by K. C. Crowne
“Hope promise me something,” I said, resting my forehead against hers so I could stare into those deep, aqua eyes one last time. “Promise me that you’ll never lose your love of life and adventure, no matter what. God knows we need more people like you in the world.”
She nodded, more tears falling. “I promise.”
“Good,” I said, kissing the tip of her nose. “And who knows, maybe we’ll run into each other again one day.”
She laughed, but then stopped herself. “Sure,” she said. “Maybe.”
Not being one to pass up on a cheesy movie cliché, I did my best to smile and said, “And no matter what, we’ll always have Paris.”
Together, we walked out of the room and toward the elevator. Hope would be going upstairs, to her room, and I’d be going down to leave. Never to see her again. Part of me wanted to say something, to exchange information so we could stay in touch, but that would only prolong the inevitable pain. Better to rip off the band aid. We’d never be together, there was no way it could work out. We were two totally different people, and I didn’t believe in long distance. I didn’t have time for a relationship, nor the energy for one after everything that went down with Whitney. My family wouldn’t accept someone like Hope, and while that didn’t bother me, she deserved better than that.
She deserved better than what I could give her once we were back home in the real world.
The elevator doors opened, and it was going up. Hope stepped in and turned around. Her eyes held fresh tears, but she managed a small smile and a wave before the doors closed.
“We’ll always have Paris,” she said softly as the doors closed, taking her away from me.
My heart hurt. I pressed the button to go down, fighting the urge to follow her upstairs. My phone buzzed, a message from my mother.
We need to talk about Whitney
Not again, I groaned. No more talk of Whitney. If anything, my time with Hope proved that Whitney and I were never, ever going to work out. That I could find someone that did make me happy. Whitney never did that for me. She was just an expectation; a convenience.
I ignored the message and climbed into the elevator. I pressed the button to go down to the lobby. People back home were waiting for me, they needed me. I had more important priorities than whatever Whitney was doing with her life.
I had lives to save.
Ooo000ooo
As soon as I landed in LAX, my phone was ringing off the hook. Due to the time difference, it was early in Los Angeles, but I was still on Paris time. Thankfully, I slept on the plane, but it wasn’t the best rest.
“Dr. Pierce, the patient we messaged you about would like to see you today. She says it’s urgent,” my receptionist, Lauren, said as soon as I answered the phone. I still hadn’t gotten my bags, and already, they wanted me to come into the office. Ah, vacation’s over, Colin, I laughed to myself. Welcome back to reality.
I wasn’t ready to face reality, however. Not just because I was tired, but because I felt like I was missing out on not spending more time with Hope. Not like I had much of a choice.
“What time?” I said, watching as the bags dropped down onto the conveyor belt, looking for mine.
“She wanted to come in at noon?”
Jesus. It was almost ten am already, and I wanted to go home and change, maybe grab a bite to eat. There wouldn’t be time for all that, not with Los Angeles traffic. I’d have to settle for going straight to the office with my bags and everything.
“Fine,” I said, rubbing my temples. “I’ll be there at noon.”
“Great. I’ll call her back,” Lauren said before hanging up.
I love what I do, I love what I do. I kept repeating those words to myself as I grabbed my luggage off the belt and hurried the rest of the way through the airport. When returning to the United States from overseas, there was always so much to do. I’d made it most of the way at least, just a little further, and I’d be out of the airport. Then I needed to grab an Uber or Lyft. I hadn’t driven to the airport because I wasn’t a masochist and didn’t trust my car in their parking garages for weeks at a time. I had a driver for the way there, but on the way back, there’d been no time to arrange anything.
A quick Uber ride over to the office, meet with this new patient, see what the problem was an go home. That was the plan. I had every intention of taking the rest of the day off. I was still on vacation, after all, and had no other appointments or obligations.
My poor old mother would be proud.
Thinking about my mom, I remembered her message from before the flight. She wanted to talk about Whitney. I checked my phone again, and as I expected, there were messages from my mom on there. She’d been trying to call me while I was on the plane. I hadn’t let her know I was flying home so suddenly. She’d have been upset at me for cutting my vacation short, for one. And two, I simply hadn’t had time. I didn’t want to waste a second of my time with Hope dealing with my mother and her nagging me about Whitney.
I told myself I’d call her later. In the meantime, I shot her a message telling her just that. Somehow, I needed to make it clear that Whitney and I were done. Over. There was no chance of us ever getting back together.
But that would have to wait. I came back to LA with a purpose, and that purpose was to meet with a patient that urgently needed my care. That took priority over everything else. That’s why I was a good doctor, one of the best at what I did. Nothing ever came before my job, and nothing ever would.
As expected, it took forever for my Uber to get to the international terminal and pick me up. LAX was just a madhouse, and I was on the far end of it all. I knew I’d made the right choice by going straight to work. Good news was, once I met with the patient, I could head home and get some rest. Everything else could wait.
