by Ali Parker
Everything was a fucking mess.
I grabbed my phone and held on to it tightly as I made my way back toward my place. Some part of me wanted Kendal to call so we could work through whatever he needed to work through. Was he pissed about me not saying anything about Amanda's death date? Surely not. How would he know that I'd read her folder? And why would it be my job to say anything to him in the first place? It wasn't. It was Dr. Lewis'.
A mixture of anger and sadness swirled in the pit of my stomach as I parked just outside my apartment and hoofed it up the stairs. I wanted a relationship filled with heat and passion, and something told me that's exactly what I would have gotten with Kendal.
How the fuck was it over before it began?
Because of Amanda or something else?
I was grateful to find the door to my apartment shut and locked. The hope was that Jackie was more put together and Cameron had figured out what was best for him and left before I got back. I opened the door tentatively and walked in.
"Jackie?" The smell of sugar and chocolate wafted my way.
"I'm in the kitchen." She stuck her head around the corner. "What the fuck happened? One minute you and I were walking in, and the next, you were gone."
"Kendal's sister, Mandy, died." I dropped my purse and ran my fingers through my hair. "I wanted to get to him just in case he needed me."
"Oh shit. I'm so sorry to hear that." She walked toward me as she wiped her hands on a blue apron she had around her waist.
"Are you cooking something?" I accepted the quick hug before dropping down into a chair at the kitchen table.
"Yeah. I figured we could use something sweet. You had everything to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch, so I thought, 'why the hell not'." She squeezed my shoulder and walked back toward the kitchen.
"Did Cameron bother you?" I pulled my legs into the chair and ignored the screaming voice inside of me that said to run to the hospital as fast as I could. It wasn't my place, and being the brunt of Kendal's pain didn't sound like much fun. I'd eventually go because I needed to know that he was okay, but now wasn't the time.
"No. He came in, walked around and left. Weird."
"Sounds like him." I wrapped my arms around my legs and pressed my face to my knees. "Is there a policy at the college that a professor can't date a student?"
"I'm sure there is. We have that at the hospital too. It's part of our professional code of conduct."
I snorted as my emotions started to soften a little. "You've read the professional code of conduct for the hospital?"
She walked out and chuckled. "Yeah, of course. I need to know where the line in the sand is."
"Why, so you can apologize when you cross it?"
"Hardy, har." She brushed her long blond hair over her shoulder. "Guess what?"
"What?" I watched her closely.
"I finally found Parks' number."
"And? Did you call him?" Parks was a hot doctor from New York that had come down for a few days to show our surgeons a few tricks of the trade, and somewhere along the way, stolen Jackie's heart and her favorite pair of panties. The man was a player and a half.
"I left a message." She got up as the timer on the oven went off. "He'll call back. I just know he will."
I rolled my eyes, got up and followed her into the kitchen. "You think I should go up to the hospital and see how Kendal is?"
"Do you?" She glanced over her shoulder.
"We were almost dating as of yesterday, but he was crazed when I went to the campus to check on him a few minutes ago." I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing I could protect myself from what felt like the brinks of depression.
"He just lost his baby sister." She turned back around and plated the cookies. "Go up there and just play it cool. If he needs you, be there for him, and if he doesn't, then give him his space."
"I guess." I brushed my fingers by my lips and paced the floor. "He shoved his class schedule in my face when we were arguing a few minutes ago, as if me being in his mini-mester class was the worst fucking thing that could happen."
"That's because there's a code of conduct, remember?" She put her hand on her hip and lifted her eyebrow. "Is he a rule follower?"
"No clue. I think so, but he's got two different sides to his personality." I grabbed a cookie and walked toward the bedroom. "I'm going to change and go up there. Maybe they need my help and I can just pick up a shift. Then it won't be too awkward if he's still upset with me."
"You're going to have to talk to him and see what's up."
"Yep," I mumbled as I walked down the hall. "That's what I'm afraid of."
***
Every nerve in my body was buzzing by the time I got to the fourth floor of the hospital. Now wasn't the time to try and talk with Kendal about what was going on with us. It was time to support him and hold him if he would let me anywhere near him. Just the thought of seeing him in pain left me panting for air and wanting to bend over in hopes of catching my breath.
How someone could cause me to feel so much when we'd just met was a mystery.
"Dana?" Dr. Lewis' voice brought me from my thoughts.
I walked off the elevator and stiffened as the older doctor paused in the hallway.
"Hi Dr. Lewis." I glanced both ways down the hall, noting that Kendal wasn't in sight.
"You heard that we lost Amanda Tarrington, right?" He reached out and squeezed my shoulder as a fatherly look moved across his features.
"Yes. I'm heartbroken over it." I glanced down and took a sharp breath before looking back up. "Is her brother still here?"
"Yes. Kendal's in her room, though we've moved the body out. Just let him stay in there as long as he needs to. The poor boy has no other family to lean on." He shook his head. "I've been friends with his parents since we were kids. I've never known a family to have so much tragedy in one lifetime."
As if I didn't feel like shit already, Dr. Lewis' words were dragging me farther and farther into a hole of despair.
