She chuckled then turned quiet as she ate.
I ate too, enjoying the comfortable silence between us. We were only three years apart, so we’d always been close. She and Derek were ten years apart, so they didn’t click quite as well as we did. But we’d always been the three amigos.
“So…” She set down the uneaten half of her burger then went back to the fries.
“So?”
“Well, are we gonna talk about what happened or…?”
I sighed in annoyance. “You’re my favorite because you don’t make me talk about things I don’t want to talk about.”
“Well, a guy was shot in your building, and you saved his life. I mean, we should probably talk about that.”
“That’s not what happened. He accidentally shot himself.”
“Whatever,” she said. “A gunshot wound. It’s still pretty thrilling. Good thing you were there and not on a run or something.”
“Yeah.”
She continued to eat, staring me down.
I stared back. “What?”
“Okay, I’ve got a confession to make…”
“Oh no.”
“Dad asked me to talk to you—”
“Of course he did. How about you say you did, and we just not?”
She shook her head. “Come on, I don’t lie to Dad.”
“Uh-huh,” I said sarcastically, thinking about the boys she would sneak around with when we were young. “Because I remember a lot of shit you lied about—”
“Anymore.” She grabbed her beer and took a drink. “Dad has already talked to you and so has Derek, so I don’t realistically think there’s anything I can do to change your mind. But I want you to know that I think you’re wasting your potential working for Mom, and it’s such a disservice to the people who need your care. At the end of the day, people matter, and we need to do whatever we can to help others. That’s the philosophy of this family. I just wish you wouldn’t abandon your principles for some stupid bitch.”
“Daisy, come on.”
“I can say whatever I want about her. If I see her on the street, I’ll make her cry. I’d love the chance to tell her off.” She grabbed a curly fry and extended it by the ends, making it stretch out before it bounced back into place.
“It’s in the past.”
“Exactly. It’s in the past, and you’re still living in the past.”
I gave her a blank look, wishing this conversation would just go away.
She finally gave up. “Alright, I’m done.”
“Thank fucking god.”
We continued to eat our food, letting the tension slowly dissipate.
“So, I met this guy at my poker match. He lives in the city.”
“Yeah?”
“I took his money, and he still asked me out.”
“Maybe to learn how to beat you next time.”
She shrugged. “I can tell him all my tricks, and I’d still wipe the floor with him. And he’s super hot, so I couldn’t care less if he’s just using me.”
When Daisy first started telling me about her guys, it was a little weird, but then she reminded me I was being sexist because Derek and I shared every dirty little secret. And she was only three years younger than me, so she was a grown woman who had every right to have a personal life similar to mine. “Why do you keep going for guys like that?”
“Like what?” she asked, still eating.
“I don’t know…average.”
“Wow. Stuck-up much?”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You’ve never had a serious relationship before, and sometimes I wonder if it’s because you’re always going for the bad-boy type. Somebody like you needs more of a cerebral kind of guy. You’ll never be emotionally fulfilled if you’re going for these bartenders and poker players.”
“I don’t like the cerebral type.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “They’re stuffy. Super serious. Socially awkward. The list goes on and on.”
“I’m not any of those things. Neither are you.”
“Well, I’ve never met anyone like us. They’re all like Dad and Derek.”
“So, are you looking for something serious ever? I mean, you’re getting ever closer to thirty—”
“Oh my god.” She tilted her head back in an exaggerated outburst. “Please don’t worry about my eggs. They’re good, alright?” She looked at me again. “I’m surprised you of all people would say any of this.”
“It’s different.”
“How?” she challenged.
“Because you’re the most amazing woman I know.”
Her hostility immediately faded away.
“I want you to have someone who’s going to bend over backward to make you happy every single day of your life. I want you to have someone who takes care of you. I want you to have a bunch of babies.”
Her eyes softened. “So, you still believe in marriage?”
“I never said that.”
“It sounds like you’re pushing it on me…”
“I think marriage works for some people, like Mom and Dad, Derek and Emerson. But I don’t think it works for me.”
“Or maybe it didn’t work because Catherine was a cunt.” She brought her beer to her lips and took a drink. “Did you ever think of that? On behalf of all women everywhere, we aren’t all cunts. She was just a bad batch.”
“Yeah…maybe.”
“But maybe it’ll go somewhere with this guy. He’s hot, smart, funny… Who knows?”
“So, you’re looking for something serious?”
“I mean, if it happens, it happens. But no, I’m not actively looking for it. I’m assuming it’ll be actively looking for me if it’s meant to be. For now, I’m just enjoying my time as a bachelorette. If I ever get married, I’ve always wanted a relationship like Mom and Dad have, and she told me as soon as she got to know him, she wanted to marry him. There was never any doubt about her feelings. She said she wasn’t baby crazy, but with him, she got baby crazy. And I guess her first way of telling him she loved him was saying she wanted to have his babies.” She chuckled then pulled the beer closer to him.
It made me think of Catherine, the last time our lives were good. We were trying to get pregnant, and we were doing it all over the place, taking ovulation tests so we could bang it out and make a kid. And then, it was over…as if that never happened.
