“I didn’t want your pity.” My gaze ducks to the hospital bedding. The crisp, white sheet and the blue-green blanket I run my fingertips over.
“Not even when I said I loved you?”
“Especially not then,” I whisper and watch as a fat teardrop soaks into the cotton. “You deserve someone better than me.”
“Someone who isn’t selfish, you mean.”
His words cut like a knife. I begin to understand that there’s no coming back from this for him. Panic begins to swell inside me. I thought I could explain—I thought I could make him understand. To live or not to live doesn’t seem too difficult now that I’ve had that choice taken away from me. And him along with it because he deserves better than me. Someone who can give him children. Someone far braver than me.
“I was trying not to be selfish.” The words are choked and halting, but I don’t want his sympathy.
It’s just my heart, that troublesome, hurtful muscle, wellnowit feels like it’s breaking. Typical. I lived for months worried what it might do, and now that it’s breaking in two, it won’t even have the decency of skipping a one solitary beat. I hiccup a sob as a black thought hits: it’s just as well. Better to worry what being shocked back to life feels like than actually experiencing it.
That’s why I lied. Why I said I wasn’t in love with you. Because I am. I really do love you. I love you so much, I still need to let you go.
One hiccuping sob becomes two. I begin to sob quietly. It comforts me that his instinct is to come to me, to hold me. I see it in his aborted movement and how he balls his hands into fists as though to stop himself. I force myself to be strong, to choke back the tears and not fall apart. I can’t quite manage it but try, swiping the meat of my palms under my eyes.
“People who love don’t treat someone like you have treated me.” He looks up, his golden eyes dim. “You were unresponsive, Mimi. Dead in my arms. I will never not see that image or feel that pain. And I will never understand how you could put another human in that position, let alone someone you profess to love.”
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry.” I run the wet back of my hand under my running nose. I must look such a mess. Dirty, straggled hair and a red, blotched face.
“I thought I knew you, but you only let me see what you wanted me to. You’re not all sunshine. That was an act. You have depths you refused to show me, and the thing is, I would’ve still loved you if you had. But you couldn’t see that because you’re no more mature than Lavender or Primrose.” The knife, it twists. “I have enough on my hands looking after them. I have no desire to add another to the burden.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. Maybe if I say it enough, he’ll believe me. Maybe he’ll understand and see through my tears and my hurtful words. See how he’s become my whole world.
I don’t kid myself for very long as he stands, his next words cutting to the brutal truth of it.
“I’m sorry too, but I’m not looking for someone else to look after.” Through the haze of my tears, I see him by the side of the bed, watch in slow motion as he lowers his head. “Goodbye, Mimi.” He presses a kiss to my head. “I truly hope you find what you’re looking for.”
I already have, I want to say as I watch him walk out of the door with my love.
42
WHIT
I leave.I leave her room, the hospital. I leave my apartment, my family, and I leave the country. I get as far away from Mimi Valente as I can for the sake of my own sanity.
I can’t watch her self-destruct. I can’t be there. Can’t hold her hand. Yet I can’t stay away, and I hate myself for it. Two weeks after moving to Zurich, after going to great expense to move my office and support staff, I move back to London again.
Because I’m my own worst enemy.
I can’t seem to stay away though I tell myself things will return to normal when Mimi moves back to Florida. As I understand it, this won’t be too much longer. And where do I get my intel? Where else but Polly. She keeps in contact with Mimi’s parents. She lets me know how her procedure went. How her subsequent checkups went. What her cardiologist says. And how quiet Mimi is when she visits.
While Mimi was in St. Barts, I gave up my place to her parents. When she was discharged, I arranged them a small flat near the hospital. It didn’t seem fair for her to move back to a place holding so many memories.
I can’t stay there myself. All I can see is her lying prone on the floor, and when I do, I feel like I’m having my own fucking cardiac arrest.
But I’m there today because Polly wants to “pop around for a chat.” I hadn’t the heart to tell her I’m staying here. I don’t feel like answering the million questions she’ll no doubt have, and I don’t want her worried looks or her sympathy.
I just want to drink whisky and eat carbs from the room service menu and fucking well wallow until my arteries clog, which I manage that quite well in a suite in a nearby hotel.
“Hello, darling.” Poll knows the code to the door, of course, and comes bustling in, dumping her Birkin on the floor. In her arm, she has chocolates and flowers, which she puts down on the island bench.
“Have you bought me flowers?” Jesus, I must look like a sad sack.
“No, silly. Those are for Mimi’s mother. I’m popping over to their flat after our visit.”
“Oh.” I bite the inside of my lip against the notion of asking for news.