"I'll go check on him." I nodded toward the doctor and walked languidly toward the room. It felt as if my feet were pushing through mud. Tensely, the head nurse on our floor and chief-bitch most days of the week, said something from the nurses’ station across from Amanda's room, but I ignored her. She was a pain in the ass that I could deal with after I made sure Kendal was holding it together.
I knocked softly on the door and pushed it open as I held my breath.
Kendal stood by the window, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders rolled in, head slightly bent toward the ground.
"Kendal?" I closed the door and stood there until he looked up and glanced over his shoulder.
"I'm sorry I attacked you." He turned back toward the window. The reflection of lifelessness showing from his reflection in the glass left my heart aching. "I just really wanted whatever was happening between us to work out. To turn into something."
Pushing the conversation felt like the natural thing to do, but I had to force myself to hold my tongue. He was lost in grief over his sister. I could respect that and discuss us later.
I moved up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist. Some part of me expected him to pull from me, to reject my touch, but he didn't.
"I'm so sorry about Amanda." I pressed my cheek to his strong back and closed my eyes. "I wish there was something I could do."
He turned in my arms and put his hands on my shoulders, his beautiful face completely expressionless. "Thank you. There was nothing anyone could have done, I don't suppose. Life is a bitch and then you die."
I moved back and slipped my hands into my pockets, ignoring his morbid comment. "Can I take you home? Get you something to eat? Tell me how to help."
He shook his head and turned back toward the window. "I don't need anything but time. Just let me hang out for a while and then I'll get out of your hair."
Out of my hair?
"Do you have someone I could call to come up here and sit with you? I'll stay if you want
me to, but if there is someone else-"
"No. I've already called my friends. Just leave me be." He wrapped his arms around himself and tucked his head toward his chest as I stood in an awkward silence.
A part of me was grateful that his anger had dissipated, but maybe anger was better than no emotion at all. He didn't seem at all like himself, not that I expected him to be. I stood there for another minute before slipping out into the hallway and wiping away the tears that had gathered in my eyes. Hopefully someone would show up and give him a shoulder to lean on, a chest to cry against, something...
I would have offered him all of the above, but after our fight at UT an hour before, I was more than assured that he wouldn't take it.
Chapter 2
Kendal
The last few days had been nothing but a blur. A thick numbness had settled over the top of me, and at times I was grateful for it. Between losing Mandy and having to testify in Jake's court case from his stabbing, I was spent. The school was good enough to give me a few days to myself, or really the whole fucking semester if I wanted it. My answer had been short and sweet. Hell no. There was no way I was sitting around in my misery for three months under the guise of trying to heal.
There was no such thing as healing from death. It lightened its sting over time, but the bastard stood beside the living, ready to remind them at each turn in the bend of what, or rather who, they'd lost.
If it hadn't been for Damon, I'd probably have missed every meal between Mandy's passing and the funeral. I was grateful for his friendship before my sister passed, but ever indebted to him after it. I wouldn't have made it without him.
"I miss you," I whispered softly as I stood at the front of the sanctuary. The dark black suit Damon picked out for me fit like a glove, leaving me to want to tease him about knowing me too fucking well. The words never left my lips, but he knew what I was thinking.
The large picture of my sister set up beside her casket showed her laughing with so much life in her eyes that it scored my soul. I slipped my hands into my pockets and took a shaky breath. One more hour of living her death and then I could retreat back to the house and drown myself in a bottle. It wasn't my usual way of doing things, but I felt as if I had little choice.
"Kendal. I'm so sorry for your loss, son." An older man that I faintly recognized patted me on the back and shook my hand as I turned toward him.
"Thank you, sir. It's sad that death isn't a respecter of age." I glanced over at Mandy's picture as I released the guy’s hand. I'd cried enough tears over losing her that I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to cry again. The pain had turned from excruciating to a dull wave of agony that rolled through my body from top to bottom. The moments of rest I got from it were moments where I let myself dream of Dana.
"Dr. Tarrington." Jake rolled his wheelchair up beside me as I stood at the front of the church. The poor kid was one of my two TAs at UT and had been through hell himself over the last few months. A love story gone bad had almost taken his life. How the young woman that said she loved him could stab him repeatedly in the chest until he was lifeless was beyond me.
We live in a fucked up world.
"Jake. How are you?" I wanted to push a bit of positive inflection in my voice, but couldn't seem to muster the energy.
"I'm better." He glanced toward the picture of Mandy. "Your sister was a beautiful woman."
I reached over and squeezed the kid's shoulders. "Thank you. She looked just like my mom."
"Are your parents here?" Jake glanced over his shoulder.
"No. They passed away awhile back. It was just me and Mandy."
The sadness in his eyes would be a common theme for the day. I was almost prepared for it. My parents’ death had almost torn me and Mandy in half, but somehow by leaning on each other, we made it through. I wasn't sure who the fuck I was going to lean on to get through losing her.
"Oh shit. I'm so sorry." Jake glanced up with a look of horror on his face.
"You didn't know." I tucked my hands back in my pockets. "Did Bethany come with you?"
"No. I think she and Damon are working things out." He rolled his eyes. "Don't get me started."
