AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Be afraid, be very afraid. I texted back.
In return I received two texts that each said the same thing. I love you.
Ugh. I turned off my phone and tossed it in my bag. My old ratty bag. Crap. Maybe I could leave it here in the waiting room. For now, I shoved it next to me in the seat. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the way I looked and presented myself the last few years. It wasn’t like I got up one morning and decided to be a slob, as my grandma put it. It was a gradual descent toward being grungy. It worked really well though. Hardly any men paid attention to me.
Grandma sat next me, grinning from ear to ear. “It should only be a few minutes.”
My hands started getting sweaty. I couldn’t believe I was going to see Jonah. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to see me. Maybe he’d heard I’d let myself go and he wanted to get an up-close view of why he was thanking his lucky stars. Except he wasn’t that kind of person. But people changed, as I very well knew. Or was it that people like my ex-fiancé, Kaden, never changed, they were only better at masking who they really were for certain periods of time? I leaned forward and put my face in my hands. I was so confused.
Grandma rubbed my back. “It’s going to be all right. You can do this.”
What if I couldn’t? I felt like I was in a no-win situation. If Jonah truly was as good as I hoped him to be, as he had proved to be when we were “friends,” that meant I’d lost out on years. I’d lost him. My worst fear would have been realized and shoved in my face. But if I was right about how we would have ended up? Seeing him now would ruin our memories. The memories I’d cherished and made sure to keep intact. I’d never loved anyone the way I’d loved him.
Sometimes in the middle of the night I would still wake up and think I’d heard him knock on my door just so he could see my face. So he could hold me while he slept. In his arms, I’d never felt such peace. It was if our bodies were contoured precisely for each other. Not once did I ever wake up in those arms and feel repulsed by him. In fact, I’d loved to smell the Skittles on his breath or to hear his heavy exhales. Sometimes he talked in his sleep. It was mostly medical jargon I didn’t understand, but sometimes it was about me. I knew he loved me long before he said it while conscious. He’d told me in his sleep a few times. I should have walked away then, but I couldn’t. I told myself it was only in his dreams, even when I knew the truth. The way he treated me when he was awake spelled it out for me.
“Kay Kramer,” a nurse called out, interrupting my thoughts.
I slowly let my hands drop away from my face and sat back.
Grandma had already jumped up. She was awfully spry for being sick. She gave me a sympathetic look and held her hand out to me.
I wasn’t a child, but you know what, I took her hand. Perhaps if I’d had one to hold more when I was a child, I wouldn’t be so screwed up. Maybe Dani was right, maybe my mom had emotionally abused me. I should probably read the pamphlet about it that Dani had left on the couch.
“Are you ready, kiddo?”
Um. No.Chapter FiveI paced around the exam room after the nurse took Grandma’s vitals and asked her to describe her symptoms that probably a throat lozenge and some water would cure. But she was a good little faker and hacked enough for the nurse to be anxious over her non-condition. The nurse’s final words were terrifying. “Dr. Adkinson will be in momentarily.”
While I paced, I read the posters on the wall. The one about smoking particularly caught my attention. I was always surprised when I saw people smoking. It was clearly bad for you, as in it would kill you bad. But who was I to judge? I had my own addictions—they were all emotional. At this moment my lungs felt as if I had been smoking five packs a day for years. Not a lot of oxygen was getting in and out.
Then I stared at the stirrups attached to the exam table Grandma was sitting on. It was a sad day when I would rather be at the gynecologist with my legs up in those babies waiting to be tortured with a cold metal speculum.
“Relax,” Grandma said.
I scowled at her. It was her fault I was here in the first place.
