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I hadn’t been serious about a guy since him, and it showed. Malia asked often if I had any prospects, and I tended to lie a little, just so she didn’t pry too much. But she knew. None of them ever came by the house, and I was always available to hang out and had told her I would be available to babysit whenever.
Instead, I had thrown all my focus into my studies, which turned out okay. I got great grades and got myself much further along in my career much earlier than expected because of it. When I was working telemedicine, my dedication and availability made it easy for me to get promotions, and I was often listed as the patients’ favorite nurse.
I had to take pride in those little things. There just wasn’t a whole lot else. Not for me anyway. Otherwise, I just had to enjoy watching my sister blossom and her life begin and hope that mine would too eventually. If I could get over Hawk, finally forget him and relegate him to the dustbin of my life, then I would.
Wendy had also moved on, even after her ex left her with her kid and no prospects. It was amazing to watch her story too. Little Olly was a funny kid, and I loved having him over to hang out with too. He was precocious and curious about everything. When Wendy met Finn, they clicked, and now she had a new little one too. Little baby Hope was destined to grow up playing with Alice and forging a new era in the relationships between our families.
But it still left me feeling a little left out. I was older and by all rights should have been first to get married and have kids. If everything with Hawk hadn’t happened the way it did, I was positive that we would have gone down that road too.
But we didn’t. I had to keep reminding myself that he was the one who ran away and never called. He was the one who ghosted me afterward and left me to cry myself to sleep. He was the one who screwed up, not me. And I had every right to hate him for it.
Which was why it was so damn frustrating that I kept having dreams about him. Dreams that were part memory and part fantasy. I would wake up, writhing, wanting to touch myself and release the pressure valve that had built up inside me, and it was like I could smell his cologne. It was almost like he was right there, just seconds before.
It had been years, though. Years of bitterness toward him and avoidance of anything resembling seriousness from me. In all that time, I could have found another. I could have found someone to occupy the other side of my bed, to leave their toothbrush next to mine, and to curl up with late at night to watch scary movies. I could have done that.
I didn’t want to. I wanted Hawk. And until I got my mind out of that thought process, I was dealing every other potential relationship a death blow before they even got started.
All this ran through my mind as I started my day of work, and I realized how distracted I was when one of the ER doctors had to repeat himself twice before I processed what he said.
“Are you alright?” he asked, his kindly old eyes bright under his furrowed, bushy eyebrows that kind of made him look like someone drew a rudimentary-looking bird in flight on his head.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Do you need the A1C test done too?”
“Yes please,” he said, seemingly still suspicious of me. Then he brightened. “Oh, and happy birthday.”
“What?”
“Your birthday,” he said. “Isn’t it coming up this week?”
“No,” I said. “You must have me confused with Felicity. Her birthday is this week.”
“Oh. My apologies. I thought it was you. Oh, wait, it was your sister!”
I forgot that Dr. Vass had helped Malia when she first returned to Ashford. I nodded and laughed.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Hers was last week, actually.”
“So good to see her with her baby,” he said. “She deserves it.”
“She does,” I agreed.
As he walked away, a surprisingly bitter thought popped into my head.
Why don’t I deserve it too?
7
HAWK
The knock on my door was unexpected, and at first, I thought it must have been the television. Then it came again, and I put the plate I was handwashing in the sink down and shut off the water. I hadn’t ordered anything, or at least nothing that was supposed to arrive yet. I had a few pieces of equipment for tracking that were on backorder, but they weren’t due for months. Dinner was going to be a deli meat sandwich, so it wasn’t food. Who the hell else would come all the way up the mountain to knock on my door?