I nodded, wishing I could fake a chuckle. "You were brave at the hearing yesterday. I'm proud of you."
"Thanks." He nodded. "That means a lot to me. I'm sorry again."
"Me too," I mumbled and turned back to face my sister's casket. A few extended members of my family were greeting everyone and taking care of everything, which gave me the right to simply stand stone still wherever I wanted to, which was beside Mandy.
"I assume that Damon's been taking care of you?" Dana's voice had the power to soften my tough exterior without even trying. The poor girl had sustained me verbally smacking her all over the parking lot at UT in front of a handful of her peers and still seemed to care.
I didn't deserve her time or her affection, but fuck if I wasn't greedy enough to want it with every fiber of my being.
"Yeah." I turned to face her. "I'm sorry about the other day. I overreacted."
She moved toward me, sliding her arms around my waist and pressing herself to my chest. The subtle move melted me completely. I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head as I closed my eyes. I was close to tears again somehow.
"Don't apologize. Whatever upset you about the class schedule," she glanced up at me, "we'll figure it out and change it. Don't push me away right now. You need me and I need you to need me."
I nodded and brushed her long dark hair off her shoulder. "I do need you."
She rubbed my back softly, wooing me to rest against her. If it hadn't been for the fifty people milling about behind her, I would have collapsed in her arms.
"I'm so tired," I whispered before leaning down to press my face against the side of her neck. I breathed in deeply as she pulled me into a warm hug and cupped the back of my head.
"Let me take care of you, okay?"
"I'd like that," I murmured and let out a breath I felt like I'd been holding for the last four days. Where Dana and I would have to draw the line at friendship, it was still more than enough to help me survive the coming weeks. I could repay the favor by helping her with her degree or maybe offering her a TA position as well.
Our love affair was over, but our friendship could continue to develop. If only she wasn't my student, or a student at all.
"Hey buddy." A tap on the back had me pulling from Dana and turning to face Damon.
"Thanks for coming today." I reached out and pulled Damon into a hug.
"Of course, man." He returned the gesture before moving back to let Beth get in a quick hug as well.
"Guys, this is Dana Young. She was one of Mandy's nurses and is a friend of mine." I put my hand on Dana's lower back as Damon smiled and shook her hand.
"Nice to meet you. I think we got to see each other earlier this week at the hospital." He smiled as she nodded.
"We did." Dana smiled back and turned to Beth.
"I guess we should sit down." Damon glanced down at Beth as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He glanced back up toward me and gave me a sad smile. "We'll let all of your extended family sit up here with you, and my family will be a few rows back if you need us, okay?"
"Just remember that you're a pallbearer."
"I know." They walked toward the back as Kendal nodded toward the front row. "You mind sitting up front with me?"
"Not at all." She slid her arm into mine and walked with me to the front pew. I unbuttoned my jacket, nodded at a few University friends and old college buddies before sitting down. How in the hell had my life turned from going in the right direction to losing Amanda and Dana all in the same day?
Luck. It was my shitty luck. It'd always been that way.
The preacher walked to the front and began the ceremony as I sunk down into my darkness. I didn't need to hear the words of grace, or be reminded that my baby sister was in a better place. I needed to mourn, to scream and throw a fit at the unf
airness of life. Everyone else could get comfort from the event, but I simply wanted to get through it.
***
"Thank you," I mumbled and glanced over toward Dana as we drove back toward my place. She'd only been there twice, and I was giving shitty instructions from dipping in and out of my thoughts.
"For what?" She reached over and took my hand in hers. The softness of her skin and the warmth of her touch thawed me a little.
"For sitting with me at the funeral, and loving on me at the graveside service." I lifted her hand to my mouth and kissed her fingers softly. "I don't deserve your kindness."
"Of course you do." She pulled into the neighborhood where I'd purchased my house a few years back. "Are you up for telling me what happened at UT?"
"What happened with what?" I pulled my hand from hers and unbuckled as she parked in front of my place.
"You were so mad at me over the class schedule." She reached for her door handle. "Why?"
"Oh. That." I opened my door and walked to the front of the car. "The University has strict policies against a professor dating a student or another professor. Seeing you on my class roster was just a kick in the nuts."
"So I'll drop the class." Her voice was non-confrontational, and damn if I didn't fall a little in love with her for being willing to change whatever needed to be changed to make us work out.
"It's not that easy." I unlocked the door and pulled my coat off as she moved into the house behind me.
"Then we'll figure it out." She walked around me as I paused at the opening to the living room. "I'm not giving up on what we have starting between us, Kendal. I can't."
I reached out to run my fingers down the side of her beautiful face, memorizing the curve of her lip, the slight slant of her eyes. Her long dark hair moved over her shoulders as she shook her head 'no'.
"Let's just work on being friends for right now. I want you as badly as I did early this week when we spent some time together, but my rules are in place for a reason. I've been through hell and back because I didn't adhere to them. It wouldn't be fair to you or me if we didn't slow this thing down while we still can." I licked my lips as my body purred to life. How good would it feel to pick her up and spend the afternoon rolling around in the bed pressed against her? To steal her warmth and force her to love me in a million ways until the sun stole the day from us?