AllFreeNovel
Share Us
More like a clinical command than an invitation.
“I want you. To come with me. To Bermuda.”
His brown eyes flash with light and that mischief. Everything I love about him.
But I can’t help but feel mad about how cagey he’s being about everything all of a sudden.
About how dismissive he’s being about my own dad who’s lying in a hospital bed I still haven’t figured out how to pay for.
“Come to Bermuda with me. I’ll explain everything on the way. We can talk about everything else too,” he adds cryptically.
“Everything else?” I hear myself scoff.
“How about I check you in for your own procedure, doctor?” I tell him, feeling myself shaking with anger, along with a thousand other emotions.
“…See you into surgery myself to have your head pulled out of your ass!” I yell, pummeling his hard chest with both hands before storming off down a corridor I have no idea where it leads to.
It sounds like it was someone else.
Someone far away, like a boom from an airplane or a car backfiring.
But it came from me.
I don’t know where that came from, or even where I am.
My whole world’s turned upside down again for the second time in twenty-four hours and I don’t even know why I’m taking it out on the one man I know who can save me.
Save me and my dad.
But it’s too late.
Through tear stained eyes I fumble my way looking for the elevators, willing myself home somehow.
Willing myself somewhere I don’t have to know any of this anymore.
Knowing Mark Love, and the memory of his touch is too much when I couple it with the reality of my dad lying in a hospital bed, broken.
Me unemployed, and no chance at college anymore.
I don’t know what else to do but run and try to hide.
Like I’ve done my whole life.
But Mark Love isn’t the kind of man to let me run any more.
He won’t let me even try to hide either.
Catching me by the stairs, he gently reaches out for me after calling out, spinning me around until I’m in his firm hold again.
His big arms wrapped around me, answering more questions than I could ever ask without words.
But I still can’t understand it all.
I’m still too mad.
I feel myself pushing free, his voice in my ears pleading with me to stay. To hear him out.
But I’m already gone. Lost back into a world where I don’t feel anything except fear and indecision.
A world without Mark Love to hold me tight, guiding me through it.
A world I need to remember before I can even go back to him or my dad.
A world I feel swallowing me whole with every step as I race down the stairwell, feeling burnt by the sunlight once I hit the street outside the hospital.
Chapter Twelve
Mark
It’s too much too soon.
Despite my best efforts to hold on to her, to tell her how I feel.
She’s gone.
I want to reach out to her, to grab her. But I know I can’t.
She asked me a simple question about her dad’s history with me and I couldn’t give her an answer.
I wanted her all to myself instead.
The sing-song voice in my head, like the hospital director telling me what to do. What I know I should have done my whole life but just never found the right woman.
Why Bermuda though? Why would I even suggest it? I’m such an idiot!
Too much too soon.
I’d never push things in surgery, so pushing things too fast in real life feels just as dumb.
Real life.
Something I realize I probably haven’t experienced until meeting Evelyn.
She is real.
Everything’s real when she’s around.
Without her, everything feels… Sterile.
Vacant.
Like an operation. A procedure.
Something I know now I’ve been doing every second of my whole life, every day without her in it.
But it’s too late.
Or is it?
I can’t chase her down, bend her to my will.
Can’t make her feel something she doesn’t.
But I can protect her. Watch over her until I can at least reason with her.
Make her see how stupid I’ve been, and all the while making sure her dad is safe and well too.
So of course I follow her. I have to.
She’s all I have now and I’m not just gonna let her run away, no matter how much of a mess I’ve made of things so far.
I know she’s headed home. Know there’s only one way down the stairs, a long and lonely trip down to the bottom.
But I figure she needs time.
I need time too. To figure out exactly how I can explain all of this to her, to her dad once he’s conscious.
All the things I never got to explain all those years ago, things that seemed unimportant to me until I see a door closing. Knowing she’s behind it, moving away from me.
My instinct is to call out, to race after her, and grab her. Pull her close to me. Tell her how stupid I’ve been.
