’t care he cheated on me. That I would start over and probably not even go to Paris at all. Everything I learned there was essential, yes... but if I could have kept from feeling like this, I would have done anything.

  I would still do anything.

  For the first time I go in my phone and find Thom’s contact, and linger over the call button. It would do no good to call him while I’m a sobbing mess. I talked myself out of it, saying he was probably with his new girlfriend or something... I don’t even know if it was a one-time thing or the beginning of something for him. He must have found someone else because that would be why it was so easy for him to leave me.

  Also, my phone ringing from Clem calling me, and then Melinda, on and off again. He probably changed his number anyway. I don’t answer them because I can’t bear to talk about it.

  I can’t give it anymore thought or else it will destroy me, I know that much for sure.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Thom

  Perrier looks exactly the same.

  I never thought I would experience seeing her for the first time, twice. But it wasn’t the same. What I feared the most had come to light, and I didn’t know how to handle it. I wasn’t proud of how I did end up handling it. I saw every ounce of hurt I had given her fill her eyes.

  It hurt more than the cancer I have.

  “Maci, can you do me a favor?” I find her in the attendings lounge. All of us from the resident program ended up her. I don’t even know how, but Brock and David are here, as well as Maci and Staci.

  “Depends on what.” She doesn’t look up from her laptop screen. I sit on the table in front of the couch, still reeling.

  Did I even really see her? I just had a chemo treatment yesterday, so maybe I was still loopy. I do dream about her every night...

  “I had a valve replacement today, but I’m just not feeling up to it.” I scratch my jaw. My beard has thinned out, just like my hair. But I can still pull it off with the right comb over. My hair line had already started receding before I found out, so it must have just been from my dad or something. I’m one of the lucky ones.

  “Oh, because...” her eyes meet mine with the silent question.

  I had to tell her last year when things started getting intense. I didn’t want to bring her down at the end of our program, and it wouldn’t be fair to slack off and make us both look bad. When we took our fellowship at Mayo, I had no choice but to tell her. Stan chimed in, but I agreed on my own to tell her, because I knew I would need her help if I was going to do this. It wasn’t a lone journey of any sort. Once I did tell her, I got more aggressive with treatment because I had set myself back when I stopped after I left Perrie.

  For six months, I did aggressive chemo, that worked well enough to shrink the tumors down to be extracted through an oral surgery because it was less invasive. But they started growing back four months ago, and this time they were non-small cell. If I was being realistic...

  “Yeah. Well, mostly.” I wipe my palms on my pants.

  Maci doesn’t know the whole story, no one does because what I did was too fucked up to just be sharing. Stan gave me the silent treatment when I told him, and that says a lot. “I kind of just saw Perrie in the café.”

  Maci widens her eyes as she shuts her lap top. She uncurls her legs and leans forward until I see the dark of her blue eyes. “No shit...”

  “Shit.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Uh, yeah I’m sure.” I chuckle darkly.

  “Well... I’ll do the surgery, but you should still assist just in case, this is for the guy who had the heart attack a few years ago, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I’ll scrub in. Thanks.” I pat her knee before I get up to make tea.

  “Still not talking to Brock?” I distract myself with her issues.

  “Nope. So Perrie is the new ME?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Are you going to talk to her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she would even want to talk to me.”

  “I don’t know, she might.”

  I finish my tea and we head to the OR the surgery is scheduled in. Over the years I had developed a sort of ritual before surgery, I was sure everyone had. The things I tell myself and say to myself while I’m operating have never changed. The setbacks only made me work harder to get where I needed to be. I took the job here knowing I wouldn’t be frontrunner for chief of cardio one day, and I preferred it that way.

  The board and the advisors weren’t obligated to know of my cancer, but I told them anyway. I didn’t want any surprises. My main goal was to become a surgeon, for myself and for my mom, and I wouldn’t let cancer stop me.

  It ruined enough for me.

  Every time I go to bed and close my eyes, I see the wretched look on her face when I lied to her. It seemed telling myself it was true made it easier sometimes. I had to convince her and me that it was over, it was partially why I couldn’t talk to her when I saw her.

  “Lawso
n, can you close?” The intern’s eyes light up like it’s Christmas.