When I got to the office, it was already 11:30. I’d cut it pretty close. Lauren smiled at me as I walked in. She was a bubbly, happy girl, the perfect receptionist for a medical office that dealt with very complicated situations.
“Welcome back, Dr. Pierce,” she said, smiling wide. “Hope you enjoyed Paris.”
“I did. Thanks, Lauren,” I said. I’d have enjoyed it far more if I didn’t have to cut my vacation short, I thought, but I left that part out. It wasn’t Lauren’s fault. I signed up for this career, and when someone needed my expertise, I was happy to provide it. I was just feeling a bit grumpy, all things considered.
“Your patient arrived early,” Lauren said. “She’s already in the room, waiting.”
There was something Lauren wasn’t telling me.
“Anything I should know?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.
“No, I mean, well, to be fair, she didn’t look six months pregnant with triplets, so I’m confused. But I’m not a doctor, so maybe you’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Someone walked into the lobby, and she had to turn her attention to the patient. Her comment left me a little confused, but all I had to do was see for myself. I figured maybe her lack of weight gain might be part of the problem. The e-mail sent to me didn’t provide many details, just that she was pregnant with triplets and had high blood pressure and possible gestational diabetes. Not a great combination for a mother already at risk with multiples.
I grabbed the file on the door, and basically it said the same thing as the e-mail. No medical records, nothing official yet. Must not have been referred here from another doctor. I look at the patient’s name and my heart stopped.
There’s a reason she didn’t look like a woman pregnant with triplets.
Because she wasn’t.
I closed the office door behind me and didn’t bother to sit down. She’s was sitting on the exam table in her little paper gown. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and she looked rough. Her blonde hair was stringier than I remembered, and it was hard to imagine I was ever attracted to her. Not that she’d always looked like that. She used to be in much better health.
“What are you doing here Whitney?”
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, Colin,” she said. “But you’re a tough man to reach sometimes.”
“I was out of the country,” I said. “And busy.”
“Oh yeah, there’s that conference,” she said, waving it off. “I forgot.”
“Like you even care about what I have going on,” I said. “Cut the shit, Whitney and tell me what you’re doing here. We both know you’re not pregnant, so--”
“I am pregnant actually,” she said, placing her hands around her belly area. “Just not with triplets.”
She giggled like she thought the game was cute or something. It wasn’t.
“So you lied to get an appointment with me because I wouldn’t answer your e-mails or call you back?” I said. “This is a new low even for you.”
I didn’t even acknowledge the pregnancy part; it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d lied to me about something like that. Besides, we’d been broken up for six months, and there was no way she was six months pregnant. It wasn’t my concern anymore.
“Colin, didn’t you hear me?” she said, her voice coming out excited, like a kid at Christmas. “I’m pregnant. I’m going to have a baby, and I want you to be the father.”
“That’s not how this works, Whit. Don’t you get it?”
Her mouth snapped shut, and she looked surprised.
“But you always wanted to be a father,” she said. “And I’m giving you the chance.”
“The child isn’t even mine, Whitney,” I said.
“It can be yours, Colin. Who said it can’t be your child? No one would have to know.”
“I’d know,” I said sternly.
Since the cute routine didn’t work too well for her, the next act from Whitney was an emotional one. Tears welled up in her eyes. At one time, seeing her cry like that would have killed me. But after everything we’d been through, nothing she did fazed me anymore. I couldn’t fucking believe her.
“Do you realize I had to pay a lot of money to reschedule my flight so I could come home early, because I thought a patient needed me? This is bullshit, Whitney. Absolutely bullshit.”
I turned to leave the room, and she grabbed my arm to stop me. I glared at her. My blood was boiling. If I thought I was grumpy before, I was on the verge of blowing up then. She’d crossed so many lines for me.
“Colin, wait, I need you. I mean, I can change,” she said.
“No, you were right the first time. You need me. That’s it,” I said. “Let me guess, the father is some loser you met at a club or something? You probably don’t even know his name, but you thought you could use this to weasel me back into your life. Do you even work at the hospital anymore?”
“No,” she said dryly. “But I’m looking at getting my license reinstated and--”
“Get out, now,” I said. It all made sense to me in that moment. She got knocked up by some random guy, lost her job and her medical license, and now she wanted me to support her.
“Colin, come on, we both loved each other so much,” she said, her hand moving toward my face.
“No, you never loved me, and I loved the woman I thought you were,” I said. “We never actually loved each other. Leave now, or I’ll call security.”
I pulled away from her and exited the room, slamming the door behind me without intending to. One of my nurses, Carol, jumped from the sound, and gave me an odd look once she realized what happened.
“Everything okay Dr. Pierce?” she asked.
“No, not really,” I said. I didn’t stop to elaborate, however. I needed to leave. I couldn’t stand seeing Whitney’s face again, not for another second. She was a real piece of work. Coming into my office, lying about a medical condition she didn’t have, and trying to convince me to foot the bill for a kid that wasn’t even mine. She was right about one thing, I had always wanted to be a father. But to my own children. It wasn’t likely to happen for me since all I ever did was work. I was getting older and the clock was ticking, and she knew that bugged me. She used what she knew to try and manipulate me into saving her ass once again.
