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Even worse, she was going to have to bury her pride and ask Joyce if she could pay her two weeks late, something she’d never had to do before and something she’d make sure to never have to do again.
* * *
Stone didn’t show at Carly’s that night.
Carly hadn’t expected him to, but thoughts that he might distracted her more than she liked. Her mother had had a decent day with Joyce and had settled in for the night, allowing Carly to get through a fair amount of claims, but not nearly enough to make up for lost time.
For the next week she spent every spare second she had working on claims, foregoing sleep in favor of processing as many as she could.
If she’d calculated correctly, she should have pulled off enough to be able to make up Joyce’s pay. There wouldn’t be any extra, but she would be able to pay her immediately pending expenses and Joyce’s back-pay.
That was enough and she’d count her blessings.
She’d fallen into her old routine: wake, take care of her mother, work, come home to relieve Joyce, take care of her mother, insurance claims, sleep a few hours, repeat.
At the hospital, she saw Stone. How could she not when she took care of his patients? But he didn’t smile or go out of his way to speak to her. If communication was necessary, they were both to the point with no pleasantries.
She lost weight. She had no appetite, could barely force food down her throat. Just as well as there had been no money for food beyond her mother’s and she’d lived on leftovers and freebie packs of crackers.
“You don’t look so good, girl.”
Carly gave a small smile. Leave it to Rosalyn to bluntly tell her the truth.
“You and Dr. Parker aren’t making googly eyes at each other and you look like you’ve lost your best friend. Something bad happen?”
Only of Carly’s own doing.
It had needed to be done, but letting him go hurt.
She met her friend’s eyes, gave a little shrug and fought to keep her tears in check.
“Oh, honey!” Rosalyn wrapped her into a bear hug. “Did he hurt you? I told him he’d better not hurt you.”
Carly shook her head. “It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”
“Yours?” Still holding onto her shoulders, Rosalyn pulled back and stared. “You did Dr. Parker wrong?”
Carly sighed. “From the moment I ever let him think something could be between us, I did him wrong.”
Confusion contorted Rosalyn’s face. “Why can’t there be something between you? You were both walking on clouds just a couple of weeks ago.”
Carly agreed. For a short little bit of time she had walked on clouds. Only clouds had no substance and she’d quickly crashed back to reality.
“I fooled myself into thinking that I could manage my life and have Stone in it, too,” she admitted, surprised she was revealing so much. Then again, her co-worker had been right when she’d said Carly looked as if she’d lost her best friend. She had lost him. “I couldn’t and we said goodbye.”
Rosalyn frowned. “You okay?”
“Not really,” Carly admitted, then shook her head to clear her mind. “I’m fine,” she corrected, then went for broke. “It’s my mother who isn’t. She has end-stage Parkinson’s complicated by dementia. I’m an only child, all she has.” Her mother was all she had. “I don’t have time to devote to a relationship and ended things before it got even more complicated.” Was that even possible? How much more complicated could things have been than with her heart and body all tangled up in him?
“Stone deserves better,” she added, knowing it was true. He deserved someone who could freely love him and give him all the things he deserved.
Rosalyn continued to look confused. “Don’t you think that’s something he should decide for himself? Maybe he didn’t want better than what you can give him?”
Any sane man would want more than what she could give him.
“You make it sound simple but it isn’t. I work. All the time. When I’m not here, I work for an insurance company processing claims. I get paid by the job. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, I can’t pay the bills. There isn’t anyone else. I have to do it. I don’t have time to have Stone in my life.”
“That’s a bad way to be in, girl. That man is a good one and they are few and far between. I got lucky with mine. Thought you’d gotten lucky with yours. Didn’t know you didn’t want him.”
“I wanted him,” Carly admitted, realizing how much she’d missed having someone to talk to, realizing that, despite the fact that she’d always held everyone at the hospital at arm’s length, she’d developed a genuine caring for Rosalyn. “I do want him,” she corrected. “I just can’t have him and survive. Not financially or mentally or emotionally.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I wanted to, but it didn’t work. Stone and I both paid the price for my having deceived myself that I could spend time with him.”
