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The sterilization. The pictures. It was all so sick.
Kenna had been naive to think she could save him. He was a lost cause long before the first day she set foot in his office.
She zeroed in on Alex’s column and her stomach lurched. Were the Polaroids the alleged blackmail pictures?
An urge arose to check her phone. Irrationality ran wild as she zoned out on the device, fearing that she’d opened it up as a vessel for demonic possession after capturing Dr. Merino’s little box of horrors.
“Enough,” she muttered.
She emailed the file from her phone to the laptop to examine it in greater detail. If she was going to force herself to look, she’d rather study it on a screen that exceeded 5.5 inches.
The message populated her inbox and she clicked it without hesitation, expanding the image to its maximum size. A car alarm blared outside and sent Kenna’s heart pounding but her pulse grew sluggish and threatened to quit as she was faced with the chilling picture. It wasn’t until the taste of copper spread in her mouth that she realized she had been biting the inside of her lip.
There were 11 photographs. Of them, every woman wore red underwear. Every woman except her.
The white fabric stood out like a scarlet letter among the collection and she wasn’t sure if it was more appropriate to be disgusted or touched by what appeared to have been an intentional distinction. Pallor veiled her face as she stared at her white-clad body, an unnerving sight among that sea of red.
Being special to Dr. Merino felt like a death sentence. Though he’d hurt the others, he had eventually let them be.
She looked beyond herself and explored the rest of the pictures. Alex had been the earliest, labeled as ‘Dec. 11 2014.’ Their names rattled around in her brain: Ivy, Bella, Jasmine, Freya, Harmony, Dakota, Giselle. Her mouth went dry as she bounced around the names and dates and puzzle pieces slunk together like they were magnetized.
All at once, everything clicked.
A connection Kenna couldn’t refute.
Alex in 2014 was followed by Bella, Charlee, and Dakota in 2015, and on it went, alphabetization falling in chronological accordance with time.
The largest gap was between Jasmine and herself, spanning almost exactly two years.
He had been waiting for her.
Pulling in a breath that strained her lungs, she bought herself a moment of calm. She ignored the tick, tick, ticking of her heart as if it weren’t in danger of exploding and scanned the Oregon Medical Board’s website for information on filing a complaint. The beating grew louder, faster, a band of horses galloping in her chest, as she queued up her inbox in another tab and composed a new email.
To whom it may concern …
Love songs played on a nauseating loop within the tent of the covered event space. The sun that had lasted through the ceremony shied behind the clouds and a light but constant plopping of raindrops could be heard overhead.
Dayton envisioned the rain escalating to a downpour, all of that water collecting on the tent’s roof, the weight of it eventually tearing through the polyester and drenching everyone inside.
Attending a wedding in his current state felt like a challenge from God on his character. The dancing and kissing and ‘I love you’s were poised to inflict greater damage on his dual heart conditions than the Moscow mule he held. He sipped the gingery drink and glared at the cheerful young couples and those who had been together for an unfathomable number of decades. They all made him grind his teeth as he offered terse smiles in greeting to those who passed him by. His irritation at the parade of affection melded to longing.
With Kenna, he’d tasted forever.
But he was damned. Undeserving. Destined to spend his life waiting on a happily ever after that would never come.
Dayton downed the rest of the mule and the alcohol blazed through him. Drinkware clanked in a toast, pulling him to the present, and he joined in with his empty glass. The huddled circle of groomsmen took their turns patting Nathan on the back. That rarely employed but universally accepted male affection.
His best man speech was fast approaching and he knew he was in no condition to deliver it, but the maid of honor was mercifully delaying his demise by going on and on about a trip she and Charlaine took during college. Setting the copper mug on the bar, Dayton attempted to call Kenna for what seemed like the hundredth time since she fled from his home. A knife twisted in his gut as it rang only to go to her automated voicemail. He lingered after the beep, cramming everything he yearned to say into a succinct message.
“I’m sorry.”
He dropped the phone into his pocket and motioned to the bartender for another drink but was granted no reprieve as Amy, the maid of honor, summoned him to the dance floor.
“At this time, I’d like to turn over the mic to the best man to share a few words about this wonderful couple over here.” Amy gestured to the bride and groom’s table.
An uncoordinated smattering of applause rose and fell as she transferred the microphone to him. She leaned into him in parting, whispering, “Loosen up, sugar.”
He managed a conciliatory nod before she swept away in her flowing aquamarine dress and he was left alone, the center of attention at a wedding he was dying to leave. An entire party of eyes were on him as he cleared his throat and failed to recall any shred of the speech he’d prepared weeks earlier. Charlaine’s hand was laced with Nathan’s atop the table, conjuring memories of the way Kenna’s hand had fit with his and their love had been the eye of the storm raging around them.