  Technically he’s a resident now, but still young. I can’t even believe I was ever at that point, but isn’t that just part of growing?

  “Yes sir.”

  And I definitely still wasn’t used to being called sir. Maci and I leave to scrub out and end up back in the lounge around nine. David is just on his way out, and when Brock comes in, it’s awkward to hold a conversation with him when Maci is shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

  “Let me get this straight, Perrie works here?”

  I nod.

  “Holy shit. Maybe I should go talk to her, see if she’s still on the rebound.” He winks at me, knowing I could still be very territorial of her, and he’s right. Even though I know I shouldn’t be.

  “You aren’t her type.”

  “No one has a type when they’re heartbroken.”

  I glare at him, but agree, “fair enough.” I pack my shit and get out of there as fast as I can.

  I’ve never even been to the basement, so I wouldn’t know how to get to her anyway. But the urge was ever present. I have wondered for so long how she has been, and briefly if I had derailed her plans... how cocky of me, I know. Nothing could stop her from being the best pathologist there was. I don’t know why the possibility didn’t even occur to me when buzz of a new world class pathologist came looming around. The gossip mill in hospitals was just as could be expected.

  I reach my penthouse apartment and shower for almost an hour. The steam still helps, and the heat scalds my back. It grounds me when I keep drifting away to Perrie. I have a new sight of her in my mind, years later. She is still so beautiful, even with the short hair she is perfect. But the sadness in her eyes is too obvious for me to ignore and confirms that what I did broke her.

  I still love her, I’m still madly in love with her, but she doesn’t deserve what I have to offer her anymore. I definitely don’t deserve her. Perrie doesn’t deserve a man who not only broke her heart but is running on borrowed time. My oncologist can only tell me so much before it becomes evidently clear that it’s only a matter of time before I end up with the same diagnosis my mother had... one that I didn’t know until later.

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND... I just thought she had more time.” I collapse into the waiting room chair I have become oh so familiar with.

  “The diagnosis hasn’t changed, Thom. When we first found out a few years ago...”

  “A few years ago?” I look at mom’s doctor like he has two heads. He does the same to me.

  “Yes, Alice was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago. Her treatment was minimal then, but when non-small cell tumors developed a few months ago, it got worse. I believe that’s when you brought her into us.”

  I nod, grasping for the first time that this is a secret she kept from me. But why?

  “Oh...”

  “I thought she had told you then. I suppose I’ve overstepped.” He sits next to me. Dr. Jesper is an older man with graying hair and kind eyes. he truly cares about all his patients, including my mom. Over the months he has grown to be more involved.

  “It’s fine. My mom probably thought it was best for me. But what now?” I rub my face, not wanting to ask the question. Luckily, I don’t have to.

  “Well, the scan doesn’t lie. The tumors are made of her now. We can continue with aggressive chemo or stop treatment entirely, because they’re inoperable now. But truly, the only difference between chemo and no more treatment is three months at home, or six months bed ridden.”

  The reality sinks in. Graduation is in four months. Either way it happens, she might not get to see me. The sole reason I was making it through the semester was for her, so she could be proud of me. Now it’s more evident than before that I could lose my mother...

  “Okay.” I rasp.

  He claps my back and rises, then he takes a long sad look at me before he leaves. He must have seen it so many times before, so I don’t know why it seemed I was the first kid he’s seen getting ready to grieve their mother.

  I sit and wait for a few moments longer before they wheel my mother in. The sight of her brings the tears I had been holding back boiling over. Mom is still beautiful and lively, and her wig makes it look like nothing is wrong, but I see in her eyes that she is so tired. I help her onto the bed and she tries to wipe my tears away.

  “Why are you crying, baby? It was just a scan.” She takes my hand in both of hers as I sit on the bed.

  Through my tears, I ask, “why didn’t you tell me before, mama? Why didn’t you tell me you were sick three years ago?”

  She gives me a small smile as she shakes her head. “You were so young, about to go to college. I didn’t want to worry you or become a burden.” Her voice is soft, lower than it was even last week. She really is on a time clock.

  “I would have done better...I would have spent more time with you. Now we... now we don’t have any time left.”