Daisy must have noticed the way my expression changed because she moved on to a new topic. “So, Lizzie is going to Harvard, huh? She’s gonna party so hard…”
When I got home, I plopped down on the couch and put my feet on the coffee table to watch TV before bed. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I was used to the phone going off all the time that I could discern a text message from an email just by the vibration. I could tell it was an email, but never wanting to miss anything important even if I was about to go to bed, I checked it.
Subject: Please Read
From: Angelica Torres
Dr. Hamilton,
I know you aren’t practicing anymore, but my husband needs a cardiopulmonary bypass, and due to the other complications of his heart and valves, no other surgeon in the country will take on my husband as a patient. We’ve seen so many doctors and they’re calling it inoperable, but if he doesn’t get this procedure, he’ll die anyway. Please, please, please, could you consider seeing my husband? So many heart doctors have told me that you’re the only one who has the ability to do this, that you’re the best. Please consider it. Please.
-Angelica Torres
I read the email a second time before I released a loud sigh and closed my eyes, irritated that this woman had somehow hunted down my personal email to ask me for something I couldn’t give her. Just when I’d decided not to email her back at all, the guilt hit me so hard that I felt sick to my stomach. I could just ignore her and she would probably assume it was the wrong email, but I couldn’t let someone hold on to hope when there was none. So, I wrote back.
Mrs.
Torres,
I’m very sorry to hear about your husband’s condition, but I’m no longer in practice. I’ve attached a list of recommendations that could be a good fit for your needs.
Take care,
-Dex
12
Sicily
I was at home when my phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize.
I would normally ignore it and consider it to be spam, but in my new line of work, I couldn’t afford to dodge calls anymore. I answered, even though it was in the evening and I was tired after the long day. “This is Sicily.”
There was a long pause of silence, but I could hear audible breathing over the line, so someone was there.
“Hello?” Maybe it was a butt dial.
A woman’s broken voice came through. “Who…who are you?”
My heart released a shot of adrenaline when I heard the shaky tears in her voice, heard the crashing of her entire world around her because she knew exactly who I was without needing the answer. My body slowly lowered back to the couch because I couldn’t stand with these weak knees.
“You’re sleeping with my husband, aren’t you?” There was so much rage in her voice, so many heavy tears.
I closed my eyes and had never felt worse. It was rock bottom, the epitome of self-loathing. Telling myself I didn’t know about his wife when I slept with him wasn’t a good enough reason anymore. I’d taken part in an affair—and I hated myself for that.
“Hello?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to make this better. I didn’t want to make it worse.
“He says there’s nobody else, but I don’t believe him.”
It was time to hang up because my silence was enough of a confession. But I wanted to be there for this woman, for this stranger, because I could feel her pain like we had souls that were connected. “I-I didn’t know. I’m so sorry… I didn’t know.”
Click.
It was hard to keep my shit together at work.
Her despair had sunk deep into my skin, invaded my heart, and brought me into a depression I would never be able to escape. If I’d never hit on him at the airport, could all of this have been avoided? Would he have remained faithful if the temptation hadn’t been there?
Was this all my fault?
The doors opened to the floor, but I remained in the elevator, replaying everything in my head, looking for all the signs that pointed to his deceit, the signs that I didn’t see.
“Going out or…?”
He was in the elevator with me, but I didn’t know how he got there. I turned to look at him, realizing I was so lost in thought that I hadn’t been aware of reality at all. The backs of my eyes hurt because the tears were ready to take off. “Uh…” I faced forward and stepped out, trying to remember why I’d come up here in the first place.
He stepped out and joined me, the doors closing behind him. “Sicily, you alright?” He looked down into my face, wearing a genuine look of concern, his brown eyes even more beautiful when they were focused like that.
“Yeah…I’m fine.”
He remained close to me, his eyes shifting back and forth like he didn’t believe the bold lie I’d just told. He was patient, as if he knew I would start talking if he just waited long enough.
I inhaled a deep breath, and that’s when the tears started. “She called me last night…” The tears were there instantaneously, like they’d already been formed in the back of my eyes and we were waiting for the chance to fall. “And…I didn’t know what to say.” I started to sob, like I was the one who’d lost my husband, my hand covering my mouth so he wouldn’t see the way my lips trembled uncontrollably.
He seemed to figure out exactly what I was talking about without having to ask a single question. His arms moved around me, and he immediately held me against him, his large hand spanning my back as he cradled me toward him, letting me press my wet cheek against his t-shirt. “Hey,” he whispered. “It’s going to be alright.”
I latched on to him, feeling his hard body support me like a solid wall rather than a human body. I closed my eyes and sniffled as my wet mascara and eyeliner soaked into his shirt. I let myself cry, let myself grieve for my involvement in the most despicable thing I’d ever done.
“Shh…” He rubbed my back gently as he supported me, showed no discomfort at my wet tears staining his clothes, no impatience that I needed to have a good cry right in the hallway where a client could walk by. My behavior was unprofessional, but he didn’t seem to care at all. All he seemed to care about was me.
