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“Kate, you know my family,” she said, a frown on her face. “I’m extra sensitive about domestic violence. I thought—.”
“You didn’t think,” I said angrily. “You reacted. Then you became defensive. You wouldn’t listen to reason.”
“I know, I know,” she said dramatically. “I never understood. I didn’t want to understand. It was a knee-jerk reaction because of my sister. My mom—.”
“I know, but you have to stop and think what you threatened to do,” I said, frustrated that she thought she could just apologize and everything would be great. “You threatened to report Drake to the hospital. What do you think would happen if the administration learned about his private life? Even though he’s not into pain, no one would make the distinction. He’d lose his privileges. Then you’d lose me.”
“I already did,” she said in a small voice. She looked at me with a sad expression in her eyes and I could see real pain in them.
I held up my hands, not wanting to continue with this debate any longer. “I have to go,” I said. “I have things to do and I can’t argue with you about this.”
Dawn stood there looking totally dejected, her shoulders slumped, frowning. “You won’t forgive me? Not even considering everything we’ve been through?”
I exhaled heavily. “You might have given me the benefit of the doubt, considering everything we’ve been through, but you didn’t.”
I shoved a box of corn starch in the basket. “Goodbye,” I said and turned away, walking down the aisle to the cash register. I was so flustered, I handed the clerk my driver’s license instead of my credit card and she held it and shook her head.
“This won’t work,” she said and handed it back.
“Sorry,” I said and took it back, giving her some cash instead.
I left the store as quickly as I could, breathing in deeply once I was outside in the cool October air. I walked back to the apartment and when I got upstairs, Drake was there in the kitchen, pouring himself a drink.
I went right up to him and kissed him and he smiled as he pulled me against his body.
“You’re off early,” I said when he broke the kiss. “I thought you worked evenings this week.”
“I traded OR time with another surgeon so I could have the rest of the day off. We have a lot of prep to do before the wedding.”
“How’s the fellowship going?”
Drake started to take things out of the grocery bags and put them away.
“Great, so far. I’m ghosting one of the senior docs and I'm scrubbing in on all his cases, plus supervising residents. I was lucky to get a lot of experience in Africa working with Michael, so I feel pretty good about things so far.”
“Good,” I said, and helped him empty grocery bags.
Drake pulled out the container of corn starch I’d picked up on the shelf in my hurry to get away from Dawn. He held it up and frowned.
“Corn starch?” he said and examined the container. “Don’t we have some? What do you need corn starch for?”
“Nothing that I know of,” I said and shrugged. “I was distracted.”
“How come?”
I sighed and debated whether to tell him but decided that I had to be completely open with him. “Guess who I met at the store?”
He turned to me, his eyes wide. “I have no idea…”
“Dawn.”
“Ahh,” he said and raised his eyebrows. “But corn starch?”
I smiled ruefully. “I was trying to escape and I think it used it as a prop. I wasn’t really thinking and just grabbed something off the shelf so I could leave.”
Drake smiled and put the corn starch in the cabinet beside the other container. “I get it. So, what did she say?”
“I honestly don’t remember but she admitted that she was seeing Kurt and apologized for not understanding about the difference between sadists and Dominants and that the two aren’t always the same.”