  She pulls my head onto her belly and holds me while I sob. She combs my hair with her fingers like she used to when I was a child, shushing me to console my tears.

  I wouldn’t have spent so much time away if I knew. Not coming home for spring break or taking summer school when I didn’t need to... I’ve given so much time away and now we have none.

  “We have plenty of time left, baby. I can go home, and you’ll finish school...”

  “No, I can defer and just finish this fall or maybe the summer. I just want to stay with you.” My voice croaks.

  “No honey, you have to finish now. So I can see you graduate.” She says, unconsciously reminding me that she doesn’t have past June, maybe not even past May.

  “But...”

  “No ‘buts,’ you’re almost finished. You can go to class and still see me at home, focus on your exams.”

  “See you at home?” I turn my head up to look at her, where I see silent tears falling from her eyes.

  “Oh baby, I can’t do anymore treatments. It would be no use anyway.”

  I sit up, wiping my eyes quickly. “What? No, you have to! It could work, it—”

  “No, honey. It won’t. There are too many and they can’t operate. I would rather be at home for my last days.”

  I snatch my hands from hers and pace across the room. With my hands on my head, tugging at my hair like it has the answers, I turn to face her. “I don’t want you to die, mama.”

  Her face softens as she beckons me closer. I sit back next to her and look down as she takes my hands.

  “I know, honey. But we’ve been dealt a choice we just have to make, together. You know choice theory?”

  I shake my head.

  “Sometimes we have to make a choice and it seems like there are so many options, but there are really only two. One is the decision we make, and two is the information we’re given. We know the facts; now we have to make a choice.” She rubs my knuckles until my breathing calms down, and I didn’t even realize I had started wheezing.

  I nod slowly. Finally realizing she would rather be comfortable when she...

  “Okay, mama. Okay.”

  BUT ONCE I GET IN MY living room I keep thinking of Perrie. I don’t even know how I can manage it. There is so much I want to say to her, but then I can’t because it would defeat the whole purpose of everything I did. I lied to her for a reason and kept the truth from her for a reason... so she could live a seemingly normal life without me. I still wonder if I made the wrong choice, and whenever I do, I just think of my mom and what it was like with her.

  The only thing I have an appetite for is cereal, but I know I have to keep my nutrition up, so I heat one of my prepped meals.

  Stan must have a radar on me for when shit goes wrong, because he calls me in the middle of my late dinner.

  “Hey.” I put him on speaker.

  “I have a conference in town this week, mind if I stay with you?”

  “Yeah right.” I scoff. I wouldn’t say I find it hard to laugh anymore or anyt
hing, but everything just seemed dull in the past few years. When Perrie was around, everything was heightened—perfect. Now it’s realistic, and subpar.

  “You’re right, I already have a hotel. But I will be coming to see you.”

  “That’s not a good idea, the whole hospital will lose their fucking minds just because Stan Edwards is in town. Remember what happened when they found out we were related?”

  He chuckles. “Yeah. Do you still get emails about research proposals?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry...well, we can have lunch, off hospital grounds. How is treatment?” The lightness of his voice fades away.

  “Good. Everything looks good, according to my oncologist.” I tell him.

  “Sounds good. What’s wrong?”

  It annoys me how well he knows me. We aren’t even related, and he can read my mind from across state lines.

  “Um... did you know Perrie worked here?”

  He laughs like I’m telling a joke, and when I don’t say anything his chuckles die down. “No, I wasn’t aware.”

  “Well, she does. I saw her today.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously. Why the hell would I joke about this?”

  “I don’t know. What did you say?”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t talk to her.”

  “What did you do?” He says, accusatory.

  “Nothing. I just walked away after she saw me. I didn’t know what to say.”

  He is silent for a while. A long while.

  “She deserves more than that, Thom.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  “Honestly, no.”

  “Well... I do. But it’s not like I can do anything about it now. I already—lied to her, ignored her... I am out of options.” I huff.

  Stan scoffs, “haven’t you ever heard of choice theory?”

  I freeze mid-breath. “Yeah, from...”

  “A really smart woman once told me about it.”

  I smile sadly. “Yeah.”

  “Look, you should at least apologize to her. At least just for ghosting her the way you did. Is that what they say these days?”