“I feel…so terrible.”
“I know you do. Because you’re a good person who cares about other people.”
I sniffed loudly. “I’m not a good person…” I’d slept with a married man, a man with a family, a man who was loved by a woman with all her heart. “I shouldn’t have hit on him when I saw him at the airport. It’s all my fault…”
“No.” He pulled away slightly so he could look into my face, his powerful arms still warm around my body. “He was the one who was married. He was the one who should have said no. He was the one who should have honored his commitment to his marriage, whether he was happy in that marriage or not. His behavior is inexcusable—and not at all your responsibility.”
“I-I didn’t know he was married. He wasn’t wearing a ring.”
“A man shouldn’t get married if he’s not going to wear his wedding ring every moment of the day, whether that’s in the shower or when he sleeps, let alone out of the house. He obviously had bad intentions from the beginning. You’re as much of a victim in this as his wife. So, don’t carry the grief, the pain, and the responsibility for someone else’s crime. You don’t deserve it.”
The sincerity in his voice and the serious look in his eyes made me feel better, somehow. I gave a slight nod and took a deep breath, doing my best to stop the tears before they really destroyed my makeup. “I’m sorry. It’s just been eating me alive since last night.”
“Don’t be sorry.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue and handed it to me. “It’s good to get it out sometimes.”
I took it and dabbed at my face. “She was just so devastated. I could hear it in her voice…”
“He doesn’t deserve her. He has a woman who loves him so much, and he takes it for granted. Worthless.”
I did my best to fix my makeup, to wipe up the darkness that was probably bleeding under my eyes.
“When you knew the truth, you ended it. You did the right thing.”
“I feel so stupid. I feel stupid that I trusted him, that I took part in an act that broke someone’s heart. I’m so sick of men who won’t hesitate to cheat the second the opportunity presents itself. It’s just… What’s the point?” It was the second time I’d been cheated on, but this was worse than the first time because I was the other woman this time.
“Not all men are like that,” he said gently. “I know good men who would never do that, even if there was absolutely no chance of getting caught. I know men who would do anything and everything just to make their wife smile. I’m sorry this happened to you, but we aren’t all like that.”
“But men like that don’t last long. Good men are snatched up quick, and women never let them go.” That was what I would do if I ever found a man like that. I would never take him for granted.
He watched me clean up my makeup for a long time. “You would think…but sometimes women can be worse than men.”
“Everything alright, honey?” Cleo took the seat at her desk.
I didn’t hear her approach because I was busy working on the schedule. “Yeah…just had a rough night.” I felt a lot better after talking to Dex. There was something about him that always made me feel better. “I’m better now. Dex talked me down. My eyes are just puffy because once they get puffy, they never go back.”
“You seem to have taken a liking to him.” She turned in her chair to regard me directly, her toned legs crossed, her heels shiny like they were brand-
new. Reading glasses were on the bridge of her nose because she always put them on once she sat at the desk so she wouldn’t strain her eyes as she read the screen.
“How can I not?” I said with an uncomfortable laugh. “The guy is perfect.”
“Why do you say he’s perfect?” There was a slight smile on her lips, probably because she held her own affection for the same man, a motherly love that seemed to take everyone under her wing.
“Because he’s got a heart of gold.” The answer shot out of my mouth immediately. “How is a guy that intelligent and that hot that humble? That just doesn’t happen, you know? Most men have way less and think they’re God.” I rolled my eyes, thinking about almost every guy I’d ever been with. “He’s funny, easy to talk to… Everyone here is like that, but he’s especially kind. And then everything that happened with Mr. Carlton—the guy is a hero. But he never thinks of himself that way. It’s strange.”
She kept her eyes on my face and gave a slight shrug. “Sometimes it’s hard for us to see what others see because we think we don’t deserve it.”
“He definitely deserves it. I just hope he sees that someday.” I turned back to my computer because I assumed the short conversation had concluded.
But she didn’t turn in her chair to look at her computer again. Her eyes stayed on me, fixed.
I turned my head back to her, unsure if I’d missed something.
“Did you like working in the medical office?”
It was such a random question that I didn’t know how to answer it. “Of course. I was really sad when he retired.”
“Why?” She crossed her arms and behaved the way she had in my interview, gleaning as much information from me as possible. Her blue eyes were shrewd and observant, possessing a lot of intelligence that was so ingrained, it was impossible not to notice.
“I guess the patients. I used to see those kids come in every year, getting older, getting cuter, and I’d always give them their favorite sucker flavor because I memorized their preferences. That always made them smile. But I miss working with my physician as well. He was a good doctor. It makes all the difference in the world if you believe in the person you’re working for, because when they make a difference, you want to do everything possible to make sure they succeed. But I really love it here too. It’s a different pace, a different world, but I still think I’m helping people.” I didn’t want to brag about my old job so much. Otherwise, it might seem like I didn’t want to be there—which wasn’t the case.
The Doctor Who Has No Ambition (Soulless Book 9) Page 10