I might have wanted to be a father, but not like that. No, I wanted a loving wife, a family that I could come home to every evening. I wanted it all.
And there’s no way Whitney could give me that.
Ooo000ooo
After the ordeal with Whitney, I went home and tried to sleep. No matter how hard I tried, however, I couldn’t shut my brain off. It kept going back to the last few days with Hope, and how I’d cut it all short for nothing.
I stared up at the ceiling, cursing myself under my breath, but also knowing that a few more days probably wouldn’t have made much difference in the grand scheme of things.
My phone buzzed, and at first, I wanted to ignore it. I feared it might be Whitney, and God knew, I didn’t want to talk to her again. I never wanted to hear from her again.
But it just wouldn’t stop. Finally, I looked at the caller ID.
It was my mother.
I answered it with a grumpy-sounding “What do you want?”
I knew I shouldn’t talk to my mother like that, but it was hard. I was tired, cranky and pissed off.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” I said.
“No, someone hasn’t gotten any sleep at all in the last two days or so,” I said. My head was throbbing, and I rubbed my temples. “Sorry, I’m just on edge.”
“I understand, but you know I raised you better than this.”
“I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t mean to talk to you like that.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she said. My own mother sounded as angry as I felt, and that took me by surprise. “How could you do that to Whitney?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about Colin, I just got off the phone with her mother and she told me everything.”
I sat up in bed, wondering if perhaps it was all some kind of nightmare. My mom was scolding me for not wanting to raise another man’s baby with a disgraced drug addict? Were we in some alternate universe? No, something else was going on, and I had a bad feeling about it.
“Mom, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s not true. Whitney came into my work, made up a bunch of lies and tried to manipulate me.”
“Well, what do you expect. She’s pregnant with your child, and you’re refusing to see her!”
“No, mom.” All this time, I’d protected Whitney by not telling people of her personal issues. I kept her problems a secret, out of respect for her. And this is how she repaid me? No more, I decided. “Mom, listen, there’s a lot you don’t know about Whitney, but one thing I can assure you of, is that baby is not mine. If she’s even pregnant.”
“Why would she lie about something like that?”
“Like I said, there’s a lot you don’t know about her. A lot I’ve kept hidden to try and protect her. I can explain it all, but for now, just trust me. She’s not having my baby.”
My mother went quiet on the other end of the line.
“Mom?”
“Yes, I’m still here,” she said. Her voice sounded so far away, so sad. It hit me then that I might not be the only one sad that my life might leave me with no children.
“Whitney’s life is a mess,” I said. “I don’t know how much you know, but she’s no longer working at the hospital and has had her medical license suspended.”
“Why on Earth would her license be suspended?” she asked me.
“I don’t know all the details, I don’t really care to, but she’s had a substance abuse problem for several years now,” I said. “Even while I was dating her, she was often doing drugs, possibly stealing them from the hospital. She’s got a problem. I’d tried to help her for years, but she didn’t want my help.
She wouldn’t admit to having a problem in the first place.”
Mom sighed. “This doesn’t sound like her, at all.”
“I know, mom. I’m sorry I kept so much from you.”
“So she’s not pregnant with your child?” she asked again.
“It’s not even possible for her to be pregnant by me.”
“Well, she’s telling everyone that you’re the father. That’s why I wanted to talk to you so badly, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I’m sorry, I was flying back early. She’d tricked me into coming home early from my trip, thinking she was a patient that needed my help. But it was all lies.”
“What are we going to do about this, Colin?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I figured I’d just ignore it and she’d go away, but if she’s spreading lies around--”
“Everyone at the country club was congratulating me, Colin. So yes, everyone knows.”
Shit. It wouldn’t be long until everyone in the medical community knew as well, and if she made them believe I was the dad - and refusing to accept responsibility for the child - it could ruin my career. A career I’d given most things up for.
Apparently, it wasn’t just a problem I could ignore and hope it would go away. I had to do something about it before it got out of control, and I had to do something fast.
Hope
The impact of the wheels hitting the runway jolted me awake. I pulled off the pink eyeshades and neck pillow I was wearing and try to rub the sleep from my eyes. I covered my mouth as I yawned and tried to reorient myself. Flying from Europe back to LA always did a number on me.
I stretched myself out as best as I could without elbowing my seatmate and shook the remaining cobwebs from my brain. I flexed my hands and feet to get the blood pumping again as we taxied back to the gate.
As my body began to wake up, so did my brain. And as my brain woke up, it conjured up all kinds of memories of my time in Paris with Colin. That set my mind spinning and sent a surge of warmth flooding through my body. I recalled the heat and the passion we shared. Maybe even more than that, I remembered the laughter and quieter times between us.